Military Academy (FOTS)

Military Academy (FOTS)
File:Military Academy FOTS.png
Chain	Modern Military Type
Requires	Buildings: Barracks Arts: Modern Rifles
Enables	Buildings: Army War College Units: Line Infantry Sharpshooters Black Tortoise Force Azure Dragon Force Kihetai Red Bear Infantry Tosa Riflemen Vermilion Bird Force Black Bear Infantry White Bear Infantry Yugekitai Imperial Infantry Shogunate Infantry Republican Infantry Sabre Cavalry Revolver Cavalry Carbine Cavalry
Spawned Defence Forces	Garrison Infantry
Basic Building Statistics	Cost: 6500 Recruitment capacity (units in training): +1 -2 to happiness from modernisation
Clan Effects	+3 to modernisation (clan development)
See main article; FotS Buildings

Description

Good breeding is a start, but thought is also useful.

A military academy allows the recruitment of modern units in a province. Modern warfare is a highly technical business, and an officer needs far more than good breeding and a samurai ancestry to get the best from his men, although those do help of course.

Western armies were, haltingly, in the process of making their officer classes into professionals rather than the sons of gentry and the aristocracy. Not all great generals appreciated the benefits of military academy education: Robert E. Lee, the greatest general of the American Civil War, is reported to have said his military education was the worst mistake of his life. It was also possible to send the sons of titled gentry to an academy and leave them utterly immune to any intellectual process. Indeed, the British staff college at Camberley was so poorly regarded that it had only a handful of pupils in the 1850s. Certainly, the backgrounds (and mixed performances) of British commanders during the latter years of Victoria's reign suggest that social class and connections were far more use in a successful career than an excess of thinking. Academies were nice to have, but that didn't mean commanders had to attend them.

Summary

The Military Academy is the Third building in the Modern Recruitment chain. It requires the Modern Rifles technology to be researched, which as the Arms Deals technology as a prerequisite and is only available to Clans in the Third Level of Development. This means only considerably modernized clans will be building a Military Academy.

The Military Academy is a very important building. It allows the recruitment of the Shogunate/Imperial/Republican Infantry. These units are the best overall Line Infantry type unit in the whole game, barring limited elite units, and should be the backbone of any late game Army. The Academy additionally allows the recruitment of Carbine Cavalry for all clans, if the Carbine Cavalry technology has been researched, an excellent missile cavalry with respectable melee stats. For the Aizu the Academy provides the Vermillion Bird Force as well, another excellent Line Infantry unit that competes with the aforementioned SIR Infantry. Finally for the Jozai, it provides Yugekitai, one of the best skirmisher units in the game. The Academy Provides every unit a Modern army would ever need except for Guards, Foreign Marines, and Artillery.

The Academy also increases Modernization by 1, increases Unhappiness due to Modernization by 1, and provides a Third free Line Infantry Garrison unit. The Encyclopedia description says that a Military Academy can only be built in Kyoto, but that is not true.