University

Brief Overview of the University and how you could prioritize it.

The University is complex with a lot of choices, which can make it difficult to understand. However, understand and invest in the power of university easily separates good players from the rest.

**Main benefits of University**:

* University increases your attack (and defense) without increasing your XP points.
* University's boosts are category boosts. If you research extra hit points for your towers, all towers get the boost. If you research extra hit points for Heavy Tank, all Heavy Tanks get the extra hit points.
* Troops donated to you will also get the boost from your University research. However, troops you donate to other will not "carry over" your university skills.

**When should one start working on the university?**

This is one of the most often asked question in our alliances and leaders have address repeatedly. We recommend all players start to work on University as early as possible for the reasons above. If you have not seriously invest your university researches, IT IS NEVER TOO LATE. If you are reading this article, you have a good start.

**Attack boosts:**

We recommend getting the attack boosts as soon as possible. In this game developing your attack always comes first, we talked about this point in many of our articles. Therefore, the benefits the university gives to boost your attack against your own age or the age above is especially important.

Below is a general guide that highlights some of very valuable attack boosts.

Work on as soon as possible:

* Chief Hiawatha: This has some nice skills in it which are good, but the final skill is the best. It reduces the number of citizens for skills with food cost by 1. Chief Hiawatha is not that hard, and you should get it completed as soon as possible before doing much else.
* Mansa Musa: Same as above except the citizen reduction by 1 is for research skills that cost gold.  Again, do this before completing the other skills as it is relatively quick.
* Emperor Moctezuma: The best skills are coalition power increase, and the final boost of national trade goods when finished. Moctezuma is quick and easy to finish in comparison to most. Therefore, it is worth getting it done early. There are some other nice boosts in it while getting there.

Must haves depends on your age:

* **Sally Ride**: The alliance gate troop capacity increase is a "must get" as soon as you can. In the process of getting this you get the machine gun boost and the commando boost as both really help. The next level above the last two is spawn two machine guns on death of a heavy tank, which is also very good to get. Lots of factory troop boosts worth getting early, and some barrack troops boosts for later Ages.
* **Leonardo Da Vinci:** Level three gives you your cannon upgrades, which you need, and level 5 gives you heavy tank upgrades which you are going to need starting with Industrial Age, so this is worth prioritizing, but a bit of work to get there.
* **Amelia Earhart**: This is low on the list mainly because it is not much use until you have an Airstrip in Industrial Age, then it moves to the top of the list. Level two has reduced aircraft upgrade costs which is important as there are a lot of plan upgrades, 17 fighter plane upgrades from Industrial through Atomic Age alone. In addition, you have bomber and transport plane upgrades. Completing Amelia Earhart gives you one additional airstrip space.

Good to have:

* Empress Wu Zetian: On the fourth level is increase mercenary camp capacity but takes a lot to get there. Not sure it is worth it, but it is an attack option.
* Harriet Tubman: Level one has trap upgrade time reduction. While this is not an attack bonus, do this one if you decide to spend time on your traps, as it is an easy to get, cheap boost worth getting. The rest of this professor is not worth worrying about as a priority, except the three spy functions. The three spy functions are not a “must have”, but they help with target selection in wars and will help you to understand if you need additional troop tactics or a different troop composition to maximize the number of stars you can win. The spy information may also result in you selecting a different attack target all together.
* Catherine the Great: Level one is your infantry boosts, which you use a lot in early ages, so this is important. Infantry is useful even in later ages as they are excellent in battle field cleanups. That is the only interesting skill in Catherine for attack.
* Hannibal Barca: Level one mercenary damage increase is worth getting as fast as you can. The rest does not help much until later in the game. Level 5 has a reduction in General oil cost which is useful once you start upgrading your Generals beyond level 10, and you have skills that will provide increases in General and Mercenary Hitpoints.
* Suleiman the Magnificent: Level two of this gives you upgrades to demolition tactic. If you use demolition tactic, this is well worth getting. The rest is not important for attack.
* Emperor Haile Selassie: You will transition from barrack to factory troops as you evolve through the Ages. Haile Selassie will be important from Industrial Age on, specifically for increasing Damage and Hitpoints for Machine Guns first, followed by Bazooka Damage and Hitpoints. The next important skill set is Coalition Troop Damage and Hitpoints, but you need a University upgraded to Cold War level, so it will be important much later in the game.
* King Sejong: Range units upgrade are available on level 2, but there are better choices, and you do not use these much until later in the game. When you finish this professor, you will get a reduction of one citizen for all University research.
* Sultan Saladin: Battle tank (cavalry) upgrades are on level four, but they are too far in to get them easily, and by the time you get them, you stop using battle tanks. Possibly, if you are French civilization this might be worth it.

**Defensive and economic boosts:**

Don't forget university also provides defensive and economic boosts, and they have the same benefits and impacts in their category. We recommend all players to be attack-focused, especially for players participating in World Wars. The defensive researches in University can make a big difference in War defense and are good to look into when you waiting on other parts of the game.