Research is a permanent-buff system: every completed upgrade sticks around forever, stacking small improvements to construction speed, resource output, training, healing, and combat stats. There are 15 trees in total, split into two groups that use different currencies.
The golden rule. Early on you can push most trees to roughly 40-50% without spending much time or many resources — jump around and pick up the easy buffs across the board. The real decisions start once a single research takes a day or longer and costs climb steeply. That’s when you need a firm priority order and the discipline to stick to it: the deeper into any tree you go, the more expensive each step becomes, so always clear the top of a tree before pushing deep into it.
Standard trees (food, metal, oil, speedups)
Ten trees run on ordinary resources, and most can be pushed to roughly the halfway mark early on for cheap, fast gains:
- Develop — Research Enhancement (speeds up all research), Quick Construction (speeds up building upgrades), Master Builder (cheaper construction), Barracks Expansion (higher soldier training limit), and Healing Capacity (more hospital beds, cheaper healing). Highest priority of the standard trees — max it as early as you possibly can, since a faster-running base compounds into every other system.
- Hero and Soldier — combat stat buffs. For Hero, only invest in the branch matching your main squad’s type (the shared bottom-tier skills that apply to all hero types are worth prioritizing once you get there); putting points into the wrong branch can’t be undone.
- Squad (1st) — hero combat stats plus march speed and troop-loss reduction. Cheap relative to its payoff, so it’s a reasonable default destination whenever your queue would otherwise sit idle.
- Economy, Full Development, and Prosperous Economy — secondary versions of the above, worth working on but only after the higher-priority trees are moving.
- Squad 2nd/3rd/4th — buffs for secondary squads used mainly for gathering and starting rallies. Lowest priority; revisit these once your main-squad trees are well developed.
Research Data trees (a separate, scarcer currency)
Five trees run on Research Data instead, and community guidance is consistent that Research Data should be spent in a strict order rather than split across trees:
- Alliance Competition first, until roughly 80% — the single most important Research Data tree. At 80% you unlock the ability to collect all 9 chests during the VS event each day, a large scoring advantage, and reaching 80% also unlocks access to the Super Soldiers tree. Until you hit that mark, essentially all Research Data goes here with no exceptions.
- Super Soldiers second — larger combat buffs than the standard trees provide. Around 40% into this tree unlocks the Offense and Defense Strategy trees, and its final skill unlocks T10 soldiers — the last major milestone once the VS event tree is done.
- At that 40% mark, a brief detour into Defense Strategy to unlock an additional hospital slot is commonly recommended before returning to Super Soldiers.
- Convoy (truck capacity/efficiency) is generally left alone except during a VS event’s Research Day, when Research Data spending scores event points — timing a planned Convoy investment to that day gets extra value from the same spend.
- Offense Strategy and the remainder of Defense Strategy come last, once Super Soldiers is well developed.
Priority order, start to finish
| # | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Max the Develop tree |
| 2 | Push Economy to 50%+ |
| 3 | Run Hero + Soldier trees (Hero matched to your squad type only) |
| 4 | Keep Squad 1 ticking whenever the queue would otherwise sit idle |
| 5 | Full Development + Prosperous Economy as secondary fills |
| 6 | Alliance Competition to 80% — all Research Data here first |
| 7 | Super Soldiers, dipping into Defense Strategy at 40% for the hospital unlock |
| 8 | Convoy, but only on a VS event’s Research Day |
| 9 | Continue Super Soldiers to max (unlocks T10 soldiers) |
| 10 | Offense Strategy + the rest of Defense Strategy |
| 11 | Squad 2, 3, and 4 last |
Time your spending, don’t just queue it
Two habits squeeze more value out of the same research spend:
- Wait for handshakes before using speedups. Start a research, then immediately ask your alliance for help. Every “Help” tap cuts a percentage off the remaining time — the same mechanic behind instant hospital healing. Only spend a speedup on whatever time is left after handshakes have done what they can, not before.
- Use Universal (Yellow) speedups on Technology specifically — research tends to take the longest of any queue, so a Yellow speedup goes further there than almost anywhere else you could spend it.
Research Data in particular rewards deliberate timing:
- Save major research and Research Data speedups for Wednesday, if your server’s VS event runs Phase 3 (Alliance Duel) that day — spending lines up with extra event points.
- Don’t speed up research right at server reset (05:00). Wait for the Tech Research phase in the daily Mission Readiness (Arms Race) event instead, so the same spend counts twice.
- Hoard Research Data through the week and spend it deliberately on the day it scores the most, rather than dribbling it out as you earn it.
Common mistakes
- Ignoring research entirely in favor of heroes/gear — the buffs compound daily, so an early start matters more than any single upgrade.
- Committing Hero-tree points to a branch that doesn’t match your squad type.
- Leaving the research queue empty — an idle queue is a permanent buff you don’t get back.
- Spending Research Data on Convoy outside of a VS Research Day, when other trees deliver more value.
- Rushing into Offense/Defense Strategy before Super Soldiers is developed — the one exception is the Defense Strategy detour at 40% specifically to unlock the 4th hospital slot.