This are not a problems, to reach your enemies faster you can always research cartography.
About the researches i don't have any news maybe they will be reduced maybe not, the game is still in beta it means it's not a final product so we will have to wait and see.
I agree with you .. but how much cartography with lvl 12+5 from alliance +5% logistics from special resource and max lvl skill on your general you still can't siege above 100 distance within 10 minutes. Please fix this. it should be enough to have cartography lvl 10 to attack at 101 distance in 10 minutes with siege.. lvl 20 of cartography to attack at 300 distance with siege within 10 minutes.
The parameters in v6 are totally useless compared to v5. Please modify the params for cartography