How to use academies properly

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I am still wondering how can I educate my generals with these academy buildings. Building an Academy in Tarentum, for example, would the educate the children of my family so when they reach majority they are already smart? How can I educate my generals and avoid management problems later in the game? It is just getting too hard to leave my cities without any governors because many of them have no skill and tend to develop bad traits that affect my income. How does this whole thing work? And what's the difference between an Academy, a Scriptorium and a Ludus Magna?

Thanks.

[Slimshoom]

they are different because they affect your character and governors more, basically what they do is increase the chance of one of your family members getting traits and ancillaries that give them a better management ratings, making them better governors. also, these buildings typically increase public order ina settlement due to law.

[Decimus Equitius]

Academies have no affect on any of your family members until they are 16. What I do with my generals is when they come of age they all go to a town with the best Acedemy for 8 - 14 years. This ensures that all their ancillaries are filled up. Then I trade my retinue to make my generals better generals and my governers better managers.

[Marcus Scaurus]

Academies have no affect on any of your family members until they are 16. What I do with my generals is when they come of age they all go to a town with the best Acedemy for 8 - 14 years. This ensures that all their ancillaries are filled up. Then I trade my retinue to make my generals better generals and my governers better managers.

8-14 years is way too long. I prefer to let my 16-years old fight in my wars, gaining experience and command stars. After ten years of fighting, I send them to a nearby academy to learn the art of management, quite useful when he conquers a large city with low public order. If you send them to your wars for the first them with their ancillaries filled up they can't gain ancillaries that give you command stars or morale bonuses. Trading is quite useful, but not when you have a big empire with few skilled family members. Trading works when you start a new campaign: your starting family members usually have good traits and you have a small kingdom/empire.

[Deus ex Machina]

Yeah. I always use one of my youngest family members - usually start when he's between 16 and 19 - and I forge him through fire to become the next king. He becomes the hier to the throne and he generally leads an epic Imperial Army on massive conquests.

I got carried away one time. I was Greece, and I was forging an empire. So I got a 16 year old family member, gave him a fine, mighty army, and sent him East. He crushed anything that got in his way and settled in city after city. He battled to Alexandria, in Egypt, and captured it. His army had bled too much during the wars, so he exterminated all those in Alexandria and retreated to Jerusalem. By this time, he had a 'The Mighty' tag added to his name, and he was my finest general I've ever had. He eventually lost Jerusalem, and fled south. He was cornered by two huge armies. At the early age of 32, he had the remaints of his Imperial Army - some 300 war-hardened soldiers - against three thousand Egyptian soldiers and the ruler of Egypt. Instead of retreating, he fought the armies, knowing that a loss would open the entire Eastern Greek Kingdom. Long story short, he lost all his infantry, despite huge losses for the Egyptians. He had two additional groups of cavalry, not including his General's Bodyguards. The general rode his cavalrymen into the remaining 1,000 - 1,500 Egyptians. After killing up to 700 people, he and his cavalry were all killed. The Egyptians had not the army to continue conquering the Eastern Kingdoms.