Military training...

[BossGnome]

Can you initiate those upgrades? How do you obtain new ones? Is there such a thing as a reasearch tree? How does it work? Help!

[Balthazar Gerards]

Upgrade your barracks

[Ralegh]

You earn upgrades by building barracks and culture (culture is half as effective). Going from barracks zero to barracks 1 is just as good as going from 9 to 10 (so build the cheap ones first!). Note that taking over a province gives you a nice jump in your barracks/culture...

At the start of a game you might have more upgrades than you are entitled to - if that is the case, you have to pay for the level you have before you will be given more. Similiarly, during a game you might lose provinces or levels of development from plundering, which will reduce your upgrade points - you don't lose an upgrade, but you do have re earn the points before you can get further upgrades.

There is no tech tree - no upgrade requires another one before it. Which upgrades are available to you is random.

Upgrading occurs once per season (ie 4 times a year) - the game will prompt you if you are entitled to one.

There is a hardcoded maximum of 40 upgrades, and 63 or so available - so over a game you can't get them all. Some upgrades are definitely more powerful than others - and some are only important if you are doing certain things.