Technology Review
Everyone in the game starts at tech 1, which is roughly equivalent to 1920's or 1930's era equipment with a few notable exceptions. The units available from the start will be the most useful and most common throughout the game. One thing that is very important to know is that tech levels will be one of the main differences in what you have available to build. Because everyone has the same units, you must keep up with the arms race if you expect to not be caught short later in the game. If you decide that tech 4 is good enough, you will probably change your mind when you find other empires dropping paras and missiles with chemical weapons all over the place. If you want details on what is at the higher levels either ask someone or even better get there yourself! Here is the nutshell version of the lower levels:
Tech 2
This gives your engineers the ability to dig canals and clear terrain. It also gives you observation posts, which are great as they allow you to watch your borders without taking up more orders.
Tech 3
Now you get the vital railroads. Engineers can build rail links through all minor terrain, linking your empire via high-speed transportation. This level is critical for survival as it allows your empire to act as one city, rather than several individual cities. Rails allow any unit on the rails to move anywhere else on the rails in one turn. The flexibility this allows is unequaled. They are easily destroyed by bombers, so you have to take care of your network after you build it.
Tech 4
This gives you longer aircraft range and another general to lead your forces. It also gives your capital ships (battleships, cruisers, and destroyers) 3 sector ranges to fire over as opposed to one sector (square on the map).
Doing Research
There are two ways to finance your research department. The first and most direct is using the 'E' order. Before you go spending half of your production stockpile, there is a limit to how much is effective each turn. Your results will improve with each point spent up to about 6 or 7. At this point the curve levels off and spending more justs wastes your production points. 5 is a good number that gets results, but most players can't tell too much difference between spending 6 a turn and 8 or 9. The other method is to have engineer units investigate ruins. There is no guarantee that they will find anything, but it can provide a lot of points towards the next level. I have heard of players reaching tech 4 without spending anything, but I am never that patient. The best approach is to spend some each turn and have engineers looking for more in ruins. There does not appear to be any penalty for finding lots of reseach points in ruins, so get all you can this way. You are more likely to find production points, but that is good too so it is well worth the orders to have engineers investigating. Ruins will be good to investigate repeatedly for a while too. I have yet to investigate a ruin completely but I understand other players have received messages stating that the ruins were obviously empty. If you have some reasonably safe ruins to park some engineers in then I would encourage you to get to it. One last note for new players: GET TECH 3! You will be at a major disadvantage against an empire that has a rail system if you don't have one built. British Rail may not be much of an inspiration but don't let that deter you.
