Anybody know how to edit stats (technology,speed, research, etc.) without the game freezing?
There’s an ingame feature called training. It helps you greatly enhance you staff’s skills, up to 900 and even more. Plus, it doesn’t make the game crash or freeze.
I can’t be sure, even though a bunch of people may or may not correct me on this:
It’s illegal to change your save files, as far as I’m concerned if that’s what you’re asking.
Actually, no. It’s against the current EULA to modify the game files, but your saves are yours to break as you wish. However, if you edit your save and something goes wrong with your game, you are on your own and GHG (specifically @Charlie) will not help you.
The recommended (but not supported - see above) way to edit your saves is to use the editor provided by @HeWhoWas, however you must remember that you do so at your own risk.