• Two research types: Homebuilding and Combat
   
• Free trees: Safe to progress, but do not rush Rapid Growth
   
• Research speed matters: Faster research saves speedups and grows power faster
   
• Refugees matter: Orange Scientists + strong Diplomats are huge
   
• Licenses matter: Raider helps fund research, Research License (2 labs) is massive
   
• #1 Badge Priority: Alliance Recognition (AR) to 100%
   
• #2 High-Value Combat Research: Urgent Rescue (via Military Strategies / Peace Shield path)
   
• Buy badges smart: Use Lucky Discounter

This guide helps you:

• Understand the research trees
   
• Get stronger faster
   
• Avoid wasting badges
   
• Prioritize the best long-term upgrades

There are 2 main research categories:

This improves your base growth and economy.

This improves your combat power and battle performance.

These branches can be completed without badges.
They only need the normal resources (like Zents and Electricity).

• New Home
   
• Shelter Building
   
• HQ
   
• Management
   
• Rapid Growth
   
• Steel Age (newer branch)
   

The first four are fully free (no badges needed).
They are useful, but they are not urgent compared to combat trees.

These mostly improve:

• Construction speed
   
• Gathering speed
   
• Research speed
   
• Hospital capacity
   

• Work on these steadily over time
   
• Do not rush them too hard
   
• Do not rush Rapid Growth 

Combat research is where most players waste badges.

Combat trees often require badges, and badges are:

• Expensive
   
• Limited
   
• Easy to waste if you choose the wrong tree first
   

Spend badges carefully and prioritize the trees with the best return.

One of the biggest points in the guide:

The faster your research speed is:

• The fewer speedups you need
   
• The faster you finish branches
   
• The more power you gain over time
   

This is one of the most important ideas in the entire guide.

When you click the info icon in-game, you can see what affects your research speed.

Invest in buildings that give speed increases.
 

This is an optimal course because:

• You will be researching for the rest of the game
   
• It saves many speedups over time
   
• It becomes very valuable with top Tier Research
   

Refugees are a major part of research growth.

Use:

• 4 Orange Scientists
   

Each one gives:

• +25% research speed
   

That is a massive boost.

• Avoid leveling scientists too much
   

Reason:

• Leveling them increases help speed
   
• But it does not increase the main research speed %
   

So the value is mostly in having the right scientists, not over-investing levels.

Diplomats are one of the best upgrades for growth.

One Orange Diplomat increases:

• Help cap (more alliance helps)
   
• Help duration (and leveling them improves this more)
   

This is huge because alliance help reduces research time, which saves speedups.

Best target setup:

• 4 Orange Diplomats at Rank 3–4
   

Good budget alternative:

• 2 Orange Diplomats (Rank 3–4)
   
• 2 Purple Diplomats (Rank 4+)
   

This is a great mid-tier setup if orange refugees are limited.

Licenses are very strong for progression, especially early and mid game.

Allows you to loot Zents from enemy players.

Without it, it becomes hard to fund your research later in the game, especially:

• Mid game
   
• Late game
   

This is important because research gets expensive fast.

Allows looting up to:

• 100 million Zents daily
   

• Extremely useful in the early game
   
• Less important later, when more Zents come from other sources
  

This is a game changer.

• Gives you 2 Laboratories
   
• This effectively doubles research speed (because you run 2 researches)
   

• Helps you finish branches much faster
   
• Makes long branches (like Rapid Growth) feel much better
   
• Required for starting Tier 10 research
   

If you care about long-term growth, this is one of the best upgrades in the game.

No-badge trees is simple:

These are safe to progress.

• Do not rush Rapid Growth
   
• Work on free branches over time
   
• Focus your urgency on combat research priorities
   

This is the heart of the guide.

Badge research should be treated with care, because combat branches are expensive.

Alliance Recognition increases your scoring in:

• Alliance Duel activities
   

This means:

• More points
   
• Faster chest unlocks
   
• More reward boxes opened
   
• Better long-term resource income
   

AR includes a key upgrade (“One More”) that:

• Doubles rewards for each chest you open
   
• If you unlock this early and keep playing, the total rewards you gain from the 2x bonus will far exceed the badges you spent.
   
• This is the only research that truly pays for itself and then keeps paying.
   

• Rush Alliance Recognition to 100%
   
• Prioritize it over almost all other badge research
   
• If AR is unfinished, you are missing a lot of rewards
   

Military Strategies is valuable because:

• It is cheap to upgrade
   
• At 45%, it unlocks Peace Shield
   

Peace Shield contains one of the strongest individual researches in the game.

Get this ASAP.

• Prevents an extra 20% troop death in all scenarios
   

It directly counters Annihilation, which gives:

• Extra 20% kill potential
   

Annihilation is expensive.

Urgent Rescue is cheaper and can offset much of that advantage.

Without Urgent Rescue, you lose many more troops in:

• Tank vs Tank
   
• Attacking HQs
   
• Defending against stronger players
   

• Get it as soon as possible
   
• It is one of the most cost-effective combat researches in the game
   

Most combat trees are mostly standard stat upgrades.

These include:

• Troop Attack
   
• Troop Defense
   
• Hero Attack / Defense
   
• Troop Training Speed
   
• Healing Speed
   
• March Speed
   

These are still useful, but they are not as high priority as:

1. Alliance Recognition (AR)
    
2. Military Strategies → Peace Shield path
    
3. Urgent Rescue
    

• Do not fully commit to that tree until AR is completed
   

Reason:

• AR gives better long-term returns
   
• You want to maximize rewards first, then branch wider
   

Getting badges cheaply:

You can get badge discounts like:

• 10%
   
• 30%
   
• 50%
   
• 70%
   
• 90%
   

You are guaranteed to get a 90% discount every few rolls.

• Save badge purchases for discount events
   
• Use Lucky Discounter to reduce spending pressure
   

Use this as a quick progress order.

1. Progress free homebuilding branches
    
2. Improve general speeds and base growth
    
3. Do not rush Rapid Growth
    

1. Improve research speed where possible
    
2. Build strong refugee support:
    
   • Orange Scientists for speed
      
   • Orange/Purple Diplomats for alliance help value
      

1. Consider Research License if available (2 labs)
    

1. Rush Alliance Recognition (AR) to 100%
    
2. Unlock Military Strategies to 45%
    
3. Get Urgent Rescue ASAP
    
4. Then build out other combat stat trees
    

1. Continue finishing free branches
    
2. Expand combat branches after AR is complete
    
3. Use Lucky Discounter for badge efficiency
    
4. Prepare for Tier 10 requirements (2 labs needed)
    

Save badges for the best ROI trees first.

This slows your Duel rewards and long-term growth.

It is time-heavy and can stall better progress options.

Time savings = fewer speedups = faster account growth.

This causes unnecessary troop losses in major fights.