[2023] The nerfs to roads and lumber huts are actually great.

Road nerf:

Yes, it sucks for Yaddak, but I don't think most people here realize how huge of an advantage double land movement is. It allows you to expand faster, attack an area with more units at a time, reach further into enemy territory, and more easily retreat units to safety. It's virtually impossible to win against an enemy with those advantages if you don't have them, which made it a de facto requirement to rush in land-based 1v1s. With roads now being more expensive, it's not as urgently needed as before and there are more viable wats to play the game.

Lumber hut nerf:

Forests are simply so common that I think it's perfectly justified to make them less affordable than animals and fruit. For a significant number of tribes, it was common to get more population from forests than every other resource combined in the pre-beta early game, and I think that level of economic growth from just one tech was too fast. This also nerfs Bardur, the undisputed best pre-beta tribe in the game and one of the most common to play against in random matches.

And despite all these changes, both techs are still very powerful. It can feel restrictive to those who play mostly singleplayer or who just like faster economic growth, but against other players, it really sucked that these two techs were almost universally good and that you HAD to research them to be on an equal footing with your opponent. I and many other people are just really tired of so many games (especially 1v1s) playing out more or less the same because of so many people using the same optimized strategy with the best tribe.