At this point I'm getting the impression that in rural life, schools were non-existent?
If this is the case then all education must have been done in the home? (or was the church also involved to a degree?)
Perhaps houses could be modded to have a faint education effect... (or churches)
Also I noticed Sims post in reference/numbers suggesting the number of universities founded during a two hundred year period. That's a lot more than I would have thought (80), all in cities I assume? I wonder what a medieval university would have looked like?
I think there would only be universities in them times. Only well to do's could afford it. Younger age schooling I think would have been done by live-in tutors and maids/nannys.
Everybody else, you're working by the age of three.
From the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 almost up to the turn of the millenium schools did not exist in any shape or form in Western Europe. From then on there evolved a (free) three layer schooling system open to everybody (but used by only a few). Up to the middle of the 13th century schools were entirely under the control of the catholic church. This only changed with the construction of 'public' Universities and the establishment of schools by merchants gilds.
The subjects taught were divided into two groups,
Arti del Trivio (artes sermocinales):
grammatica
retorica
dialettica
Arti del Quadrivio (artes reales):
aritmetica
geometria
astronomia
musica
The first layer of schools were the monastery. Basically every one had a school attached, which was open to the children of the surrounding villages. The second layer were the Cathedral Schools and the third the Universities.
Churches (and Monasteries, Cathedrals,...) will have to be much more important. They were the cultural (and not only) powerhouses of the day. Just to give you an idea of how many there were, here the numbers for Rome around 800 (ca. 20.000-25.000 inhabitants):
72 Churches, 17 'schools' (for the LW), 37 Monasteries
Churches (and Monasteries, Cathedrals,...) will have to be much more important. They were the cultural (and not only) powerhouses of the day.
Funny you should use those words. I was thinking last night, what if we made churches the power stations? And then change the warnings that pop up to reflect this. "your city is a bit low on god's love, maybe a donation to the church is in order"
Yes it's a stretch but power is going to be a difficult one to conceal, and will be a stretch regardless.
Lovely idea! 
