Quote Originally Posted by Miracle
Kobal, it's not enough.

The HB's HQ is a level 3 guild that takes longer to get than a SS's guild. Most cavalry are built in castles so they can't get the extra 1 exp from the get-go. The two exp they do get from an HQ gives them only +1 att/def (not 2). They do get extra morale/stamina but it's probably not much.

In any case a +6 attack bonus completely overshadows the benefits from a +1-3 exp bonus.

It's true that I could change the name to "Weaponsmith's Guild" and make a ton of units eligible for points. But since every unit has a weapon, it makes the guild criteria far too broad and flavourless. It's true that I could also build/destroy tanners, but frankly it's an exploit that neither I nor the AI will do.

I guess I'm ranting too much so I'll make a constructive suggestion. The bonus should be +1 or +2 instead of +6 and should apply only to swords. After all, what business does a swordsmith have making spear points and pollaxes?
I had a potential solution to this brewing in another thread. We were discussing horsebreeders guild and how it is inexplicably limited to cities, though the vast majority of cavalry are in castles. I actually proposed a complete shift of the guild layouts, to make the guilds promote general strategies instead of specific units (at least where woodsmens, swordsmiths, and horse breeders are concerned). The idea was to use M2's built in class and type checking of units in order to grant points to each settlement by unit classifications instead of by the very selective means in the file in vanilla. Since all units can gain the melee upgrade, not just the ones that can actually give swordsmith points in vanilla, I opted to make swordsmiths a heavy infantry specialized guild instead since the melee bonuses are most consistent IMO with a heavy infantry strategy. This opens up the potential for any faction to be able to get it (I think, I haven't checked all rosters), and would help remove the unbalance that is being noted here.

Also you'll have to pardon me for saying it, but Swordsmiths Guild was already pretty broad and flavorless. It's honestly more interesting to think that if you produce a lot of heavy infantry, your smiths will get better at producing good equipment for them to use, whatever that may be, instead of this arbitrary and ridiculous focus on only swords.

Along with that I had also suggested woodsmens guild be allowed to every faction, and was then a general archery-favoring guild, granted points by any archer infantry recruited. Similarly Horse Breeders was allowed in castles, and gains points from any cavalry recruited. That actually seemed pretty fair to me, and likewise actually gives you the ability to specialize a castle for a given kind of production, something that is sorely lacking in the base game since most factions can only really hope for a swordsmiths guild or maybe a knight chapter house in a castle, since most potentially useful castle guilds were either far too faction-limited or simply setup in counter-intuitive ways (i.e. horsebreeders).