Horse Breeders Guild - city only!

[Jambo]

It would appear that the Horse Breeders Guild is a city only guild, which might explain why one never sees one in a game. Most factions can only build stables and cavalry in their castle line of buildings...

Crazy.

One for the modders no doubt.

[FactionHeir]

Just remove the word city from the requires section in the EDB file from each level of the guild and you have it for castles too.

[Agent Smith]

Yay! Russia can get a guild that barely anyone one else can!

[TinCow]

Actually, I think it might be intentional. By restricting it to cities, it essentially limits the Horse Breeders Guild to factions that can recruit cavalry in their cities. These happen to be factions that were historically noted for having high quality horses, essentially the Muslim and Iberian factions. That makes sense to me.

[Jambo]

Maybe...

But then the stables line of buildings arguably gives the largest amount of points towards the guild, and they can only be built in castles and castles can't have the guild. So if it's intentional, it's pretty bizarre. Anyway, all cities still end up with Thieves Guilds.

[Shahed]

Right you are TinCow. It's city only to give an advantage to the Eastern factions.
You can achieve it with any faction.

Example As England if you wish to get the guild asap.

• Produce 60 (to be absolutely certain of gaining HQ) Hobilars from a castle.
• Disband them as they are produced unless you want to use them.
• Convert the castle to a city
• Low taxes
• High Chivalry Governor
• Maximise growth, build farms etc.
• Rush to Huge Stone Wall for HB Guild HQ.

Note: You don't need 60 Hobilars, I do that just to be sure and anyway I have cash to throw around.

[HoreTore]

Factions who can get horse breeders without doing something very special(like building units you wont use in your armies):

- England(Demi-Lancers)
- France(Gendarmes and Mounted Archers)
- Milan(Famiglia Ducale, broken lances and milita)
- Venice(Broken lances and milita)
- Spanish(Jinetes and Gendarmes)
- Portugese(Jinites)
- Moors(Arabs, Christian Guard and Granadine Jinetes)
- Egypt(Mamelukes and arabs)
- Turks(Turkomans and Sipahi)
- Sicily(Broken Lances and milita)
- Hungary(Hussars)
- Poland(Hussars)
- Can russia build cav other than their poor milita cav in cities?

This list is from memory, I might have left out some.

All of the units listed above are units you are very likely to use in your armies. For example, the italians get their heavy cav in cities, the english demi-lancers are as good as castle knights and can be built in cities, the iberians usually use a LOT of jinetes, same goes for the horse archers of the muslim factions.

However, for a lot of factions, these units come late, usually only from a huge city. That means you probably already have a guild in place... So simply demolish the guild in place, or plan far ahead and don't accept guilds where you'll one build cav.

The method I use, is to demolish the guilds already there. I usually do it when gunpowder arrives, as I'll then switch production from castles to cities. I'll have a couple of towns produce gunpowder with the alchemy guild, and a couple others producing cavalry with the horse breeder.

[Shahed]

Good post !

My idea is for those who wish to get the guild in early before Demi Lancers. Updated my 1st post.

[FactionHeir]

Actually you can have a city, get the merchant's guild, recruit loads of merchant cav, destroy the guild and upgrade to horse breeder.

[WhiskeyGhost]

Actually you can have a city, get the merchant's guild, recruit loads of merchant cav, destroy the guild and upgrade to horse breeder.

Very good idea, or perhaps get one of those Hospitallier (sp?) Templar, line of Knights building in your city could do that as well i suppose

[Shahed]

Good idea but merchant cav is expensive no ? I never recruited it so would'nt know. I'd go with the cheapest cav that is available.

[Kobal2fr]

Agreed with Tincow. Like Sinan said in another, ancient post, "The Arabs have a love affair with the horse".

(ok, I just wanted to post that sentence once more, I'll admit. )

But the fact that some stuff can only be gotten by some factions, or is much easier for some factions to get than others is intentionnal IMNSHO. Just like it's way easier for Western factions to get the Sword Guild, or like the christians don't have a battle assassin unit (except for those sneaky Hungarians that is). It certainly helps giving the Muslim cavalry the edge they need against christian knights, and with that kind of bonii they can actually hope to invade Europe, not just hope the crusaders die in the desert heat like in MTW... And making it more readily available to christians would just make the muslim factions even more underpowered than they already are.

EDIT : @Sinan : it's not really that Merchant Cav is expensive, it's that it's completely useless and way, way overpriced. They're a tad cheaper than knight, but IIRC they have even worse stats than Hobilars. They're just router bullies, in essence. Or at least, they would be in cav charges weren't so overpowered (see : Khazak charges)

[Daveybaby]

Right you are TinCow. It's city only to give an advantage to the Eastern factions.

I've said this before w.r.t. swordsmith's guilds - if it is intentional then its a mind bogglingly stupid way of achieving it. The golden rule of game design is: dont obfuscate the rules. The player should be able to determine cause and effect in your game, either by reading the manual, or by obvious in-game feedback. If horse breeders guilds are supposed to be aimed at eastern factions only, then be blatant about it. Make it only available to muslim and orthodox factions. Dont leave the player stumbling around trying to figure out a way to beat the limitations. Dont dangle a carrot in front of us but then force the us to try to come up with exploits just to get it (cos its not like the AI factions are ever going to work it out).

Similarly with swordsmiths guilds - you have to do some pretty detailed digging around in the game files before you discover that a couple of factions can't build em. All this can possibly do is alienate the player who's been playing as a russian wondering why they never get a swordsmiths guild. Either explicitly state that russians cant build em or make it as easy as it is for everyone else. Dont make the player extract descr_guilds.txt to figure it out.

Personally I find it very hard to believe that it's by design, given how broken a lot of the guild attraction mechanism obviously is. Case in point: thieves guilds. The AI obviously has no long term goals w.r.t. trying to attract certain guilds, it just builds the first thing it gets offered in each city - i.e. thieves guilds. This indicates that guilds are supposed to be balanced in terms of how quickly they get offered. Theyre supposed to come along in a way that suits whats being built in that city - its supposed to encourage city diversification - but thieves guilds just stomp all over that because their triggers are too easy to get.

Conversely, masons guilds are pretty damn hard to get. Frankly i never bother since the rewards are pretty poor, and i've yet to see one in an AI city.

Also: alchemists guilds - hands up anybody who has ever seen one in an AI city. Its only possible to get them late in the game once gunpowder arrives, by which point every city already has a guild, so you will have to either demolish an existing guild or have planned in advance and denied all guild requests in your chosen city. The AI doesnt do either of these as far as i can tell, so alchemists guilds might as well come with a rule which says 'only the player is allowed to build these'. If you build one of these then you're effectively using an exploit.

So the whole scheme is fundamentally broken for thieves guilds (too easy), mason's guilds (too hard) and alchemists guilds (too late). Its not beyond the realms of possibility thats swordsmiths guilds (bugged anyway if you consider that the guild HQ gives no extra effects after the master guild, so why have it?) and horse breeders guilds arent similarly broken.



I'd really like to see guilds drastically reassessed in the next patch (or even in the expansion). Make it so that once you have one thieves (or any other type of) guild, it becomes harder to get offered one of that type in your empire - i.e. push up the thresholds for that guild type - so other guilds get a chance. i.e. for the first guild the threshold is 100, for the second guild of the same type its 200, for the third its 300 etc*. Plus make swordsmiths guilds globally available, and make horse breeders guilds possible for castles - and if you want eastern factions to have a cavalry advantage then give it to them up front in some other way.

(*alternatively, every time you gain a guild, reset all of the guild scores to zero for that guild type)

[Husar]

I've said this before w.r.t. swordsmith's guilds - if it is intentional then its a mind bogglingly stupid way of achieving it. The golden rule of game design is: dont obfuscate the rules. The player should be able to determine cause and effect in your game, either by reading the manual, or by obvious in-game feedback.

The games which do that are often boring a lot sooner than those where I can always find new stuff that was hidden before, so I don't entirely agree. Some features are better revealed, but others are not. In this case, it's good as it is, IMO.

[FactionHeir]

Actually even though egyptians don't have a sword unit (other than hashashin, which I didn't train this time around) I got a lot of swordsmith guilds simply because I kept declining other guild offers and because I build the blacksmith line of buildings which give points towards swordsmith.
This also means russians can probably get it.

[John_Longarrow]

Merchant cav is cheap to build, expensive to maintain. Costs, IIRC, 390 to produce but has a maintanence cost of 250. Very poor attack, very good armor, OK charge bonus.

Biggest advantage it has is free upkeep in cities. With its small troop count this isn't much of an advantage since it doesn't work well for keeping control of a city. It also is only free for a city that already has a merchants guild.

[Daveybaby]

The games which do that are often boring a lot sooner than those where I can always find new stuff that was hidden before, so I don't entirely agree. Some features are better revealed, but others are not. In this case, it's good as it is, IMO.

There's a big difference between hidden features and depths to a game, and stuff that you have to figure out how to get that the AI cant. Either make make the AI clever enough to figure out how to get those guilds, or make them easier to get.

[Foz]

I agree with Daveybaby that the guild system is entirely too borked to lend any credence to the notion that Horsebreeder guild design may be intentional. The immediate tip-off is that it has guild points granted by a structure (the stable series) that cannot even be created in the same sort of settlement that it is available in. That is not only counter-intuitive, it is just plain stupid, and I refuse to demean CA developers by even suggesting that they might've designed the system to be so absurd.

It seems likely that either:

- Horse breeders guild is incorrectly limited to city only
- Stables were supposed to be available in cities

The former looks far more likely to me, and so working on the assumption that CA devs are not poor enough to intentionally design Horsebreeders the backwards way it currently is in the files, it seems the most prudent thing to do is simply grant the guild to castles as well where it seems like it should naturally be anyway.

Middle_eastern factions should have a sufficient edge with the guild still, as they continue to be able to recruit cavalry from cities, and get huge boosts to the guild total by constructing the racetrack series as well.

As to the comments on the thieves guild being everywhere, I've been trying to come up with a good way to beat that. The best I have so far is to somehow limit the guild to one instance per faction. My first idea was to make the guild points required for the guild and the m_guild be exactly the same amount (or 1 apart if identical is not allowed), and set them both for the same minimum city size requirement. This would essentially grant the m guild the first time a settlement gets offered the guild, and would ensure that only one could be in existence inside a given empire unless it captured more. It's a little sloppy, but it's way easier than trying to screw around with balancing the guild points that guild receives.

Alternately (and better if it works), I think you can attach a faction_building_exists check to the guild buildings in the EDB. I'd basically require "and not faction_building_exists >= thieves_guild" for each level, along with the faction requirements. This would actually keep all guild levels intact, but not allow a second thieves guild to be built if any already exists in the faction. Should check their proliferation nicely.

[HoreTore]

I agree with Daveybaby that the guild system is entirely too borked to lend any credence to the notion that Horsebreeder guild design may be intentional. The immediate tip-off is that it has guild points granted by a structure (the stable series) that cannot even be created in the same sort of settlement that it is available in. That is not only counter-intuitive, it is just plain stupid, and I refuse to demean CA developers by even suggesting that they might've designed the system to be so absurd.

It seems likely that either:

- Horse breeders guild is incorrectly limited to city only
- Stables were supposed to be available in cities

The former looks far more likely to me, and so working on the assumption that CA devs are not poor enough to intentionally design Horsebreeders the backwards way it currently is in the files, it seems the most prudent thing to do is simply grant the guild to castles as well where it seems like it should naturally be anyway.

Middle_eastern factions should have a sufficient edge with the guild still, as they continue to be able to recruit cavalry from cities, and get huge boosts to the guild total by constructing the racetrack series as well.

As to the comments on the thieves guild being everywhere, I've been trying to come up with a good way to beat that. The best I have so far is to somehow limit the guild to one instance per faction. My first idea was to make the guild points required for the guild and the m_guild be exactly the same amount (or 1 apart if identical is not allowed), and set them both for the same minimum city size requirement. This would essentially grant the m guild the first time a settlement gets offered the guild, and would ensure that only one could be in existence inside a given empire unless it captured more. It's a little sloppy, but it's way easier than trying to screw around with balancing the guild points that guild receives.

Alternately (and better if it works), I think you can attach a faction_building_exists check to the guild buildings in the EDB. I'd basically require "and not faction_building_exists >= thieves_guild" for each level, along with the faction requirements. This would actually keep all guild levels intact, but not allow a second thieves guild to be built if any already exists in the faction. Should check their proliferation nicely.

A good way to minimize thieves guilds is to edit out the "Spymission" and "Spyinsettlement" triggers. That way, thieves guilds will only appear where they are trained, and this will limit them nicely. If there are still too many, or two few for your taste, play around with the numbers on the "spytrained" trigger a little. I've set the number to 8 and upped the points for the first level to 125, and I've got the number of thieves guilds I want...

[FactionHeir]

To restrict the TG, I already upped the points needed and also restricted to only inns and above allowing spy upkeep (agent_limit)

[Foz]

Drat. Evidently the guild mechanics completely ignore the requirements of constructing the building that are listed in the EDB. I tried enforcing that only 1 thieves guild could be present, and then actually tried making it so to get a thieves guild you were already required to have one, and both cases resulted in their usual proliferation. That puts an unfortunate limit on my options.

[Daveybaby]

@Foz:
You could do something similar by just messing with the guild points.

Add a trigger like this to export_descr_guild.txt:

Trigger limit_thieves_guilds
    WhenToTest BuildingCompleted
    Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = thiefs_guild
    Guild thiefs_guild o -100

What this does is decrease the thieves guild scores for all other settlements you own (but critically not the settlement where you built the guild, thus you can still upgrade it). If you made this -1000, then you would probably never get a thieves guild offer in those settlements for the rest of the game. The only problem for this is that AFAIK guild scores are maintained when a settlement changes hands. So even if you dont have a thieves guild and you take over a settlement from someone that does, then youre probably not going to ever get to build a thieves guild there no matter how many spies you churn out from there.

So i would suggest making it -100 or so, which would just give theives guilds a bit of a handicap whenever you build another one. This could be expanded for every guild type to help make sure that no one guild ends up dominating the game, regardless of the balance of the trigger conditions.


What really needs getting rid of is the +2 per turn bonus for every settlement you own, for every spy in an enemy settlement at the end of a turn. If the AI has 5 spies around in various enemy settlements, thats +10 points per turn, every turn, for every settlement. No wonder there are so many thieves guilds around.

I think that by messing with the triggers for all of the guilds it should be possible to get the AI to have a variety of guilds in it's cities.


Some Possible Fixes For Other Guilds

Assassins Guilds are now way too easy to get for a human player. I trained up 4 or 5 assassins on a rebel stack, and went from no assassins guild at all to having the guild HQ in a dozen or so turns (wasnt counting, but it was certainly pretty rapid). This is because you get +20 in every settlement for each successful assassination!!!! Bit of an exploit there, so i would suggest neutering the assassins guild by nerfing the mission success points, maybe mod this down to +5 per success, or even get rid of it altogether.


This has been said so often by so many people that its almost not worth mentioning, but fix Horse Breeders Guilds so that they can be built in castles as well as cities (or even instead of).


I've been going on about Swordsmens Guilds and how annoying it is that russia and turkey dont get them, but i've now changed my mind (see woodsmens guilds below). What does need doing is a fix for the guild HQ, and in particular, removal of the cavalry bonus - if you want cavalry bonuses, build a horse breeders guild (obviously after fixing that so that you can build it in castles).

Normal Guild: +1 melee weapon
Masters Guild: +1 melee weapon, +1 valour to sword infantry trained in settlement
Guild HQ: +1 melee weapon, +1 valour to sword infantry trained faction wide


Instead of giving russia etc access to swordsmans guilds, how about beefing up Woodsman's Guilds instead? Get rid of the 'england only' rule, and add triggers so that it also gets points when you build axe wielding infantry, and get it to give weapon and valour bonuses to axe troops. Do halberds count as sort of axes? They look a bit axey... No? Thats turkey stuffed then.


Mason's Guild needs some more triggers, because at the moment its pretty hard to get, being (like the horsebreeders guild) a city based guild but with most of its triggers only buildable in castles. Solution: keep it city based, but boost the 'other settlements' triggers for the castle based buildings.

i.e, current triggers are:
Build Stone wall series: +10/15/20 settlement, +2/2/3 others
Build town watch series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement +2/2/2/2/3 others
Build mustering halls* series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +2/2/2/2/3 others
Build armourer* series: +10/15/15/20/25/30 settlement +2/2/2/2/2/3 others
Build bowyer* series: +10/15/20/30 settlement +2/2/2/3 others

change *these to something like:
Build mustering halls series: +10/15/20/25/30 settlement, +5/6/7/8/10 others
Build armourer series: +10/15/15/20/25/30 settlement +5/6/7/8/9/10 others
Build bowyer series: +10/15/20/30 settlement +5/6/8/10 others

Alternatively, add more triggers for other city based things like the catapult series, town hall series, etc.


The real problem is the Alchemists Guild. There is simply no way the AI is ever going to build this guild, because all of the triggers are gunpowder based, and by that time all the slots are inevitably taken. The only way i can see a way to make this work is to tie it to ballistas/catapults/trebuchets as well as cannons/handguns. Since the guild gives an experience (i.e. valour) bonus and not a weapon bonus this is kind of feasible, since its all about aiming big guns at things far away really innit?


Great. Now all i need to do is find enough spare time to write the mod

[Husar]

There's a big difference between hidden features and depths to a game, and stuff that you have to figure out how to get that the AI cant. Either make make the AI clever enough to figure out how to get those guilds, or make them easier to get.

So the AI works towards getting certain guilds? Have you ever discovered it's pattern for guild construction?
Haven't seen the AI build gothic knights yet, maybe they should be available in wooden castles because currently the AI can't figure out how to build them.
I don't think dumbing the game down to suit the AI is a good idea because it also dumbs the player down, if you go on like that, you could make the battles similar to chess because the AI can handle that a lot better.
I think if it's a bit of a challenge for a player to get a certain guild with certain factions, that's fine, I guess it's meant to be like that, and if it's hard for the AI as well, then it's probably meant to be hard for the AI as well, otherwise they could have made the AI cheat for example, but then you might end up with master horse breeder HQs in every AI city.

[Daveybaby]

So the AI works towards getting certain guilds? Have you ever discovered it's pattern for guild construction?

Yes, i have discovered its pattern: It builds the first guild it gets offered, in every city. This is inevitably the thieves guild, since the triggers are unbalanced. If the AI has any longer term goals, such as 'save this city for a mason's guild', there isnt any evidence of it.

What we need to do is either re-write the AI so that it prioritises different guilds for different cities (impossible, unless you happen to have a copy of the M2TW source code lying about that we can have to play with) or, more realistically, mod the game to balance the triggers so that a range of different guilds are offered to the AI before it manages to put a thieves guild in every city.

Haven't seen the AI build gothic knights yet, maybe they should be available in wooden castles because currently the AI can't figure out how to build them.

The reason the AI isnt building gothic knights is financial, not trigger based. Its widely acknowledged that the AI doesnt spend its cash wisely, which is why there are several threads devoted to giving it huge cash bonuses to make it competetive.

I don't think dumbing the game down to suit the AI is a good idea because it also dumbs the player down, if you go on like that, you could make the battles similar to chess because the AI can handle that a lot better.

I guess we can just wait for a much better AI. While youre at it can you sort out poverty and world peace? ;)

Failing that, in the real world, the game rules and the AI's capability to utilise those rules to play the game competitively have to be in balance. Otherwise, the human player is effectively given massive advantages over the AI. Dont make your game too complex for the AI to play it.

Chess is an excellent case in point - chess AIs are really good because the rules are very simple and well known. Its a level playing field. If there were lots of stupid rules like 'if you have a bishop next to a queen on turn 19 and its a wednesday and none of the knights have moved yet, then you can have an extra rook' then chess AIs would have a much harder time of it. If the player could exploit that rule because the chess AI hadnt been programmed to know about it, then the human has an unfair advantage. Also no one would play chess, because it would suck.

Much better to have all the rules out in view, and an AI that knows about them, and let the gameplay depth and replayability come from strategic interactions and an AI opponent that can actually play the game as well as you can.

I think if it's a bit of a challenge for a player to get a certain guild with certain factions, that's fine, I guess it's meant to be like that, and if it's hard for the AI as well, then it's probably meant to be hard for the AI as well

Its not hard for the AI, its impossible for the AI, because it isnt programmed to jump through the hoops required to get a horse breeders guild in a castle. The reason it isnt programmed to jump through those hoops is most likely because thats not how the game was designed to be played. Thus a human player has a advantage over the AI that i would consider an exploit.

[Jambo]

So the AI works towards getting certain guilds? Have you ever discovered it's pattern for guild construction?
Haven't seen the AI build gothic knights yet, maybe they should be available in wooden castles because currently the AI can't figure out how to build them.
I don't think dumbing the game down to suit the AI is a good idea because it also dumbs the player down, if you go on like that, you could make the battles similar to chess because the AI can handle that a lot better.
I think if it's a bit of a challenge for a player to get a certain guild with certain factions, that's fine, I guess it's meant to be like that, and if it's hard for the AI as well, then it's probably meant to be hard for the AI as well, otherwise they could have made the AI cheat for example, but then you might end up with master horse breeder HQs in every AI city.

I'm sorry, but this standpoint doesn't wash with me. I have never seen a Horse Breeders Guild in my entire time of playing Med II, and that's not surprising given that the main source of points for the HBG is from the stables line of buildings and these are only buildable in cities. Like Foz stated above, this can't be design intention. It's a mistake, plain and simple. Yes it might be possible from some obsessed human player to manufacture the game's mechanics to get a HBG, but if it's that difficult for the player it'll be nigh impossible for the AI, which seemingly just builds the first guild offered in any of its cities/castles. And this is why the AI always has Thieves Guilds in its cities and the occasional Swordsmith Guild in its castles. Any good game design should be based around what the AI can achieve, and if the AI can't do it, it shouldn't be in (or should at least be modified).

Having said all that, I am interested in Daveybaby's suggestion as to how to limit Thieves Guilds, and any other guild for that matter. Does anyone know if this works well? My only concern would be if the AI does manage to build more than one of the same guild type - would this trigger not hamper the progression to the later levels in the other cities?

Anyway, interestingly, as soon as I allowed HBGs to be built in castles, I found an AI castle with one pumping out upgrade cavalry. Hey presto, problem solved.

[Jambo]

Also, what exactly does an Explorers Guild do? I'm always being offered these, but can't seem to find anything in the code...

[FactionHeir]

Gives you a chance of getting some ancillaries. Each level gives the same chance, not cumulative.

[Daveybaby]

Also, what exactly does an Explorers Guild do? I'm always being offered these, but can't seem to find anything in the code...

Not much.

There's a 5% chance each turn for a general in the settlement to get an ancillary that gives movement and line of sight bonuses.

Theres a 33% chance that an admiral created in the settlement will get an ancillary that gives 1 command point, and movement + line of sight bonuses again.

Plus there 2 or 3 really obscure ancillaries that can only turn up between certain dates, that give movement & trade bonuses - one of which is marco polo, apparently - have never seen them actually appear though

According to the in game description it also gives some kind of trade bonus. Havent seen any evidence of that in the files though, and havent really tested it in-game.

So overall, pretty useless IMO. There's an awful lot more that could be done with this guild (e.g. give 'knowledge of customs' traits to merchants, and other movement and line of sight based ancillaries to generals, translators etc to diplomats etc etc) but i really dont think theyre worth bothering with at the moment.

[Philbert]

Factions who can get horse breeders without doing something very special(like building units you wont use in your armies):

- England(Demi-Lancers)
- France(Gendarmes and Mounted Archers)
...

The Danes should be able to get horse breeder's guild as well, since they can train the Norse War Clerics from a church buildings Abbey and up. I use these a lot since they get an experience point when they only frown towards an enemy and can basically be retrained in almost every city since you need your churches anyway.

I will try to dedicate one city to train these in my current Dane Campaign and see if I really can get the Horse lovers' Guild.

[Vladimir]

This should work perfect in Italy. I just turned Florence into a castle on VH to for a quick supply of cavalry.