Guilds

[SirRethcir]

export_descr_guilds.txt

First, there is a list of all guilds.
All have 'levels 100 250 500', so I think these are the 'reputation' values that one must reach to be offered a guild building.

Then there is a long list of triggers for events that mostly raise the reputation pool for certain guilds.

There are 3 variables affected s, o, a.
So, what is there purpose?

[Epistolary Richard]

s = the impact on that specific settlement where the event occured (e.g. an agent was recruited)
o = the impact on other settlements
a = the impact on all settlements

all = influences all guilds

According the CA Oz guys you can be offered the maximum of one guild a turn (and only if you have the money for it). If you refuse a guild three times you're no longer offered it.

[SirRethcir]

Ah, thanks.
So 'levels 100 250 500' apply to one specific city.
Make sense.

[Eldon]

I altered one of the triggers in export_descr_guilds.txt so as to give all guilds in all settlements >500 points after turn 2. I've only had time to do one run through (110 turns straight - modded desc_strat to have Lisbon, Toledo, Leon and Pamplona as Spain - all cities/castles maxed to highest level at turn 1 with console commands as forgot to do it in desc_strat). Need to do more replication - but i can say:

1. You can reject a guild at least 4 times and still be offered it again (I got bored and accepted on the 5th run) - maybe the CA devs mean you can only destroy it 3 times? (will check)
2. Offers are not randomly given out, at least on a per settlement basis. From turn 2 - 49 I was only offered guilds in Lisbon and in exactly the same order 4x (stopped at merchant's on 5th run through list) mason's --> theologians --> merchant's --> assassin's --> alchemist's --> thieve's --> explorer's --> swordsmith's --> knight's of santiago --> horse breeder's --> blank turn
Interestingly this is also the same order as you find them in the datafiles except that the assassin offer is in the wrong spot (but i really need to repeat this all again - once is far from scientific!!! The mason's might come first because of my building walls in game to upgrade settlements.)

After finally accepting a guild the offers started again after a one turn wait.
However, this time the list was of a different order and included an offer for a swordsmith in Toledo but then continued on with Leon. But then things got really broken and I only got offers for a merchant's guild every 11 turns. So it was definitely still cycling through the list of guilds OK but I don't know what happened to offers for the other guilds. After turn 85 I got nothing at all!!!

3. While I received offers only at Lisbon this was not due to population size as Leon overtook it at one point but the offers still went to Lisbon.

4. Some regions in the descr_regions.txt have keywords for various guilds (commonly explorers and knightly orders). However, Lisbon still received an offer to build a KoS chapter house even though it does not have this keyword in it's entry. It may give a bonus to the initial starting value for the guild in that territory - but I need to check, and find the size of the bonus if it does. This may explain why the list for Leon was interrupted by an offer for swordsmith at Toledo (though why did this not happen for the period of Lisbon offers?).

Anyway, this is only preliminary data and was more of a test for me to discover how to examine the guild related stuff. I hope it's at least a little intersting if not yet hugely useful.

[alpaca]

Very good work Eldon! Keep us updated.

[SirRethcir]

1. You can reject a guild at least 4 times and still be offered it again

Was it the same city?

[Eldon]

Yes. I have tested that particular point several times now and you can definitely receive an offer for the same guild at the same city at least 5 times (I give up after that - only being able to collect one piece of data per turn is slowwww there's only so fast i can hurry those turns through )
Presumably the offering of guilds continues as long as you meet the prereqs tho i could be wrong still, it might just be a higher threshold than my patience will tolerate!!!

Anyway, I'm still busy testing, but the order in which each of the guilds are offered is definitely not random, still working out the exact behaviour though - there's a few peculiarities in my dataset, but i think i'm grokking them.

The keyword's in desc_strat definitely give a bonus to that city's 'reputation' for the particular guild - just working out the size of it now. I imagine it's possible to add other guilds as 'hidden resources' - like assassins_muslim_guild to where Alamut fortress is?

The highest level city/castle seems to get any guild offer first; when cities/castles are of the same level then whichever has the highest 'rep' gets the offer, if that's equal....not sure yet (i think it's the westernmost region that gets it, but that's only cos i can't find any other explanation yet)!!! They seem to be only things that matter - there is no correlation that i can find with population size, PO, income or governor.

Well, that's an update. As long as i don't run into trouble xmas shopping I think i might have the inner workings cracked by the end of this weekend. Cheers.

[alpaca]

Well the westernmost city doesn't sound that bad. The regions are numbered from northwest, toward the east, then south, however it's not a very good tiebreaker... Who knows what the guys at CA did though ;)