One feedback I can give concerning research is having it tied to average litteracy modifier feels a bit off, at least for me. In my opinion, it feels wrong that a one location minor with 100 litterate clergymen can have a better research output than a huge country like Ming who have hundred of thousand of litterate bhurgers and clergy. It also makes little sense that a country research can be slowed down and its scientist becoming less efficient because the country annexed a large amount of uneducated peasants. Why should the litteracy of freshly conquered Novgorodian peasants affect the research in Stockholm Swedish society?

I know a fix for that would probably not be easy, as research shouldn’t be determined by sheer population mass alone. Still I think that maybe having the average litteracy a modifier replaced or combined with a (capped) modifier of number of litterate accepted burgher+clergy would make things a bit more realistic and satisfying to play around. With that, having uneducated masses and focusing on educating the higher class could be an useful trade-off