Questions about education/traits...

[Stella]

I read the popup message at the beginning of the campaign and a few topics on education here but I'm still confused as to what education does. In my current England campaign, my capitol is Paris so most of my generals come of age there. It's a highest-tier city with every education building available. School, library, university...hell I even built Notre Dame there even though it probably doesn't count as an education building. Not only did my guys come of age there but I sent like 6-8 generals there from other places to see if they could gain benefits after they come of age. It's been about 50 turns and I'm yet to see any benefits. 90% of my guys still have bad stats.

I started having a major shortage of decent command generals so I moved my capitol to Caen which was a Citadel at that point. Most of my guys came of age there and I moved my useless family members there too. Still nothing. My two main general died in a recent campaign into Spain and even though there are about 12 generals in Caen none of them have more than 2 stars. So I thought maybe I need to build education buildings in every settlement, and I had a ton of money so I did so. Yet to see any benefit from it.

So obviously I don't understand how education works. If someone could tell me if the system is bugged or what I'm doing wrong that would be great. A few specific questions:

Can a general gain good traits/stats from education after they come of age? Does it help to build eduation buildings in more settlements than just your capitol where most of them appear (besides the obvious public order/happiness effects)? Can a general gain command stars or good stats from being in a conquering army but not being the top general in that army? I usually send decent prospects off to join one of my main general's armies but I haven't seen any benefits really other than chevrons. Is it normal to have 30 family members late in a campaign and none of them have more than two stars regardless of education? I remember in RTW I would occasionallly get a good 16-17 year old 3-5 star but that never seems to happen here.

Sorry for all the questions but I think the education thing is a really nice concept and I'd like to understand how it works.

Btw, I'm playing with RR/RC but not BYG

[Emperor VI]

The same thing happened to me...

[Tacitursa]

Yep i notice this aswell in about 9 of the 10 england campaigns ive played the first thing i do is take my King in a full stack and take Edinburgh and kill scotland i always have at least 1 Heroic victory and minimum of 3 battles won yet King still has zero command if anything his stats deminish over time and he starts getting these -1 HP and -movement traits.

Then i always retrain and refill the army in Inverness followed by taking ireland and after that still no command.

1-2 heroic victories , 3-4 generals killed including 2 kings , 3-5 Battles won in total , 2 factions destroyed and general still sucks i just dont get it.

[Callawyn]

You have a good chance of getting good traits from Education for only the first 4 turns after a character comes of age. They'll have 'Freshman', 'Sophomore', 'Junior', 'Senior' traits during this time. On the fifth turn they are 'Graduate' and are mostly done with education, from sixth turn 'Graduate' disappears.

They will all start with either 'Administrative' or 'Military' tendancy, Admin minded students gain better when in cities, Military better in castles but you can put either in either and still have a decent chance at trait gain. For example, a typical trait might have a 33% chance of gain if Military minded in castle but only 25% if Admin minded in Castle.

There is really just 1 trait line each that you are hoping to gain: Military Education (4 levels, Basic through Master), this helps a bit with a variety of combat related skillgains but most notably big boosts to movement points (10%,25%,40%,50% for lvl 1-4). The other trait line is the Basic/Standard/Advanced Western/Eastern/Greek Education. This gives a variety of boosts to skills a governor might want that usually increase income, reduce construction costs, keep order, etc.

From the 5th turn on, Graduate and after, you can still gain Admin type Education by parking in city with education buildings, but the % chance per turn of getting any gain is MUCH lower than during first four turns. IMO not worth going for at all unless you were going to be parking your General there as governor anyway for other reasons. You can also gain Military education on any general after he is 'graduate' but NOT by staying in castle, you gain through battle (though, again, gain is slow).

So, when a character comes of age, for his first 4 turns alive, try to have him end turn in a Castle (defined as Castle, Fortress, or Citadel, smaller ones don't count) or a City that also has a School, Library, University in it(having each of these DOES help alot with skillgain, the % chance of skillgain is much better from just 1 of these to any 2 and is better still if you have all 3. Early game, if your city has just a School, its not unusual to go 4 turns and get 0 to 1 skillgain, but with multiple buildings you can often get Advanced Education. These trait lines are pretty sweet and well worth going for during these 4 turns for each general. From Graduate and on, just move them out and use them normally.

I'm much less clear on Pagan education, but my understanding is the 4 turns thing is the same, but the idea is to have your general end turn outdoors for each of these turns.

[django333]

I've only been able to get lvl 1 educations (basic military and basic western). Do better educations come later in the game? Even with my capitol having all three education buildings I've never gotten anything above lvl 1.