I wouldn't be surprised if that was the intent of the tech ages.  To make sure no one gets too far ahead.

I also agree that the tech ages should be removed.

I`ve not felt that restriction with the way I`ve been researching it has not been an issue. Remember the Dev`s are still balancing The game,.... it may just need more tweaking. 

There are other purposes to the tech ages. Who knows that if you enter the age of war then the world will be populated by the great menace of DOOM. Set to destroy any planet around. There are so many different applications for the tech ages in the game.

Another fun tech age item, if exists is for DLC. In the beginning tech ages the ships have a different skin (material) on their bodies, when you advance the materials change to look more modern or fancy. Take the irridium mirror like sheen. In the beginning it is kind of dull in look and progressively gets more shiny. (Not saying that is a good idea for look, but a possibility).

I've not made a decision one way or the other with the tech ages, and by looking at the XML it appears one can remove their functionality anyway (once modding becomes a thing). I would like to know what extra functionality the tech ages will have in the future, before I say remove the tech ages.

Let us assume that the tech ages are not their to hinder players or help beginner players balance their tech production, and answer the questions under this premise.

What purpose could the tech ages serve in the game?

What implications could be derived from having them in the game vs. not having them in the game?

In what ways could the tech ages be advantageous to the game?

Then let us play the other way around. Let us assume that the tech ages are their to hinder players advancement or help beginner players balance their tech production, and answer those same questions.

If you take the time to honestly answer these questions, we can influence them to remove or advance the way tech ages are implemented.

Not saying your not honest DARCA1213. The intention is to answer the questions beyond a 1 word answer as none. There are lots of implications that can be done with tech ages, that could be subtly drawn from non-tech ages.

If there point was to prevent people from rushing a tech like planetary invasion, then it's simple to stop that

First you need Dimplomacy / Cultural understanding to not drop your pods into poor areas of their cities. Be a bad idea to drop your pod in a building designed to collect urine gasses... landing pod... booom. The society could make that a shrine from other peoples views.

You need minaturization to ensure appropriate rocket thrusts to land these pods safely and effectively.

You need to be able to colonize planets in order to enable the pod transports to begin with.

Need appropriate weapon technologies to ensure dominance on the battle field.

This is just as effective at stopping the early game rush on this scale. My point is that with these tech ages, they have something more planned involved. I can see more implications on growth views on the galaxy. Advancement to the next tech age could provide an advance new prototype flagship. Or the initial tech age advancement could provide a new specialized starbase capital providing a different type of platform to rule your galaxy from.

This feature could be a platform for other features in DLC or base game. But if it is just to stop people from rushing down the tech tree, then I think they are not using the potential provided.

From comments in the dev stream, Ages are a scaffold to help the AI.  That's a substantial consideration.  It's Not Just About You.

It's also been pointed out that Ages can abstract away a rat's-nest of interconnected dependencies.  You could replace Ages with dozens (hundreds?) of new cross-tree dependency links for "realism" or storytelling.  That would incidentally prevent (or punish) beelining.  But the UI can't even display a graph of that complexity (N.B. it is no longer a tree! that's also a really big deal), we can't print it out even on a wall poster (GC2's tech tree was a two-sided wall poster), and newbies would just get lost.

Under NO circumstance should tech strategy be LIMITED in a strategy game. It is not worth giving the AI help in this situation for what we would LOSE will be far to great.

I felt my OP and previous post has total OBLITERATED any argument for tech ages and was well spoken. I'm going to do a recap and if ANYTHING on the list you use or love doing you can no longer do, than the cost is to great:

-You CANNOT research the way you want.

- you are HAVE TO inevitably research something you don't want, thus wasting time.

- The difference between races strategies when tech trading is greatly DIMINISHED.

- You can go to the second age and still NOT be ready if you don't research in research techs. Which comes back to player choice, judgment, and strategy. (fun too.)

- You CAN'T specialize in a tech branch if you're ready or not for their are tech ages.

- With a CHEATING AI this game, our human edge is nerfed by the complete lack of crucial specialization.

- If only half of the techs have to be researched the first age why research the rest? If you didn't go in a particular area for your strategy then, why go into it now? Like in galciv2 something's you CHOOSE not to research because you didn't WANT to or NEED to.

Again, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should we be limited in strategic choices, its not FUN its not Sovereign.

DARCA.  

Uhmmm   . . . . . . . .   I really don't know !

This is an absurd argument. Tech strategy is ALWAYS limited in strategy game. It's limited by the way the tree is set up. Many games limit tech strategy with a web of interlocking pre-requisites, others with escalating costs and simple straight-line progression, but you are always constrained by the tree in one way or another. This issue is not that you are limited, but that you are limited in a specific way that you don't like.

I don't think the problem is the mechanic, I think it's the presentation. Right now the ages feel like a wall you run into (though honestly, after a few games I found I hardly ever noticed it except for when I was waiting on planetary invasion). Instead they should feel like important milestones you reach. Hitting the next age should feel like a break-through moment, when suddenly your options open up before you. There should also be something in the game that explains why you are suddenly in a new age. What has fundamentally changed about your understanding of the universe that suddenly new avenues of research reveal themselves to you? 

The ages are a good thing. They provide a structure around which the game is organized. Their implementation and presentation though, leave something to be desired. 

Obviously this is an issue that is really getting to you DARCA, but it's not as cut and dry as you want it to be.

I feel that given the game is in a constant state of war it makes the "age wall" a bigger issue than it might necessarily be since most of the complaints seem to be "I want planetary invasion now!".  Once we get to Beta 2 and I assume back to a normal game start it will be interesting to see whether people find the age wall as confronting as it is now.

So we should eliminate all barriers in the tech tree make it so you can research any tech at any time ? Ill research the i win tech victory on turn one game over 

Exactly!

but at this point we aren't here settling for modds but influencing the game.