So Ethiopia should get a research bonus on technology it declares as wunderwaffen as well as moral boosts when it's about to loose the war against Italy? I don't think this sort of technological and cultural relativism is appropriate for this kind of game, even if politically correct.
Well the technological bonus, could be scaling with the technological abilites of the country to start with.
ie.
countries like Germany/USA will get a large bonus , if they are losing a lot of ground. (The bonus should still not be able to put them ligthyears ahead of other nations, but a decent boost here and there, could be interesting).
countries like Ethopia (no offence against Ethopia), which did not introduce many new inventions in the war, would only get a small bonus barely making a difference.
I'm really just thinking out loud here, but perhaps there could also be someway to get a temporary tech-boost for winning a battle. I mean, after each battle there could be a chance to capture crucial tech, like the Enigma machine (which will give the winning side a temporary bonus to Encryption/decryption. Enabling them to get more accurate intelligence.). Likewise capturing a region, with high-level radar-infrastructure, from a nation with high radar-tech, could potentially give you a radar-tech boost. I believe, it could provide some interesting scenarios, sometimes (like with the Enigma) a bit of luck, could really help a nation (alliance) out.
I think this would be even more interesting, if it was not just random-chance-based. I'm not sure exactly how, the player could interfere with it (without making it too much of a hazzle), but perhaps the nation could issue how 'secret/important' a specific tech is. ie. Germany could declare the Enigma machine for 'top secret', this decreases the effectiveness, since it is less widespread, but makes it much less likely to fall into enemy hands (since there are less of them, and everybody would be instructed to dispose of the machines if in danger).
Speaking of all this, the player could also INTENTIONALLY decide to 'feed' false information/tech to the enemy. It is my understanding that misinformation played a extremely large role in the war, I hope we will be able to place phoney-armies , deliver false battle-plans (this requires that real battle-plans will be implemented) to the enemy.
/Fumle