with the delhi flair keeps+compound of the defender looks pretty attractive.

house of learning is awesome. it really is. but compound of the defender has all the keep techs in it now since this patch. meaning as soon as you hit castle age, you can begin researching village fortresses in the compound. so if you've been gathering stone in preparation of making a keep, you will save the build time of the keep on the village fortress technology. it's also 150 total resources cheaper than a town center. takes 3 minutes to build a keep with 1 villager, the tech is 5 minutes, so even with 3 or 4 villagers you're still saving a solid chunk of time and resources booming with a keep right away in castle.

but what do i know. i know with the recent wall nerfs compound of the defender might not be as attractive as a buffed house of learning.