What guilds do you accept when they offer?

[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)

[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.