Free buildings from Masons Guild

[King Philip II]

Just when I thought I had been in every corner of M2TW I'm given (not offered) a free building by the Masons Guild. That's a nice feature, except that I was given a Catholic Church which is of a different religion than my faction (it's a modification).

Has anyone ever received a free building from Masons Guild?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Nope, first time hearing of something like this! Shame that the guild is very hard to get though.

[King Philip II]

Nope, first time hearing of something like this! Shame that the guild is very hard to get though.

Yeah - you need to build a lot of buildings to get the offer from the guild.

[Aeratus]

If you're playing SS, getting a catholic church when you're playing as muslims, for example, is quite common.

[King Philip II]

If you're playing SS, getting a catholic church when you're playing as muslims, for example, is quite common.

Interesting. It's not in the Events list, so it must be hard-coded. I also got the Catholic Church, so maybe it's only this building, which makes it a rather useless feature.

[Sitalkes]

I think the question should be, "has anybody ever recieved a Masons Guild"?

[King Philip II]

I think the question should be, "has anybody ever recieved a Masons Guild"?

It's a tough one to get in vanilla.

Here are the guild points: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=1#post8002216

[Kataphractos]

I think the question should be, "has anybody ever recieved a Masons Guild"?

wat? I get them all the time in SS. But then again, I build everything available...

[King Philip II]

wat? I get them all the time in SS. But then again, I build everything available...

I posted the vanilla points earlier. Has this been changed in SS? (it's in export_descr_guilds.txt)

[tudor93]

Wait... you guys say that it is very hard to get an offer from the Masons Guild?
I always get spammed with offers by those guys (whether I'm playing vanilla or SS6.4).

[King Philip II]

Wait... you guys say that it is very hard to get an offer from the Masons Guild?
I always get spammed with offers by those guys (whether I'm playing vanilla or SS6.4).

Looking at the points the Masons Guild earn from buildings, it should be offered frequently later in the game. Maybe there is some hard-coded logic that makes it random (like the "gift" of a Small Catholic Church).

[Vipman]

I think it is in descr_missions along with others like gifts from council and pope. The only mission related to mason's guild is this, but I'm not sure if it's the same? I doubt mason's guild gives missions to build churches, so this must be it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

mission guild_build{
    MASONS_GUILD_MISSION
    exclude_duration 30
    max_score            100.0                    ; max score clamp
    turn_start        3
    paybacks
    {
    payback_id guild_build_church
    }


    guild_handles        masons_guild                ; guilds required for this mission
    buildings             { small_church, church, small_church_o, church_o, small_masjid, masjid }        ; target building levels for mission
}

About the payback/reward I could only found this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

payback_list guild_build_church
{
    reward
    {
        null_payback    PLACE_OF_WORSHIP_REWARD
    }
}

So I guess it is indeed hardcoded to give just catholic churches?

[King Philip II]

You'r right - it's not the same. These are the missions offered by the guild. Come to think of it, I don't recall ever getting a guild mission from Masons Guild.

[MDCCLXXVI]

Creative Assembly didn't really do the Guilds system properly. Maybe they saw it as not important to the game and devoted little time/resources to it.

There were numerous problems/imbalances/bugs with the guilds in vanilla, with some the guild HQs being effectively pointless over the Masters counterparts.

I think it affected game balance. Like, okay they spend a good amount of time balancing the gameplay, and then these guilds add imbalances, so im sure there was reluctance.

The Masons guild is an example. Its so tedious and expensive to get on your own, and the benefits are minimal and appear in the late game. IMO there should have been an Agent benefit to Masons guild, like a Diplomats buff, or something along those lines. Another is to significantly reduce the turns required to build large stone buildings in that settlement, with a faction-wide similar application with a HQ.

The only two ways I know of to get a Masons Guild:

1. The annoying way

In the city you want the Masons Guild:
- Decline all offers from other Guilds.
- Demolish the armor upgrade building.
- Build leather tanner.
- Demolish leather tanner.
- Build leather tanner..
- etc etc etc.

I think it'll net you 7-8 Masons Guild points in that settlement each time you complete the structure, accounting for construction bonus + Normalization (-1 per turn).

2. The only logical way:

- Capture a pimped out Citadel, probably in the mid-late game after the AI has done some building there.
- Destroy the current Guild (ex. Swordsmiths)
- Convert the Citadel to a City.
- Decline other Guild offers.
- Accept Masons Guild offer.

You pretty much have to take a Citadel that has all the bells and whistles, and convert it to a city. Its WAAAY too expensive/time consuming/irrational to do that on your own. hence capture/convert.

[poisoned goat]

I've gotten Masons guild offers in SS. I've only gotten them in castles, and the reward is a small church. The funny part is that you can have both a chapel and a church in the same settlement, and you can upgrade the church all the way to a cathedral (not huge though). But yeah the reward is totally pointless unless you're having insane heresy problems.

Speaking of wrong religious buildings (again SS + late campaign), Jerusalem starts with a jama instead of a cathedral although it can be upgraded to a huge cathedral. I can't really tell if the building is causing religious conversion to Islam or to Catholic.

[Vipman]

Both are bugs / stuff that weren't fixed. Jama converts people to islam as religion is tied with each church type. Jerusalem has both a Jama and Cathedral, it's the latter that you can upgrade to Huge Cathedral. Jama should just be destroyed or else islam will rise instead of catholic.

[MDCCLXXVI]

Both are bugs / stuff that weren't fixed. Jama converts people to islam as religion is tied with each church type. Jerusalem has both a Jama and Cathedral, it's the latter that you can upgrade to Huge Cathedral. Jama should just be destroyed or else islam will rise instead of catholic.

I believe that keeping the Jama aids in population growth. It says it in the building description. Theo Guild and Church building should keep a boot on Islam in Jerusalem.

[poisoned goat]

Somehow I saw the Jama but missed the cathedral. Well, time to demolish the former.

[Vipman]

Yes it gives 10% happiness that could help increase growth by 0.5 and also a 5% health giving another 0.5% But everyone can do whatever they choose. There's no use in more population as it's already huge city IIRC.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

More money from taxes.