I know pressing ESC during the peace negotiations was a bug, but in the absence of a completed campaign it was the only way I was able to experience the research mechanic! For reference, my campaign was 1900-1955 as Germany. During this run, I noticed a few interesting things that may or may not be relevant at this point in development. Firstly, despite maintaining 100% research spending, my tech was noticeably lacking as compared to the other campaign milestones (1920 vs. 1920 start, etc.). Also, the AI seemed to be developing new ship classes very rapidly, thus very quickly running out of names and subsequently being replaced by names such as BB 00756, etc. Interestingly, their designs also appeared to be iterations of previous ships as opposed to novel designs.
Loving the structure of the game so far and am very much looking forward to a fleshed out campaign experience!
