Military Academy...how's their football team?

[Ravenloff]

Better yet, how the hell does it work?

I was in a situation a couple nights ago in which I had won a series of short wars, supplying me with a couple of early armies. For this, I was able to build Heroic Epic and the Military Academy.

Now, the Civilopedia says that the Military Academy can be used to create armies without the use of a leader. How is this done? Try as I might, I could not find a way, either through the right-click menu or advanced unit buttons to start an army with units inside the city where the Military Academy was built.

[Swissy]

The city that has the Military Academy can build an army unit. The only restriction is you are only able to have one army for every four cities you have. An army is quit expensive, but well worth it considering its expanded powers in Conquests.

[bobbo008]

yeah, its the same as building any other unit

[MotownDennis]

If it didn't show up in the menu of the city that built the Military Academy, it's because you already have as many armies as your civ can support (4 cities per army). For example, if you have 12 cities, you can have 3 armies.

[Kuciwalker]

I'd suggest always building the max number of armies. They're expensive, but you can never have too many armies

[MotownDennis]

True dat.

[gunkulator]

I would add: You don't have to populate your armies right away unless you have a pressing need. Armies can just sit around empty if you're at peace. This is especially handy if you are on the verge of discovering something like iron working, feudalism, chivalry, military tradition, replaceable parts, motorized transport or the like.

The one big exception is your first leader/army. You want to get your first army victory soon to open the door to Heroic Epic and Military Academy. I've played small worlds where, as luck would have it, I finally got my first leader from a civ's last city. I wasn't ready to take on anyone else so I had this empty army just hanging around for several centuries. Most annoyingly. I couldn't build HE or MA during the long peace.

[Kuciwalker]

I would add: You don't have to populate your armies right away unless you have a pressing need. Armies can just sit around empty if you're at peace. This is especially handy if you are on the verge of discovering something like iron working, feudalism, chivalry, military tradition, replaceable parts, motorized transport or the like.

An army before Iron Working?

[Gamecube64]

An army before Iron Working?

What, you've never descended upon those crazy expansionist civs with a mighty 40 warriors?

[Kuciwalker]

I don't go to war quite that early, no

[MotownDennis]

Fun stuff.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
An army before Iron Working?

Only for the truly brave, i.e. not for me. I don't have the nerve to attack anyone before iron working.

[eris]

Re: Military Academy...how's their football team?

To discuss the thread heading rather than the thread content...

A University can viewed as a place for a football team. (This is US football, just to honor the fact that everyone else actually uses their feet when playing football.) It might be argued that the educational aspect is part of the culture, but really, who has seen university towns go wild with team colors and big team support signs and all that? Have you ever seen the same thing for a math competition or a philosphy debate? Point made. It might be argued that other teams contribute to the culture value, but living with a rabid football fan has conditioned me to think differently. (I try to avoid watching but have done so often, even being dragged to games by season ticket holders. If I do watch, I root for overtime and a tie game. It increases suspense and entertainment value as well as annoying fans for both teams. It's a better way to not pick a team than the conventional and boring "I don't care." Also, it is fun to watch the sports announcers trying to track and explain how this affects the teams' win/loss stats. Anyway....)

The Military Academy can be viewed as yet another University with a differently focused curriculum and a tighter dress code. But when it comes to football, they are as serious as any other educational institution that should be paying attention to education instead.

Given all this, and given that the Military Academy has only one culture point per turn while a University has 4 culture points per turn, I'd have to guess that the Military Academy's football team stinks. Big time.

I would never encourage people to put way more interpretation into the game mechanics than the developers intended. Just because I do it is no excuse for you to be that silly. But some of us here don't seem to need an excuse, do we?

[Arrian]

I bet it was because he already had the max number of armies for his empire.

Young Kuciwalker: having an army pre-iron working (or at least pre-having any swordsmen) isn't really that odd. Early ancient age no man's land warfare (typically with warriors & archers) can result in a leader very early on. Me, I'd use it on the FP, but to each his own.

-Arrian

[Solomwi]

Yeah, but you're a silly, foul builderer, Arrian ($1 to UnO).