Learning stuctures.

[Excalibur Bane]

What's the purpose of the learning buildings (scriptorium, academy, etc.)? I know what the description says, but I don't see any better leaders coming out of the town by sitting in it with these buildings, even at the highest level. So what purpose do they serve? Do they actually work? Anyone tried any modding to make these buildings more useful?

I'm getting kinda sick of these loser governors with absolutely no useful traits. They usually have no management skills at all. This should improve in cities that have learning centers over time. I'd fix it myself, if I knew how.

[lars573]

It makes it so that characters like a mathematitian philosopher and people of that ilk are added to your governors retinue. At higher levels the academy buildings increase the chance of a famous historical scholar like Archamedes getting stuck in a family members retinue.

EDIT I also think that it precludes characters like the drunken uncle and drinking buddy from showing up in the retinue, characters that the barbarian tarven increase the chances of showing up.

[Slaists]

I've noticed that besides improving their retinue, the young governors tend to pick up a few useful traits if left for a few years in cities with learning centers.

[Dorkus]

I've noticed that besides improving their retinue, the young governors tend to pick up a few useful traits if left for a few years in cities with learning centers.

Don't know about that. nothing in the character traits file
export_descr_character_traits.txt to indicate that's true.

In my exp, academies seem to grant one of each type of retinue that they're designed to grant. Then they're "exhausted", and you have to either trash the old academy and build a new one, or build another one in another city. Script adds qutie a few nice retinue (archimedes, some guy with +1 managemetn and +1 command). Ludus adds nothing singificant and is probably not worth the cost.

I'd wager the total effect of an academy is around +2 influence, +2 management and some other less important bonsues. Someone could do some tests and figure this out for certain.

Total effect of a script is probably around +2 infl, +2 command, +2 management. Also some very nice other bonuses (archimedes, for example)

Ludus adds a trivial amount of retinue in my exp. Though I believe I've only built it once.

(Note again taht these are all casual observations. I haven't done a test, but I am fairly attentive to game mechanics in a normal game)

[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.