What guilds do you accept when they offer?

[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.