[Professor S]

Technology - Much more intricate. First, you only start with one school, and all research must be done with schools. The more schools you build and upgrade, the more technology you can research concurrently. Technology isn't just for war, there are also economic, agricultural and industry advances.

How it affects battle.

You first start with no way for infantry to engage in hand to hand effectively, because there is no bayonet. You first advance will be the socket bayonet, but this sucks. Why? You have to manually command troops to fix bayonets in battle, and once you do, the guns no longer fire because they have a bayonet stuck in the barrel.

So you advance to the next advance, ring bayonet, and this allows you to fire when the bayonet is fixed, and you don't have to manage the bayonets in battle (they're always fixed).

Next you have firing. When you first start out your infantry can barely tie their shoes, mucb less fire with any kind of organization. They just randomly fire, so you'll need to research firing by line, in which your infantry fire all at once, which has a much bigger effect on kills and hurts enemy morale. After that, you'll want to learn firing by rank, which has sections of infantry fire after one another, creating an unending volley of hot metal death.

Then there is artillery, where you can research lime shot, scatter shot, cannister, exploding shells and carcass shot.

Just get the damn game. It's good as hell.