Feature

No F-35s in 1939

Research in NationFall is gated by two things: how much money your economy generates, and what year it is. A small economy researches slowly. A large one races. And no economy, however large, gets to skip a war and arrive with weapons that haven't been invented yet.

Six categories. Five levels each. Costs that scale quadratically. The choice between military edge and economic recovery is real - you cannot afford both fast.

Six categories, distinct strategies

Every category opens different bonuses. You cannot research them all at once - points are pooled, you choose where they go.

An additional Amphibious branch (max 2 levels) governs cross-water invasions, capped lower because the doctrine ceiling is lower.

Funded by GDP, not a research slider

Research points per turn are computed from your economy: floor(GDP_billions / 100 × country_level). A $2T economy generates 20 base points per turn. A $20T economy generates 200. Country level multiplies further.

You do not allocate a budget. The economy does the allocating, and small powers feel it sharply: the USA out-researches a regional power not because it tries harder, but because it can.

Costs scale as 100 × (next_level)². The first level is cheap. The last is brutal. Overflow points carry forward - you don't lose progress, but the curve bends sharply at the top.

Era gates, not just unlock costs

Research is funded by money. Deployment is gated by history. Every unit in the game has a yearIntroduced field. If the game year is earlier, you cannot field that unit - no matter how much you've researched.

• WW2 1939Tanks, prop fighters, battleships, dive bombers. No jets. No nuclear weapons until 1945. No F-35s, no T-90, no hypersonics.
• WW3 2026Modern arsenals open. F-35, T-90M, hypersonic missiles, drone swarms, modern SAM systems.
• VARIANTSEven within an era, unit variants era-unlock separately - a T-72B3 and a T-90M are not the same weapon.

The historical scenarios enforce this hard. WW2 1939 has techEraLock on: anything not on the era list is invisible to your research, your build menu, and your AI opponents. The 1939 game is the 1939 game.

The AI plays the same tree

AI opponents allocate research the way a thinking nation would. At war and taking damage? Military and Defense. At peace and wealthy? Economy and Intelligence. About to be invaded? Defense first, Military second, the rest later.

Every AI personality biases this differently - an Imperialist rushes Military and Nuclear; a Defensive AI compounds Defense and Economy. You cannot predict their tech curve from year alone.