Well after a fairly long gap, i started playing some total war again, and just had the compass arive in my campagne

now i waited a while to see if anything new would appear (only done one previous early campagne and didnt really bother much with sea) and 10 years later nothing new

now, been looking at the unit stats, and everything that has a requirement for compass, is either Late or High, nothing in early, the compass event occurs about 35 years before the end of the early period, so surely this means the compass doesnt actually do anything? its a pointless requisite/event ?