If we are attached to not revealing the tech tree, we definitely need to give the player finer grain control over the randomness. A suggestion I saw that I think has merit is the idea of subcategories that the player would focus on. Eg. the player directs his researchers to research Civilization, focusing on Economics.
With that said, we should brainstorm both flavorful and informative sub-categories. I broke out the Civilization and Warfare trees since that's what we have access to right now.
Civilization
- Scholarship
- Economics
- Architecture
- Seafaring
- Sustainence
Warfare
- Weapons
- Armor
- Training
- Mounts
- Siege