Learning stuctures.

[Lemur]

Sure, the scriptorums are nice, but face it -- your daughters will still drag home a bunch of no-influence, snaggle-toothed, unibrowed losers. Those girls just don't know what's good for Rome.

[Lichgod]

I have only built the Academy in my several games. I never had the time/resources/priority to build higher-level education centers. I also only build one in my capital.

Here is what I found out. Every turn you have a faction member in the town, a random chance occurs (decent chance) for a new retinue member to join up. I have had several join one leader and also spread over the leaders in a town in the same turn. For the Academy, it seems to be (from memory) librarian, mathematician, the doctor guy, the public health guy (also sort of acts like a doctor buy troops have negative morale if his is present), and biographer. I might have missed some. Most these add to management and/or influence.

Since you can move the retinue members from leader to leader, I usually strip my governor of any that show up and move them to other leaders. New faction members usually stay in town for several turns to increase the chance of free retinue, including a priest from the temple. I eventually get a worthless faction member whose job is to move retinue from one leader to another. I do stuff like have two governors move half way between their cities to link up, transfer retinue, and move back home in the same turn.

I also strip retinue from anyone 60 years old if I can. Especially the ones that make units cheaper to buy. Those retinue guys get piled onto the governors of my main recruiting cities.

[TinCow]

The structures will significantly improve your generals over time if they sit there long enough (probability). They are fabulous boons to cities you plan to have governed by generals for long periods of time. They aren't worth bothing with in cities where generals will not spend much time.

[Dorkus]

where do you guys get that gen characteristics are affected by the academy line? there's no indication of this in the data file at all.

Also, the health guy(s) is from the temple. You can get it with as many family members as you have sitting in the city. However, the academy specific retinue seem to occur only once. Usually it takes 1-3 turns for all the retinue to pop up, but once they do, they never appear again -- the academy is "drained" and thus useless.

[Lord Ovaat]

Sure, the scriptorums are nice, but face it -- your daughters will still drag home a bunch of no-influence, snaggle-toothed, unibrowed losers. Those girls just don't know what's good for Rome.

I don't know about your family trees, but in mine, the daughters are annoyingly identical. Not only identical, but identically ugly. Not much chance of bringing home much more than "a bunch of no-influence, snaggle-toothed, unibrowed losers." Having to wait for these hopless waistrels to get married makes having to peddle your little tarts around Europe in MTW look pretty good. Although, I still find that discomforting, at best.

[RedKnight]

Dorkus, it hasn't been my experience that an academy (or other learning structure) can be used up. I'm with Lichgod - I learned from experience to be sure to have the best library in my capitol, and leave new guys there a turn or three. My impression is that each level of library meant it would add one more to the retinue of non-full generals. In other words a level 2 library would add 2 retinues a turn for any non-full general. In this regard, like Lichgod says, it makes economic sense to have a great library at your cap, and not bother with them anywhere else - if the new guy cools his heels a couple of turns, you've saved yourself immense money elsewhere. I have not noticed them "running out", but then I'm only halfway through my second game... maybe I kept increasing the building as fast as it ran out? And/or maybe the capitol is special in this regard.

These are only my general impressions.

Note that if a (new) general is put in a training queue (to upgrade armor), he won't get any retinue that turn. That's been my impression, too.

I sure wish there was a way to dump useless retinues! And I particularly hate how generals can easily get so full that you can't even swap followers.

[Lichgod]

Since in my long Carth campaign, I only built one academy in Carthage as soon as I could, it lasted for at least 50 years (for the rest of the game) filling my faction members with retinues.

RedKnight - to dump usless retinue, you could bribe a no-star faction member off someone, fill him up with unless retinue and use him for ferry missions. I like to have a guy that visits key mercenary locations to raise mercs for me.

[therother]

where do you guys get that gen characteristics are affected by the academy line? there's no indication of this in the data file at all.

I believe you are right here. There is no indication that the family member himself goes to the academy, unless it is hard-coded.

Also, the health guy(s) is from the temple. You can get it with as many family members as you have sitting in the city. However, the academy specific retinue seem to occur only once. Usually it takes 1-3 turns for all the retinue to pop up, but once they do, they never appear again -- the academy is "drained" and thus useless.

I think you are wrong here. If you put a new guy in, with no ancillary characters, he will acquire them even if others have just got them. I've never had an academy exhausted, and I move retinue characters around religiously.

Edit: Sorry, just saw your post now.

Plus the better the academy, the more advanced characters that are available, i.e. you need a Scriptorium to get the Geographer, and a Ludus Magna to get the Rhetorician.

[Dorkus]

has anyone else experienced the 'burst'? I tend to use my generals in battle all the time, so I don't get too many academy bred retinue. But i've had reasonable success with recently built academies. If i leave a general in for one turn, it seems that the odds are pretty good that he'll get something. usually quite a few things.

The regions i generally build the academy line in are carthage and athens.