University

"Used to improve buildings and missile units."

- Age of Empires II description

The University is a research building in Age of Empires II that becomes available once the Castle Age is reached. The University provides technologies to improve buildings and missile firing units.

Tactics and Placement
As a building incapable of attacking or producing units, the placement of a Blacksmith must not be given much thought. All it needs to do is provide researches and optimally stand until it's done doing so. Once all necessary technologies have been researched, the Blacksmith is a completely useless building and can freely be deleted.

As the University provides essential technologies for defensive structures and missile firing units, it should be built as soon as enough wood is available, especially when a turtling strategy is chosen or the player goes heavy on ranged units. Ballistics and Chemistry are the most important technologies here and as such, their research should be prioritized.

Castle Age

 * Masonry.jpg Masonry
 * Fortified-wall-research.jpg Fortified Wall
 * Ballistics.jpg Ballistics
 * Guard-tower-research.jpg Guard Tower
 * Heatedshot.png Heated Shot
 * Murderholes.jpg Murder Holes
 * Treadmillcrane.jpg Treadmill Crane

Imperial Age

 * Architecture.jpg Architecture
 * Chemistry.jpg Chemistry
 * Bombard-tower-research.jpg Bombard Tower
 * Siegeengineers.jpg Siege Engineers
 * Keep-research.jpg Keep
 * Arrowlits.jpg Arrowslits

Civilization Bonuses

 * Burmese: Researching Faith is 50% cheaper.
 * Byzantines: Universities have +30%/+40% HP in the Castle/Imperial Age. Town Watch is free.
 * Chinese: Technologies that benefit Universities are 15%/20% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age.
 * Malians: Universities are 15% cheaper.
 * Spanish: Universities are built 30% faster.

Team Bonuses

 * A team containing Malians: Universities work 80% faster.

The Conquerors

 * Heresy introduced.

The African Kingdoms

 * Arrowslits introduced. Initially, it is available in the Castle Age. With patch 4.8, it moved to the Imperial Age.

Trivia

 * The African University is loosely based on the University of Sankore.

History
"During the bleakest days of the Dark Ages, learning was all but extinguished in much of Europe. A scattering of priests and monks in isolated monasteries carried forward the ability to read and write and kept books alive by copying old manuscripts. Charlemagne attempted to reverse this trend by creating a school to train men who could help him control his empire, but this experiment largely disappeared under a new wave of barbarian invasions from the north and east. The first centers of higher learning were associated with great cathedral towns such as Cambridge, Oxford, Padua, and Paris. Future priests and church leaders received training in Latin, the Bible, Christian philosophy, and other Christian writings. Medicine, science, and mathematics did not enter the curricula until much later. Graduates of these first universities led the Church and provided a pool of educated men who served generations of European kings as advisors and administrators."