[Cainehill]

As far as weapon tech research screwing Ulm and a few others : what if it didn't improve the weapons and armor? If there were researchable things that .... could increase morale, or give better troops formations in battle, 6 scriptable mage spells vice 5, give a 20% increase in attack speed to troops, a little extra armor, a little extra chance to avoid an arrow, those seem like they might #1, fit more with Dominions - the average game ends within 40-100 turns, less than 10 years. Huge increases in weapons and armor don't tend to come in that span of time. Mmm, arguably magic might not progress as rapidly either - but tactics change rapidly enough to change the face of war. The hedgehog, the flanking maneuver, blitzkrieg, etc : tactics can transform the face of war.

All of these would be worth researching : but nations whose strength is in their troops to begin with would get greater benefits than would nations whose strength was mages. Ulm, Abysia, Jotuns, with solid troops, benefit more from incremental improvements to the troops than others do. But everyone would still want the improvements, especially if researching "tech" was separate from researching magic.

Maybe every fort generates weapons research; every military (non-mage, non-stealth) commander does as well. Maybe it's tied to Productivity (said scale needing some boosts, especially in the base game), or luck, or the inverse of the magic scale. Just some thoughts - but they do require changes in the base game, not just mods.