I checked the known issues and was surprised to see that this problem is not listed. Since the game was released I have had a co-op tech tree issue. If my friend hosts a co-op game and I have a different tech tree (due to race or whatever) I can not research anything that doesn't correspond to his tech tree. So if I have a spell that shows up in tier 2 and its in his tier 3 I can't research it till tier 3. This is very frustrating and makes being a different race from him less fun or advantageous. I can't believe this hasn't been reported sooner. I just figured it was an obvious enough bug that someone would have pointed it out or they would have noticed during testing.