Part of the problem here might be perception of the scale of skills. People look at 20% and think, rubbish at hitting things with swords. Like Scarborn said this is the skill of the warrior class, it is all relative. 20% is when compared to the non nobility actually quite a high livel of skill, its is just relatively low vs those of the nobility with exceptional skill.
The math may not work out (it's a complicated equation, too, so I don't see it being done for a while), but Leadership training in academies does have an impact on how well your troops perform and therefore how often you win. Leadership, of course, is also gained during battle, but when I started, I was told that getting it higher via the academy would be a smart move. So it would actually be pretty interesting to see an academy realm vs. a no academy realm, from an... academic standpoint. (Thank you, thank you.)
Inputs to such an equation would be:
- Time spent training
- Gold spent training
- Average Leadership level attained
- Impact Leadership has on combat
- Time committed to engage in battle
Essentially, you'd look for a common ground: How much does Leadership % translate into combat effectiveness vs. throwing in real gold and time. Input #5 would need to be finagled to determine how the time resources "lost" to training could be used in combat effectiveness... Assuming you need a minimum of 4 hours remaining to reach any destination on a single turn, you could maybe count that input as "hours beyond 8 used per turn".
Sorry I just like these math things sometimes.
That would get much closer to reality, but perhaps be difficult to convey to the player what stage of training they are up to and how they may best advance their skill. Considering what Scarborn has said about being of the warrior class I am reconsidering my previous statement about battle advancement of skills. If we assume that our characters have trained from birth, then they are already proficient. Perhaps a good starting position is to increase the chance of skill gain from battle and see what effect that has?
