I love this game, but is there a way to get tech points faster? I have all my villagers (except one farmer) at the research table. I need 50,000 points and am only at like 4,000. Am I missing something?

I had my speed set on 2x and had about 30 villagers, with about 4 farming and just let the rest of the adults research with one or two doctors just in case. They rake up the points pretty fast (well, overnight that is).

The beginning of the game is kind of slow, but dont worry they will come. I always start with one farmer, and the rest on research. Once you get level 3 farming which is the biggest hurdle, the game will fly through once you grow past that. The longer they research the better they get as well, and as they get better they bring in more points per hour.

And also....at the beginning of the game I would get some pop-ups that contained random events (birds ate berries, compass discovered, etc. etc.) but after a few hours they stopped and after 2 days I haven't had even one! Is anyone else frustrated by the lack of surprise after the initial hour?

The game is setup to give you a special even the first 15 mins of play and then another (I'm thinking 30mins into the game), then they happen randomly. So yes it could be (and have for me) a few days in between the events. I think that just makes them more special! That is just how the ball drops sometimes.