Academia

[Darius]

So will you guys be making use of the military academy to allow a building meant solely for training generals? I hope so because I'm rather tired of having to haul around a bunch of overseers and spice merchants when all all the particular FM is meant for is hacking people to bits. I KNOW I can just swap most of the ancillaries around but it can be such a pain. I'd normally just take whatever D/U/L FM's I have, put them in a fort so they hopefully won't get married and reproduce, and have them hold the military ancillaries my governors get so that when the time comes to build an army, I grab the nearest young FM and slap on all the good military ancillaries and send him on his way.

Oh my God it would be so sweet to have a general with an understanding of logistics that wasn't in his late 40's, the very idea made me tingle all over.

[Megas Methuselah]

That'd be pretty sweet, manno.

[Ludens]

There was no such thing as a military academy in classical Europe, so I doubt it. Mostly, politicians were expected to be generals and vica versa. I also like to max my commanders, but in reality this is not possible.

[Darius]

Not all cultures were so "civilized" from what I remember, the Spartans would likely be given almost nothing but military training. If they ever become politicians I'd think it would be something they'd do when they became too old to fight anymore. I'm sure other warrior cultures would have had something similar.

[Aneximanes]

Not realy. With the romans this the clearest I think, the consuls are the highest political entity and the highest military 'rank' as it where.

[Ludens]

And Spartan kings were required to lead the army. There was little separation between military and political power in EB's time.

[Watchman]

And for example with the Spartans I don't think there was too much formal education about the "finer points" of practical campaigning; not only was Greek warfare for the most part somewhat too straighforward and short-duration for that to be particularly important anyway, but such things in general were generally learned by practice and maybe watching senior commanders do stuff.

The whole idea of formally and systematically training an officer corps to wage war "scientifically" is in general quite modern. On the whole I don't think it really turns up before the "pike and shot" period and even then rather late, more towards the beginning of the "musket and bayonet" era. The Prussians tend to get referred to as the first ones to systematically educate their staff officers, AFAIK.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Plus we already have it. Didn't you notice the effect the School building tree has on the traits of your generals, in particular the ability to improve their `Sharpness' and other abilities which are more likely to result in positive campaigning traits such as `understanding of logistics' ?

[Cyclops]

Its true the military and political hierarchies were tightly wound together, but there was some institutionalised progression especially in the city states like Rome, Carthage and Athens. The Kings at Sparta were the war leaders but also had some administrative roles: in this they were aided by the ephorate, and the Gerousia, and there was a consultative general assembly none of whom had real military roles in the field.

Macillrie has a great article on the cursus honorum which provided Roman senatorial class its pathway through public office and military service by giving them mostly annual (a lot of the magistracies were annual, but some like the priesthoods could be for life) turns in jobs of increasing importance.

I really like the Ynis Dunwall/Agoge training thingies in EB 1 and perhaps a similar system might work for the minor magistracies at Riome (Aediles, tribune, maybe add in minor priesthood) : if a kid stays in Rome and meets certain qualifiers he gets the "former Aedile" or "partly completed cursus honorum" attribute and opens up the way for a Consulship or Praetorship.

I think the monarchies (even the Principate) were more fluid with there "education" of young up-and-comers, like Augustus loading offices on technically ineligle minor heirs. I don't know if they were as rigorous in producing consitently good crop of administrators and leaders?

I guess the point is a really good leader who showed his stuff at the age of 18 is a great rarity. Alexander is the shining example, but even a reknowned leader like Caesar bemoaned the fact he was past 30 and still hadn't done anything remotely like big Al. I think Scipio, Marius, Sulla and Pompey all worked their way up through the system with magistracies and subordinate commands before shining at the top of their game. So a building that turns out polished 21-yr-old generals is probably not historical.

The Prussian staff system really interests me. I think they came up with their thorough selection and education process in response to the superb but less formal French staff that annhilated them in 1806.

Napoleon inherited an army that had been fighting its way back to respect in the 10 years after the revolution. He picked out the crop of geniuses that had risen to the top (because of the opportunities for experience and the removal of class barriers). He could head his numerous corps with thoroughly capable leaders and keep a half dozen in personal attendance so if there was a special task to be executed on the field of battle he could despatch a famous general with corps or even army level experience to bypass the chain of command and oppose his charisma and experience aganst perhaps a colonel or a major of the opposition army. Napoleon could see a company level opportunity and send a general to exploit it in minutes, compared to his opponents ponderous chain of command stretching from Commander to generals down through layers and layers of delay and variable ability.

It took a genius to run this fluid system and another genius to draft the orders to make it happen (apparently Berthier was the one bloke who could keep track of Nappys orders): thats not an easy thing to formalise and perpetuate, and by 1812 it was breaking down.

The Prussians didn't have that pool of geniuses and experienced officers: their crop of Frederikan leaders were in their 70 & 80's in 1806 (even Blucher was sixty-something) so they bult a standardised officer training to produce coherent and consistent leadership, and strong centralised communication. Kriegspiel gave something liek operational experience, and a culture of frank consultation (which shocked British and French observers) meant ideas were aired and tested within the staff group.

A staff officer (whose red-striped trousers came to be strongly disliked because it signalled decisive action was imminent) was a shortcut from CHQ to the front without the long loop of command and control, and the tradition of dynamic mobility established by Frederick the Great was remade abd formalised. Since then the Prussian/German army has decisively outperformed every enemy 1-on-1.

Napoleon had a staff comparable to Alexander's coterie, a once-in-a-millenium superstar line-up produced by circumstance and genius. Prussia like Rome built a system to turn out a series of capable leaders. Maybe Hannibal was Napoleon to Rome's Prussia?