What guilds do you accept when they offer?

[Alpedar]

Its good to have one from each guilds. So if its first offer of given guild and place is not realy unsuitable, I accept.
But when i already have such guild, its harder decision.

I tend to accept a lot Knight-Hospitallers to cities (and currently I play Milan, so I have a LOT of cities) becose of their health bonus and that they offer superior cavalry (better than castle cavalry).

[Quillan]

I tend to do a little specialization. I'll train all my merchants at a major port city to get a merchants guild there. I'll train all my spies in one place to get a thieves guild there, and do the same with assassins if I'm not playing a chivalrous game. All priests will be trained in one city in each geographical region to get a theologians guild. Other than these, it really depends on what faction I'm playing. In my current game as England, I wanted 2 castles on the British Isles, one with a Woodsmen's Guild and one with a Swordsmiths' Guild. I did the same in Mainland Europe. Once I've got those, and taken one explorer's guild someplace, I tend to accept whatever is offered aside from Thieves' Guilds. In fact, almost ever city I take has a Thieves' Guild, which I wind up tearing down to replace with something else. Sometimes I'll take a merchants guild in a town, recruit a few dozen merchant cavalry (disbanding them after recruiting), then tear down the merchants guild in the hopes of getting a Horse Breeders Guild.

[Ramses II CP]

I seek out only five guilds, Swordsmith, Merchant, Theologian, Horsebreeder, and any of the Knight guilds.

Any city will benefit from the latter four guilds, and any castle will benefit from the first.

If you're England you can't easily avoid getting the Woodsmen, and it's also excellent, but useless for any other faction to capture.

In general I accept one Theives, Assassin/Hashashin, Explorer, and Alchemist and might try to improve it on the side, but I don't go hunting them.

I find the Mason's Guild the most difficult to get, though certain factions have to capture a Horsebreeder there's always one at certain cities waiting for you to snag.

[WhiskeyGhost]

I generally end up with 1-2 of most Guilds such as Horsebreeders/swordsmith/assassins/thieves/Knights(templar, hospitaller) all in key locations. All the rest end up as Merchants Guilds, except for one Theologian guild i usually have stationed in the middle of the map.

I've personally never seen the Mason's Guild (not through lack of trying), since it would take a stupidly absurd amount of build/destroy in the same place over and over

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(If you build a mustering hall [1 turn] over and over, you could build up the points for it 10 at a time)

. Most of the time i can't afford the drain on my Income to go through the numbers to get the Masons Guild, since if i did i would fall prey to an invasion due to a lack of military on my part.

[Zaleukos]

As long as I dont use a lot of assassins:

One maxed out Merchants guild, ideally as close to the profitable resources as possible.
One maxed out Explorers guild (global movement bonus?).
One maxed out Theologicians guild (once it hits max level your priests get a significant global piety bonus, there's no need for more than one even if you recruit priests elsewhere, as your priests dont compete with others the way merchants do).
Knightly orders in the remaining cities (though this gets boring from a RP view), lvl 1 is enough.

I wouldnt actively work to get a thieves guild as it is very very easy to train thieves manually.

Swordsmiths guild in every castle (maxed out if non-Scottish catholic, otherwise level 1 is fine). Level 2 and above gives a global experience to knights, and this stack.

If muslim or byzantium I try to get a horse breeders guild (tricky as Byz, the easiest way is to capture a place with a horse racing track) for a global cavalry bonus, otherwise I dont bother with that guild.

Never had a woodsmans guild as I dont play the English, and never accept masons guild due to the relatively uninteresting bonuses.

[Alpedar]

What does masons do? Cheaper building in this city or everywhere? Are there other bonuses?
(If not, it looks useless to build a lot in one city, to get discount on what WILL be built there when almost everything is already finished)

[crpcarrot]

playing as the turks i have never been offered swordsmith/woodsman/horsbreeders guild. i play LTC but i only ever get the other guilds is there any strategy i can follow to get the above 3 guilds

[Monsieur Alphonse]

playing as the turks i have never been offered swordsmith/woodsman/horsbreeders guild. i play LTC but i only ever get the other guilds is there any strategy i can follow to get the above 3 guilds

Woodsmen can only be build by England.
Horsebreeders: train horses in a city and hold races.
Swordsmith: since Turks don't have a sword unit they don't get it. The only way to get one is to build and destroy a leather tanner until you get offered one (and of course capturing one). JHIs, dismounted Sipahi's and Saracen spears rock with swordsmith upgrades.

[TheLastPrivate]

For turks its easiser to capture one from byz or hungarians.

[Scot's Pike General]

playing as the hre, the only guilds I really need are the teutonic knights guild (head quarters in frankfurt by turn 60 and minor ones at Magdeburg and Hamburg) and some explorers guilds at a few of my ports.

[WhiskeyGhost]

What does masons do? Cheaper building in this city or everywhere? Are there other bonuses?
(If not, it looks useless to build a lot in one city, to get discount on what WILL be built there when almost everything is already finished)

First level gives a 30% building discount in the city it's built in. Second level gives that bonus, and a 20% discount in ALL other towns/castles. Third level gives 30% locally and to all other towns/castles if i recall it correctly. Thats a sizable discount if you can get it early on, but most of the time, you could easily afford to upgrade all key locations without the discount.

[crpcarrot]

in LTC u cant build HA's in cities even though u can build a racing track. HA's can only be trained in castles. i hope i can get the guild at a castle.

well i guess i'm going to have to capture the sowrdsmiths guild TA and sipai's seem to carry sword dont they count towards swordsmiths guild?


masons guild seeme pretty handy i guess u just got to keep one city free till it gets offered. ive never had one.

[imnothere]

Merchants - for most of my cities.

Warrior Guilds - Hospitallar/Templar for fringe cities - citidal if possible.

Swordsmith guild - for my Castle

Then fraction specialisation guild - (horse? woodmen?) for the other places.

I normally rejected these unless I got really bored or else invade and cant be bothered to change - Thieves, Assassin, Theologians

I won't even consider Mason's. but i would accept one if i am bored enough.

Consider this - Gold and Men are the sinews of war, anything else are just toppings.

[Viking]

I accept all. Such tedious micro management it would else be.

[Alpedar]

I'm thinking about changing points needed for different guilds. (I suppose AI accepts all and obviously this means thief guild is easiest to get)
Eg. double thiefs guild and lower mason's.

[Fisherking]

I usually take one or two of what they offer and get more selective as the game moves along. After I get a world headquarters for a guild I may even tear a few down to see what I can get next.

I still have never been offered the Alchemists Guild though... Maybe I don't build enough cannons...

[predaturd]

i think you need to make the gunpowder makers (dunno the name never use gunners much) and both cannons and firearms men

[ReiseReise]

I don't build thieves guild because the AI spams them all over the place and it is easier to capture one and have it closer to the front lines. Other than that I usually build all my merchants and priests from the city I want their respective guild in. Of course as Egypt or Hungary Assassin/Hashashim are necessary so you can play around with the unique units. I never saw the use of Explorers guild, does it actually give global movement bonus? That would be very nice, I thought it just gave a chance for ancillary characters.

[imnothere]

I thought that Guild will have maintenance cost?

so accepting just any crappy guild (gee... 5th Thieves Guild in a row) is not a good idea as it is a florins-draining exercise.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I thought that Guild will have maintenance cost?

so accepting just any crappy guild (gee... 5th Thieves Guild in a row) is not a good idea as it is a florins-draining exercise.

There are no maintenance costs for guilds. You only pay once a 1000 florins to get it build.

[ReiseReise]

The downside of spamming thieves guilds all over the place is that you can only have one type of guild per city. Building a couple might be alright because each one gives the other a boost towards the next level, but i wouldn't build more than 2 or 3 if you want to have room for anything else. This is probably why the AI spams them, they build spies like crazy, getting points towards guild for each one recruited, then get a guild, which gives every city a bonus, so 2 more cities get offered a guild, they build them, every city gets another bonus, 5 more cities get offered guilds and so on until every AI city has a Thieves guild.

[Fisherking]

Once I have a world headquarters of something I usually get rid of extras of the same type. The penalty for tearing it down won't hurt you at all then. The things I keep most are Chapterhouses for Knights Orders and Woodsmens Guilds as well as Swordsmith's Guilds...those come in handy.

[mir]

In my Turkish Grand Campaign, I have:

1 Hashashim's Guild HQ in Akka (ie Acre)
1 Merchant's Guild HQ in Antakya (Antioch)
1 Explorers Guild HQ in Kudus (Jerusalem)

1 Master Theologians Guild in Adana
1 Master Horsebreeder's Guild in Kaire (Cairo)
1 Master Swordsmiths' Guild in Toledo - captured from the Spanish
1 Swordsmiths' Guild in Sofya (Sofia) - captured from the Hungarians
1 Master Thieves Guild in Leon - captured from the Spanish

In all other cities, I only build Merchant's Guilds to increase my revenue.

[PBI]

Hashashims guilds are a must for any Muslim faction, Hashashim are the best wall-takers in the game (a unit type which the Muslim factions tend to lack otherwise).

I tend to have a lot of merchants guilds, since I believe they increase trade income, and I tend to use a lot of merchants anyway. I usually get a couple of theologians guilds and explorers guilds.

I takes a while to get alchemist's guilds since you generally have to build the top level barracks first to start spamming musketeers/arquebusiers, but at least these units are useful in their own right; however, the guild is bugged I believe, it only upgrades the melee stats of gunpowder units. It gives some nice ancillaries though.

[anonymous_joe]

What's the best way to get Swordsmiths guilds then? Spam sword units?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

What's the best way to get Swordsmiths guilds then? Spam sword units?

Yes.

[PBI]

But not all sword units work. I believe swordsmen militia, for example, don't contribute towards getting the guild. Also some factions have no castle-built sword infantry (e.g. the Turks) and will find it very hard to get the guild. The best way is to either capture one or else find some trick like spamming hashashim before converting to a castle and demolishing the hashashim's guild, and hoping you've built enough of them.

But otherwise, generally any high-level swordsmen such as DFK should do the trick.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I only accept Merchant's Guilds if I am planning on sending a merchant force down to Timbuktu or Dongola, or sometimes even the gold mines near Zagreb.

I always accept Swordsmith's Guilds since they are extremely useful if you want to train an army. I don't usually bother with Assassin's Guilds, unless I am a Muslim faction. Theologians Guilds are only useful if you need to boost your religion in a province (through priests), or maybe in a city with a good Cathederal since it means I can basically train Cardinals.

I very rarely get Horsebreeder's Guilds. And having played as nearly every team, I've only ever once got a Mason's Guild. It was in Yerevan, can't remember who as though. It doesn't actually make all buildings cheaper, only walls and towers, though it does give you a big discount on them.

Explorer's Guilds seem pretty uselss, I only accept them if I am stinking rich.

[Yaropolk]

For explorers guilds, there are no additional benefits beyond 1st level. Having an explorer guild confers teh following bonuses (general who ends his turn in settlement can gain a +movement trait) generals more than x moves away from capital can gain some unique anciliaries like vasco da gamma and marco polo. That's it, pretty crappy if you ask me. I usually get a basic one if it's offered for a chance at the unique anciliarries, and thats about it.

[Ratwar]

I'll accept any Guild if it fits in my plans for a city. As a general rule though, I go for only one Explorers, Thieves, and Assassins. I usually end up with two Theologians Guilds, one in my major Empire, and the other in heathen territory (Usually in Rome or Jerusalem, depending on my religion). Then I concentrate on getting one Merchant Guild (and if my faction allows it, one Horse Breeder). Other than that, I just build Merchant, Swordsmith, and Knight Guilds as they appear.