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Concerning Research, I was working on a Mod that sets research output to a fixed number.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43679
I don't have the time to work a lot on it currently, but there is a "finished" version for SP EA games.
The features (beyond not having to mm your researchers) are:
Faster research in the early game
Slower research in the late game
Starting armies are out also, you could mod them in without commanders, but I haven't much bothered because with a few exceptions every nation has a way to get an acceptable start without awake SCs with the current settings.
At this point playtesting would be helpful
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