Guilds (corporations) - Suggestions thread

[Winston]

Hi all, Having scanned the other threads I couldn't find anything related to the FFH corps so I thought I would set this up to get people's views on them.
Personally, I am indifferent to the guilds in their current forms as they seem tied to one city and have very limited impact and I wondered if it's possible to either enhance the current ones or bring in others with more impact.

The Ratcatchers, Wardens, Cult of the Dragon, seem to have no impact whatsoever in the three games I've played with them in.
I've never seen Gaelan's Circle but the civilopedia indicates it has a very mild effect.
Aeron's Bounty and the Guild of Hammers also seem to have almost no impact on the game.
Circle of the 9 seems to be the only exception because you can easily win the game using this guild to spam mercs but it seems to be a human only strategy because I havn't seen the AI spamming mercs.

I was thinking the corp mechanic would work really well with schools of magic but as Kael and co have already designed some guilds I think we can collectively brainstorm some ideas for the current ones.

Some ideas to get the ball rolling:
1) have corps founded by researching techs but other civs can gain access to the guild by building something (spreads the guilds to more than 1 city and 1 civ).
2) have the wardens as a boost for trailing civs as opposed to civs that are being invaded.
3) have the guilds grant access to special units - not just Co9
4) national unit cap on mercs to prevent abuse
5) Cult of the Dragon is founded by the Red Dragon if not done so already by the Shiem or Kuriotates
6) Have guilds using resources for benefits

I'm sure our community can come up with lots of good ideas to jazz these up

 

[Demus]

mainly, they need more events. There should be at least 10x as much crime events as there are now, giving the ratcatchers some impact. Same goes for the wardens and the cult imho. Guild of hammers is fine, just needs a higher spread rate (to other civs aswell). Aeron's bounty could grant a bonus to assassins and shadows built in the city?

 

[xienwolf]

I haven't had time to test all of them out, but there ARE some events based off the guilds. But they might not be working properly so failing to show up for people to even provide feedback on them.

 

[kumquatelvis]

I think Aeron's bounty grants a bonus 2 XP to all recon units built in the city.

 

[Winston]

I can only remember two events that are tied to a guild - which are the rebellious wizard (I assume this is the 1st step to Gaelans Circle) and the orc mercs (Co9).
I like the concept of events from guilds but they could be fleshed out to be more than just events triggers.
I played a game as the Kuriotates and never saw the Cult of the Dragon - I did however get the Ratcatchers Guild but had no crime events (I can't think of any crime events in any of my games so maybe the crime rate triggers are set too high?).
The corps from basic Civ have a huge impact and can be used to win the game by skyrocketing productivity. I'm not saying that FFH should have that level of impact but at the moment the only one I notice is Co9 although I havn't seen the AI exploiting it - if some buildings and techs triggered guild expansion this would be good but I also think they should give significant tangible benifits beyond what they currently do so that they make an impact.

 

[stp]

I can see only little sense in the Circle of Gaelen using the corporation mechanic at the moment. When it works as intended it should auto-spread to all cities of the owning empire, something that could easily achieved via a granting a World Wonder when the event cycle is completed. As an event prereq. owning a World Wonder makes only little difference to checking if an auto-spread guild is present in the city. Technically a city of the Circle of Gaelen founder without the Guild present must be the result of a bug, if I understand the intention correctly.

Therefore, I think it should get some addition to justify the use of the corporation mechanic.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Making the Circle of Gaelen a World Wonder would bestow its benefits to all cities with a Mage Guild. Making it a corporation, however, could mark the Mage Guilds that existed when the Circle was founded. If a new city gets a Mage Guild later, I don't think the Circle spreads to it. By the same token, if a city with the Circle falls to a conqueror, that conqueror gain's the Circle's benefits, even though he has not yet captured the HQ.

At least, that's how I think it's supposed to work. I've never actually seen the Circle before, since it's infamously broken.

 

[kenken244]

it actually does auto spread to all cities the owner has even if he builds a new mage guild. the code that runs every turn says that any city with a mage guild and is owned by the guild founder gets the guild in it.

 

[Bitwise]

I have to kind of agree. I don't really think the guilds currently add much to the game. I've never seen any strategy that involves getting them and the events are too rare and unreliable to make pursuing a guild worthwhile.

 

[jimi12]

also, im not sure if this has been addressed, but since the doviello cant build mage guilds, are they able to found the CoG? i think one of the prereqs is to have a mage guild.

 

[xienwolf]

Well the only way to use Gaelan as a Wonder would be if it made all Mage Guilds in your Empire grant +2 XP to Arcane Units, which I don't think is possible. Best a Wonder can do is place a building in every one of your cities, but that wouldn't QUITE do what the guild is doing, because the guild forces you to get a Mage Guild in there first.

Of course... you can't build any arcane units without a Mage Guild, so it is a minor and insignificant difference.


There is at least 1 followup events which require Circle of Galean (technically the rebelious Apprentice series don't require the guild, they FORM the guild), and I swear I remember that there was 1 for Ratcatcher and 1 for Guild of Hammers. But not planning to look at events again for a fair while, otherwise I get tempted to go back to trying to fix them and make new ones.

@jimi12: No, Doviello can never get Circle of Gaelan because you must have a Mage Guild for the events to trigger on you.

 

[scaramouche]

I will say that in one game the Wardens gave me a free Eidolon unit, which was pretty nice of them! But it's the only time I've ever seen the wardens do anything.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

it actually does auto spread to all cities the owner has even if he builds a new mage guild. the code that runs every turn says that any city with a mage guild and is owned by the guild founder gets the guild in it.

Yeah, but does that work if all your Mage Guilds are made by the Catacomb Liberalus?

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

I know this may not be popular, but I would suggest trashing all the "guild" options and instead make them all minor religions (ie Cult of The One the the Gigory might favor) like the cult of the dragon with minor effects.

 

[stp]

Well the only way to use Gaelan as a Wonder would be if it made all Mage Guilds in your Empire grant +2 XP to Arcane Units, which I don't think is possible. Best a Wonder can do is place a building in every one of your cities, but that wouldn't QUITE do what the guild is doing, because the guild forces you to get a Mage Guild in there first.

Of course... you can't build any arcane units without a Mage Guild, so it is a minor and insignificant difference.

Can't it use the same mechanic as the Form of the Titan, only limited to unitcombat_adept? As adepts require a Mage Guild, wouldn't that be technically the same?

Yeah, but does that work if all your Mage Guilds are made by the Catacomb Liberalus?

I would really love to know the answer to that question.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

There is no way to give global experience to specific unit combats, it is univerally applied to all of them. Of course, I wish there were.

I also really wish you could make civics provide xp to specific unitcombats. Scholarship might be better for arcane units than conquest, for instance.

 

[stp]

I wasn't aware that there is no way to do that and I agree it would be good if it were possible.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It not that there is no way, just that we would need an SDK change, which I'm sure Kael could do without too much trouble. It may also be possible in python, but that would be slower and messier.

 

[stp]

I meant that I wasn't aware that it isn't currently possible. I should of course have tried to be more precise. I think I'll try to put blame on my limited English skills

 

[xienwolf]

Actually it ought to be quite simple and low footprint in Python. Just add a line to onUnitBuilt which checks for the Civic or Wonder (plenty of examples of each to steal code format from), and checks the unit for appropriate Unitcombat.

And from what I have seen in the Python so far, no the Guild will NOT spread to any Mage Guilds generated by the Catacomb Libralus, except right when the Guild is Founded. This is caused by the Mage Guilds simply not being built. But if a line or 3 were added to the same function which spreads the Mage Guilds to check for Circle of Gaelan then it would work just fine (and again, be low footprint on processing time)