As for specializing countries, which you discussed in this video... My comments on the earlier video was not meant to say that each country should only specialize in one thing, but to say that it might be more efficient for each country to focus on only a few things AT ANY ONE TIME rather than trying to do everything all at the same time. Rather than running 5% - 15% in each and every thing. Work on one thing, such as welfare, knowledge, etc. until you have reached a goal level, then switch to something else. In other words, instead of working on everything forever and maybe never reaching any of your goals, instead focus on one thing, achieve it quickly, then focus on the next thing. The perfect case in point is armies. I see no reason to ever be building both an army and a navy in the same country at the same time. Build navy's until each army in the country has a navy. Then if you want more armies, build another army, when the army is done, stop building armies and build a navy for that army. Repeat until you have as many armies and navies in that country as you want at that time. Lets take an example of a country that has 2 armies without any navy. If you build both armies and navies at the same time at 5% of effort, then after (say) 20 months you have produced a new army, and a new navy for one of the armies, giving you 1 army with navy, and 2 armies without a navy. Which is to say one army that can be used as an expeditionary force, and it took you almost 2 years to build it. Note that you get absolutely no return upon these 5% investments until the army and navy are actually completed. Now say if instead you had focused the country by having it focus 100% of its effort building a navy, then after just 2 months, you will have 2 armies with navies. Then you decide, do I need a 3rd army, or should I focus this country on one or two other aspects, such as GDP or whatever. The point is that by focusing 50% or 100% of a countries effort on one or two things, you have results 10 times quicker than you do at a 5% or 10% effort. Or reverse it. Remember that under the unfocused method, you did not get an army for 20 months. If that is OK with you, imagine building zero military for 18 months and instead focusing the country upon its economy. Then for 2 months focus exclusively on military. You still get your navies at the exact same time as on the unfocused example. The difference is that you got the advantages of working solely upon your economy for 18 months first. Better no matter how you look at it. The important point here is that there is no advantage to having a partial: Mission Control, Boost, Army, Navy, Nuke, or Space Defense. Most of the other things a country can do have per turn effects, but those things you have nothing until the thing your are building is completely finished. So it makes sense to work on it and nothing else until it is done, so that your investments start paying off as soon as possible. You might say, "I have these three countries I wish to develop. I wish to build 5 mission control, increase my research by 1000 units, and build an army and a navy and increase their military technology by 0.5" (or whatever goals you have). Instead of just setting all three countries to all work on building armies, and navies, military tech, and mission control, and increasing their research, you might set one of your countries to increasing its research, while another builds mission control and another works on its military. Then as your goals are eventually achieved, pick new goals for each country. Focus on achieving specific goals as soon as possible. So you are only specializing the focus of the country for a period of time. You are not specializing the country in one thing forever. Next time you want to increase your research, you might pick a different (less developed) country to produce the new research. Also, while all countries that you intend to keep long term need to spend time focusing on their economy, research, etc. You don't really need an army in all your countries. You probably don't need more than a certain number of army expeditionary groups. Groups of armies with navies and high military tech that can be sent out wherever needed. Low tech armies without navies in small countries are pretty much just a useless drag on the countries economy. I would pick just a few countries that you intend to develop militarily, and not spend any effort to develop a military in any other country, just ally those countries with your countries where you maintain a good military. This means that all the countries that are not investing in armies, navies, military tech, or nukes have that much more effort to put into other things like research, mission control or income. So I would not recommend specializing the USA in military in the sense that it does nothing but push out armies and navies. But I might suggest specializing it in the sense that it could be one of the few countries you control that bothers to maintain several armies and upgrades its military tech. But it would still spend a good deal of its time developing its other attributes, the USA can be a huge powerhouse in several aspects: Military, Research, Income, whatever. It would just develop them in a focused manner. One year developing knowledge and GDP. The first half of next year increasing military tech, Etc. Rather than trying to do a little bit of everything all the time. Though like I said, you can split the focus if need be for stuff that has a per turn effect. It is mainly the long term projects that are completed in distinct units (such as armies or mission control) that benefit from the 100% focus. I am continuing to enjoy the series.

Plasma weapons can’t be shot down