Does the Military Academy serve any purpose?

[Executor]

I built the Military Academy in my capital, Aragon, but it doesn't seem to be having any impact on the units produced there. In the description of the building, it says it grants all units produced in the province the disciplined trait.

At first I thought I was getting one group of knights confused with another, since there were several stacks of royal knights milling around in Aragon. So to double-check, I moved all my knights out of Aragon, then I built another unit of royal knights. The next turn, I attacked a province with those 20 knights. When I right-click on the knights in the battle setup screen so that it lists all the charisteristics of the selected unit, Disciplined isn't shown. When the battle begins and I hover the mouse over the knights, it says "May charge without orders". Nor does Disciplined ever come up when it cycles through the knight's characteristics.

So is there any use for the Military Academy or is it a waste of time to build?

[Shahed]

It does not apply to elite units. So it has no effect on already elite units. It can make other non elites disciplined. I think that's how it works. I tried it as England and my Chivalric Knights actually impetous charged right the next battle after they were trained. So my guess is it does not apply to them.

[frogbeastegg]

Discipline is a strange stat; it is not the have/have not stat that it first appears. Instead it looks like a progressive stat with a higher number meaning that the troop is more disciplined. This idea is based on a post made by eat cold steel where he said "> Military Academy?
It gives discipline +1", implying that there are various degrees of discipline.

So based on this idea a knight could represent discipline 0 and a fully disciplined unit like Byzantine infantry could represent say 6. If a knight is built with an academy it will have a discipline of 1, making it slightly less likely to charge without orders but not nearly as disciplined as a unit starting with the stat. My guess is that the disciplined tagline on a unit’s description only ever refers to the discipline it starts with so units will never gain the tag line via the academy. Longasc is the first person I've seem to suggest this method of discipline and it does sound quite reasonable.

My own guess at a scale is as follows, the stat ranges between 0 and 10. Knights are at 0 and are fully impetuous etc, normal units (e.g. spearmen, feudal men at arms) are at 4 and will follow orders until their morale gets high at which point they can start to disobey. Units that start with disciplined are at 6 and will rarely disobey orders in a high morale state. 10 represents perfect discipline where the unit will never disobey orders or charge stupidly, of course this is unobtainable in normal gameplay.

For slightly more on this mess take a look at the last two posts in the main hall beginners guide, there's also a link to the topic in which ECS said the +1 discipline quote. If anyone can resolve this issue beyond doubt I will be a happy frog as it will allow me to update the guide with the correct version, currently there are too many plausible theories hanging around

[Shahed]

Hmm I just read the para in the Beginner's Guide. I think you got it right there (and here) Froggy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Vanya]

GAH

Worry not, Vanya is here to help

Vanya sez...

Discipline, at least in the game, is used to determine the neatness of a units formation. Higher discipline means the unit forms up in nice straight lines. Less discipline means the formation is messy and just not visually stimulating, and looks more like a mass of humanity.

You will notice units like Alan mercs have "messy" formations. It is because when they were in horseback riding school, nobody drilled them to "walk single-file" and in "straight lines". They were not spanked as children. And, worst of all, they don't even respect those they kill, as they can't even line up the graves in a neat lines either Vanya told them on many an occasion to please stretch and compress bodies as needed so that all cadavers were the "same length" and could be buried in neat rows. Alan mercs are just plain terrible at that... they are so not neat in their business... Vanya thinks its so "unprofessional".

GAH

[A.Saturnus]

I think Vanya is right. I once read a post of one of the CA-guys that discipline influences unit cohesion.

[Kristaps]

If one opens the building-production text file, the column for building bonus says that the military academy adds +1 to discipline.

[Tony]

I only build the military acadamy as the turks to get Janissaries. Love that JHI - but the PRICE http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] (Tony @ Sep. 10 2003,01:50)]I only build the military acadamy as the turks to get Janissaries. Love that JHI - but the PRICE http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
I would even pay twice as much for them if need be. Honestly JHI rule so much that they deserve to be paid such a high salary http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

This is a very interesting thread. Yeah everything that frogbeastegg said makes sense to me. I still think it is worth building Military academy even if you are not plaing Turks, the +1 discipline may help you in a small but important way during battle.

Cheers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif