GAME MANUAL - Steam

HEARTS OF IRON DARKEST HOURThe TechnologyFolderOverviewAlthough the Intelligencefolder is the next tab on thetop bar, we will discuss this alittle later in the manual (afterthe Diplomacy section) sincethe concepts and functions ofboth are interconnected.Instead, let’s move on theTechnology folder.Technology is an integralcomponent of Darkest Hourand your degree of overallachievement will have asignificant impact on manythings. Your domestic affairswill benefit from newefficiencies in extraction,conversion and productionrates, and your military willdeploy new technologies togain a crucial edge over yourenemies. You may even beginnuclear experimentation thatcan lead to the atomic bomb.Unlike most things in DH, thisdoes not require a directallocation of IC. New technologicaladvances are gainedby hiring a team of scientists,assigning them a researchproject to work on, and thenafter a period of time, the teamwill announce that it hasachieved this new technology.The length of time will dependon the nature of the projectand on the skills and expertiseof your team. You are alsolimited in the number ofprojects you may work onsimultaneously. The maximumnumber of projects and thespecific teams that are availableto you will depend onwhich nation you are playing,and on your nation’s economicstrength.Research speeds may befurther improved or hinderedsomewhat by several of yourcabinet ministers. Yourrocketry research will begreatly aided if you have builtrocket test facilities in at leastone province, and yournuclear research will benefitsimilarly from a nuclearreactor site. The only otherway to accelerate yourresearch is to acquire blueprintsfrom another nation.Gaining an edge over yourenemy, or at very leastmaintaining an approximatetechnological parity, will almostcertainly be vital to youroverall success.Selecting Research TeamsThe left side of the TechnologyFolder will display up to fiveteams of scientists, each ofwhom may be assigned aproject to work on. When youfirst start playing, this area willbe empty, waiting for you toassign research teams to eachslot and to give them each aproject to pursue. Dependingon the nation you are playing,you may have as many as fiveslots, or as few as one. Thenumber of available slots isbased on your nation’s baseindustrial capacity (with anadditional team slotawarded every 20 IC).Click on a blank team slot todisplay a list of the teams inyour nation’s pool. Some ofthese may be headed byindividuals, while others will beidentified as companies. Eachteam will have a skill level andwill have at least one area ofexpertise. The skill level is anindication of the team’s overallproficiency and will affect boththe daily cost of funding theteam and the overall rate atwhich it will be able toresearch a new project. Thehigher the skill level, the lesstime the team will need tocomplete a project, but theywill have a high daily financingcost. The small colour-codedicons indicate the team’sareas of expertise, or fields ofresearch at which the teamexcels. The number ofavailable teams and their skilland areas of expertise willdepend on the country youselect and will rarely changeduring play.Whenever possible, try to finda team that has expertise inthe fields that relate directly tothe components of the projectthat you intend to assign them,even if they might be lessskilled overall than anotherteam that lacks this expertise.Each area of expertise thatmatches a component’s fieldrequirement will give the teama research bonus whenworking on a project, so themore fields that match, thebetter. If a team has an area ofexpertise that matches one ofthe project’s requirements, theicon for that field will behighlighted in green. This willallow you to rapidly find themost suitable match.Once you have chosen a teamby clicking on it, a portrait orlogo will appear in the projectslot of the technology folder43