Guilds Effectiveness

[xtended2l]

I want to ask if the effectiveness of guilds would be reworked, because in current state I think they are a little underpowered. I play with my wife for last 2 months. We researched guilds, and built a couple of them. We play on Eternity speed, with biggest map(Gigantic?) and with crazy resources from SmartMap, soooo I thought our guilds will show the greatest profits for the civilization. But now I see this in my city:

I'm just curious why I should care doing all prerequisites, build wonders to achieve this 8 culture in price of 25 gold(even more, because of the city maintenance), when I can just increase Culture Rate for all cities by 5% and exchange 1 gold for 1 culture.
I also think it is not worth to build most of other guilds, which consume resources, like these:

Yes, difference is not so big, but it is pointless to mess with guilds, when I can achieve more food and hammers by building caravans and so.

From the other hand, guilds which consume NO resources are fine. But the output is very low:

Maybe it is intended, but seems like a bug for me actually(maybe caused by the size of the map). But if anyone can clarify this for me, I would be highly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Vokarya]

Yours is definitely an extreme case. Here is what I see as going on.

First of all, Guilds are designed to be less effective than later Corporations. I set the stats for guilds almost two years ago. The approximate level I was shooting for is equivalent to 1 free specialist in a city, or another Classical/Medieval Wonder. For example, compare Apothecaries Guild (+2 health and +2 science per city) with Hippocratic Oath (+2 health all cities). The primary benefit is that Guilds provide bonuses without the city in question doing the work to run a specialist or build a building.

The issue with maintenance is two-fold. Corporation maintenance starts with the total number of resources the corporation has access to and uses. That number is then multiplied by a few different factors, including percentage factors for world size and handicap level. The population of the city also comes into play; the actual factor is (city population + 17)/18. So with a map flooded with resources, that not only increases the base factor from bonus count, but also pushes up your city sizes, which increases your maintenance even more. These factors are all multipliers except for the resource count, so guilds with no resource requirement don't have overly high maintenance costs.

I tend to play on Standard size maps and I have not found Guilds to be overly expensive. I pulled up a save from a few months ago and found that Drapers Guild would generate +5 culture and anywhere from -1 to -6 gold depending on city size. Base yields from Guilds/Corporations are also applied before any % modifiers in the city as well.

I'd love to have a few more data points between your experience and Standard-size games to see where Guilds really need to be at for maintenance. What i have found is that Corporations are much higher in maintenance than they should be to feel like they are worth the expenditure.

 

[xtended2l]

Thank for the answer Vokarya! Just wanted to say that you are doing really great job there. I am a fan of the mod since first RoM, so I just wanted to say thank you and all other developers(I remember Aforess too ). It is really the best thing in "civilization" world, pitifully civ5 and civ6 would never reach such heights as you guys did here. But back to topic

I understand how guilds supposed to work, and actually the only factor that spoil things here is population size modifier, if I got it correctly. In case with gigantic map, modifier pushed guilds\corporations below the point where they remain profitable. I understand that this map size is out of civ4 defaults, but the only thing needed is balancing That is why I post here. Also, I will never come back to smaller size maps, as it is not as fun anymore. I remember the notice on loading screen since first RoM(it is still there), it was something like "Play on Giant map with Marathon speed. It is intended to be played like that". Now we have Eternity and Gigantic, and it is definetly my piece of cake

P.S. I have checked it, and yes, in the city with size 8 all guild costs are fine. But in my bigger cities, guilds are just useless(at lest guilds that consume resources). I understand mechanics now, thanks to your explanation, but it looks even more weird now for me...
I will come back after finding out how things work with corporations.