I think this kind of games should allow for techs to be "learned" slowly from neighbors and other people you trade or have other kind of good relations to.  NO WAY you have people visiting their country, see they use the wheel or whatever horse-riding, and it NEVER crosses your mind to try that yourself. No such thing as secret tech is even possible in the beginnings of civilization. Yeah, you could take advantage of being the first to discover something, and even after your allies and neighbors learn it, you can achieve mastery by then (techs should have levels of mastery) thus holding a fair advantage. But EVERY tribe having to research each tech from zero by themselves is really not the way things go. (civ 4 colonization had a feature where you sent units in the tribal villages to train in their specialized profession)

There are already Osmosis Events for technology, where you can get the choice to adopt a random technology that your neighbor has for an amount of money or get an amount of science instead. To be clear, you know what the technology is when you choose between adopting or taking raw science, but you don't control which one will pop up. Something will/have been definitely be changed about that, since in the Stadia OpenDev, the science gained was more than the tech cost, making it a no-brainer to take the larger amount of free science than to pay for the tech.

FlamingKetchup wrote:
There are already Osmosis Events for technology

What??  How does that work, is it a popup window that allows this??  Very interesting, this is the first time I am hearing/reading about this 

On the start of a turn, one of your cities can get a popup that displays the tech, and to buttons for "Adopt" (along with a cost), and "Refuse" (might of been called something else).

I've had osmosis events twice, where I never researched two very low tier tech(sailing I think) and played for 60+ turns, an event popped up in one of my city to say I can get the tech for free or get some free science points(500+, quite a lot).

The way i see it, should be influence toward neighbors , culture, religion, tech all spreading around from you, leaking tech to others but gaining fame and loyalty with their populace because they admire your stuff.  but yeah, will try and see what that osmosis is all about

Gogulplayeru wrote:
 I think this kind of games should allow for techs to be "learned" slowly from neighbor

I have seen it with my own eyes an osmosis event, it was absolutely amazing with different choices exactly like what you sounded like you want