Quote Originally Posted by FactionHeir
You could make the same argument for building cav at a citadel that has a knight hq (+2), tourney field (+2) and you got a horsebreeder hq (+2) and swords guild (+1) somewhere else. :p (train gold chev cav from the get go)
But yes, the game isn't completely balanced and I agree that being human already gives you a bonus. Still, for the AI it would be nice to have the 2 levels.
Won't it also benefit the human? Sure looks like it to me, in which case I fail to see the logic behind it being good for the AI to have the 2 levels. It really doesn't matter what you make the effect as long as it affects all the factions the same, and changing it doesn't seem like it could change things much since the difference will be felt by both human and AI factions. A more well-grounded reason would have to be that it is underpowered compared to other city guilds, a case which I'm not sure you can make. The combination of a normal agent bonus progression, merchant cav, and a base trade bonus seems like more extra abilities than other guilds have, and thus likely makes it too good by comparison. Of course one could suggest that the merchant cav are nearly worthless and thus simply not count that ability at all, but I doubt that's what CA did, which may be why the progression for agent bonus is set back a level.

OTOH it would be a lot more beneficial to forum discussions to have the usual progression, since we wouldn't have to keep talking about the silly merchants guild having a different bonus progression than the other agent guilds. I'm on the fence for this one, and it could sneak into my upcoming guild mod as a result. Lord knows it would be nice to have the base merchants guild do something useful instead of just give a few extra florins and some stupid cavalry...