Research

Research is conducted by assigning research projects. The maximum number of projects available to you will depend on your nations scientific and research base. Research time may be further improved or hindered by various aspects of your government and military.

Research slots/Centers


A Research Slot represent the number of research projects a nation may conduct simultaneously. Each nation have access to two research slots and will gain one extra research slot for every Research Center they currently possess.

The number of Research centers each nation starts with depend on its historical scientific and research base, and additional Research Center may become available through National Focuses and Events. Capturing enemy Research centers is a good way to reduce its research capacity and gain facilities to assist in your own research projects.


 * Research centers provide your nation with extra Research slots.
 * The number of Research centers depends on the country.
 * Additional Research centers can only be gained by National Focuses and Events.
 * Loosing a state with a Research Center will result in a loss of a Research Slot!
 * Capturing enemy Research Centers will result in bonus to your research time.


 * The Research center overview screen is accessed by clicking on the small icon in the top right corner of research window.
 * While in construction menu, you can click the Research center building to see where they are located on the map, but DO NOT try to build them.

Research time
Affected by
 * new national spirits
 * HQ size, Army/Navy/Air force size affect related doctorine research
 * Officer traning laws
 * Cabinet ministers
 * etc

Changes to Technologies
Infantry:


 * Infantry equipment split into service rifles, SMGs, Machine Guns, Mortars and Infantry Anti-Tank weapons, allowing you to focus your infantry research in the direction you think is most important.
 * "Uniform" is completely new type of equipment, used by all units with the exception of Armor battalions and few support detachments which used different equipment. Important thing here is, even only researching next level gives bonus to recovery rate. On top of that, 2nd and further levels of uniform have 2 defense instead of 1, and recovery rate increases on each of them by 0.10. And because cost of producing it doesn't increase, you might as well change to them.
 * "Sniper Team" is a single-level upgrade tech giving 3% defense to all inf&mot&mech. Small bonus, smaller than in HMG or mortar techs, but it might give you the edge or at least lower your casualties when winning.
 * "Explosives team", similar to snipers, is a single-level upgrade tech, increasing anti-tank capabilities, as well as greatly increasing attack in urban & fort areas.
 * Motorised. "Semi-motorised", "light truck transport" and "truck transport" equipments have been added.
 * Special units. BICE adds light infantry and semi-motorized battalion. On top of that, there are commandos support company and some specialized terrain support units: Arctic, Desert, naval, mountain, airborne and jungle. Both new special units and support units require specialized equipment.

Support:


 * New types of recon companies have been added - cavalry and motorcycle. They use their own special equipment, and give higher movement bonuses to division than standard recon companies.
 * Added offensive combat engineer support unit, its fighting abilities in Urban terrain and against forts cab be further expanded with Flamethrower squads.

Artillery:


 * Anti-air and anti-tank have gotten heavy variants. Heavy variants are available as support companies only. They use specific heavy-types of equipment.
 * Artillery has been split into 5 types - mountain, light, medium, motorized and heavy. Mountain, light and medium artillery use horse transports, motorized uses truck transports, and heavy uses prime movers.
 * Coastal and railway artillery. Those are 2 new unit types with specific equipment. Important things to know: Coastal artillery is veeeeery slow. It has -500% speed modifier on all terrains. Railway also has a big penalty to speed, -112%, but it's in jungle only, on other terrains it's between 5% and 12%.

Armor:

All units here use specific equipment, and each tech unlocks new level of that equipment. Some major coutries have their own, unique tech trees and can't research generic tanks(still can research everything in the upper part of armor tech tree).
 * Armored Cars. Support-only company, giving some reconaissance and movement bonuses.(similar to motorcycle recon)
 * Tankettes. Support-only companies, giving your division some armor and quite a lot of breakthrough. Looks like they don't affect hardness though.
 * Liason vehicles. Used by HQ companies. Higher levels increase it's speed and reliability. Cost remains the same.
 * Transport half-tracks. To be honest, I still haven't figured out how are they used.
 * Light, medium, heavy, modern, and super-heavy tanks have not been changed.
 * Cavalry tanks. Between light and medium tanks. Probably to be used as medium tanks until you research those.
 * Infantry tanks. Between medium and heavy tanks. Higher defense than heavy tanks but lower offensive capabilities. When you need some more armor/hardness for divisions but not necessary need more firepower. Much cheaper than heavy tanks.

Naval:


 * From new ships, there is a new "legacy ships tab". These are just weaker & cheaper versions of ships for poorer countries.
 * What is more interesting, there is quite a lot of upgrade techs for ships now. Those are pretty self-explanatory though and I won't explain them here. Just remember that they affect all ships including those that are already deployed.