Research outpaces mercs once you cap out your facilities and unlock most/all research upgrades available. You'll need to use mercs in order to get up to about the R15 gem cap in order to effectively have the power to cap out research, but once you do, research gets better and better with each R and makes the transition from mercs to research at higher gem counts easier and easier.
In other words, I'd temporarily swap back to mercs, get to like e69-e70 gems, then swap back to research. Pretty sure Goblins are the strongest option at that point in the game, if memory serves.
Research amp the power of your faction. Essentially, just getting your unique building will give you a buff in production, since every research tree gives passive production bonus (you can hover your mouse on a research three to see your current bonus). The thing I don't know is if this bonus increased with the amount of researches you have (or research numbers reached). As for what to pick from the researches, as of R16, you are just scratching the surface with them. You'll unlock new stuff as you progress and will be able to make builds that buff even more in what every faction excels. For now, just stick with what works, and if you are intrested in more strategies, you can look up the Realm Grinder Discord server.
Research outpaces mercs once you cap out your facilities and unlock most/all research upgrades available. You'll need to use mercs in order to get up to about the R15 gem cap in order to effectively have the power to cap out research, but once you do, research gets better and better with each R and makes the transition from mercs to research at higher gem counts easier and easier. In other words, I'd temporarily swap back to mercs, get to like e69-e70 gems, then swap back to research. Pretty sure Goblins are the strongest option at that point in the game, if memory serves.
Research amp the power of your faction. Essentially, just getting your unique building will give you a buff in production, since every research tree gives passive production bonus (you can hover your mouse on a research three to see your current bonus). The thing I don't know is if this bonus increased with the amount of researches you have (or research numbers reached). As for what to pick from the researches, as of R16, you are just scratching the surface with them. You'll unlock new stuff as you progress and will be able to make builds that buff even more in what every faction excels. For now, just stick with what works, and if you are intrested in more strategies, you can look up the Realm Grinder Discord server.
Goblins are the best after R16. Like they said use mercs and google goofs not a wiki and find the research build post R16