Medieval Guilds beginner's guide

Everything you need to live well in 1330 — in ten minutes of reading.

1. Welcome to Medieval Guilds
2. The first ten minutes
3. The body: hunger, thirst, energy, health
4. Work and workshops
5. The market
6. Skills and Academy
7. House and property
8. Travel and map
9. Town Hall: elections and laws
10. Tavern: games, talk, board
11. The Guilds
12. The Bank
13. The Church
14. Citizenship and votes
15. Arms and armour
16. War
17. Roads, brigands and lamps
18. The Emporium and Florins
19. Gold, jewels and fine clothes
20. Mercenaries and allies
21. Oil and its trades
22. Absence, return and streaks
23. The Mayor at work
24. Veteran's advice
25. Factions and feuds
26. Mail, attachments and nuisances
27. Frequently asked questions

Welcome to Medieval Guilds

It is 1330. You are an ordinary soul of the Italian Communes — peasant, artisan or merchant — and from here you can become anything: master smith, consul of a guild, mayor, parish priest, banker. The world is inhabited by hundreds of people (many driven by the engine) who really work, trade, vote and talk.

Time is REAL: a job takes minutes or hours by the clock, so does a journey. No need to stay glued to the screen: start an action, come back later, collect. Two or three visits a day are enough for a full life.

The heart of the game: every rule people give themselves — a tax, a price cap, a guild contract, a mayor's law — the engine truly enforces it, in your purse and in your time. Politics and economy here are not idle talk.

The first ten minutes

1. Look at the Square: every structure (well, field, forest, mine, oven, smithy…) offers actions with time ⏱ and energy ⚡ shown. 2. Go to the well and draw water, then to the field: work one shift. While the action runs you can close and come back. 3. When it is done, the harvest is in your Pack.

4. Hungry? Eat bread from the Pack (or buy some at market). Thirsty? Drink water. 5. Spare grain or wood? Sell it at the Market: set a price and wait for a buyer — the inhabitants really do buy. 6. At day's end rest: in the Tavern for a fee, or better in a house of your own.

From here the road is yours: a production chain (grain → flour → bread), a tool (axe, pickaxe), a house, a skill to grow, a guild to join.

The body: hunger, thirst, energy, health

HUNGER 🍞 and THIRST 💧 fall every day (thirst faster). Fix them with bread and food (fresh bread fills more than stale; after three days throw it away) and well water. ENERGY ⚡ is needed for every job: it does not drop on its own, it REGENERATES while you sleep — as long as you eat and drink. If hunger or thirst reach zero, energy falls.

HEALTH ❤️ drops when you neglect your body for long; the herbalist's medicine heals it. SEASONS matter: summer makes you thirstier, winter hungrier, and travel is slower.

Where you sleep matters: with no house you rest poorly (×0.8); a hut is ×1.0; a villa ×2.0. Rest only counts in the village of your house.

Work and workshops

Every action happens in a structure and costs time and energy; some need ingredients (the oven wants flour and water) and tools (the axe for the forest, the pickaxe for the mine). Without a tool you can often still work bare-handed, but it yields less. Tools wear out: have the smith repair them.

CHAINS are the game: grain → flour at the mill → bread at the oven; wood + iron → tools at the smithy; wool → tunic at the tailor; clay → bricks at the kiln; herbs → medicine; grain + water → spirits. Each city has its own workshops: if your village lacks a mill, grain travels or is sold.

The more you work, the more you learn: every action trains a SKILL that shortens times (−2% per level, more for specialists). Public works from the Town Hall (structure level) shorten everyone's times.

The market

SELLING: choose goods, quantity and price per piece; the listing stays 3 days, then the goods return to your Pack. At equal price the earlier listing sells first. BUYING: take a specific listing or use "buy best": say how many pieces you want and the engine takes the cheapest, showing the exact total before you confirm.

The price you pay may include the SALES TAX and the DUTY on foreigners set by the mayor; a PRICE CAP may forbid prices above a threshold; a SUBSIDY may reward certain production. All this is written in the Town Hall's laws and enforced to the letter by the market.

Guild members respect their collective contract (minimum price). Those who tithe pay it on sales. Every sale trains TRADE, which raises how much you can carry.

RARE GOODS (14/9): each kingdom has a treasure born ONLY there — SILVER at Goslar (Empire), TIN in Cornwall (England), CINNABAR at Almadén (Castile), WOAD at Troyes (France), AMBER at Toruń (Poland), FURS at Ladoga (Novgorod). The foreign merchant does not buy them: they sell only in the square, and rich towns lacking them post civic errands at DOUBLE value. With them the workshops make fine things: the Smithy casts BRONZE (tin + iron), the Goldsmith the SILVER CUP and AMBER AMULET, the Tailor the FUR CLOAK (no snow slowdown), the BLUE TUNIC (woad) and the SCARLET one (cinnabar). Light and valuable: importing pays, but the road is long and runs through ambushes — travel escorted.

Every rare good has an OUTLET in the workshops: tin becomes BRONZE at the Smithy and bronze, at the master armourer's Armour Workshop, the BRONZE SHIELD, the highest defense in the game; silver the SILVER CUP; amber the AMULET; furs the CLOAK that ignores snow; woad and cinnabar the dyed TUNICS. Nothing sits in your pack without a purpose.

Skills and Academy

Nine skills: Farming, Herding, Forestry, Mining, Smithing, Baking, Tailoring, Trade, Oratory. They train by doing: every action gives experience, the bar fills, the level rises. Practice takes you to level 5; from 6 to 10 you need the STUDY OF THE SUBJECT at an Academy (Bologna, Naples, Florence, Rome, Avignon, Lleida): hours of study and a fee, then the cap rises and you practice again.

At level 6 you receive a TITLE (Master smith, Steward, Crier, Orator…), shown on your public profile, plus a specialist bonus on times. Academies also teach the liberal arts: Logic raises Intelligence, Rhetoric raises Charisma.

Trade trains by selling and gives +2% carry per level. ORATORY trains through public acts: +15 for your first vote in every ballot (mayor, parish priest, war referendum), +15 per law proposed, +15 per candidacy, +30 per election won, +1 per line spoken in the square or tavern. Levelling needs 60×level (60 for the 2nd, 120 for the 3rd… 300 for the 6th): practice reaches level 5, the 6th requires the Academy fee (40 coins, ~5 hours) and then more practice. Oratory makes your vote weigh more and, from 6, lets you FOUND A FACTION.

House and property

A HOUSE is bought at the Town Hall: from hut to villa. The bigger it is, the better you rest (energy regenerates faster) and the more you can store at home. Brick houses and the villa need bricks from the kiln. If you change house, the government buys the old one back at half price.

Price follows the city: where more souls live, houses and licences cost more (Rome or Florence are worth more than a mountain village). The Town Hall card shows population and price factor.

PROPERTIES (farm, ranch, private forge) are bought with coins, materials and a LICENCE whose fee is set by the mayor: they yield more than public structures and appear on your sheet. With a LICENCE you can also open a private shop (mill, bakery, tailor's, kiln, carpentry, herbalist, goldsmith, distillery): you work even where the public one is missing, and 20% faster. Only the trades present locally are licensed here (cities add a couple more): for the rest you must travel. In private shops you work 20% faster (also in others', paying the owner's fee); the owner produces +1 unit and has a shop storage expandable up to 1500 kg.

FURNITURE from the carpentry (4 wood, 2 hours) FURNISHES your house: from the home storage press “Furnish” and each piece gives +5% rest and +20 kg of storage, up to the house's slots (hut 1, small wooden 2, large wooden 3, small brick 3, large brick 4, villa 5). The large brick house needs 2 pieces among its materials, the villa 4. When you move, furniture follows you; what does not fit returns to your pack.

Travel and map

The MAP opens from the bottom menu: it starts on Europe, zoomed on your position; with ＋ and − you zoom, by dragging you move. Click a city to see its card (resources, population, real travel time) and "Depart". "Back to the zone" shows the landscape of where you are.

A JOURNEY lasts according to distance (half an hour minimum, hours for far cities), is slower in winter and costs energy and hunger. It can be cancelled. While walking you neither work nor trade.

The REALMS of 1330 on the map are clickable: name, game cities present, population, economy. Besides Italy, Provence is open (Avignon, Marseille, Aix): long routes and duties that matter. Catalonia is open too (Barcelona, Girona, Lleida), in the Crown of Aragon.

Town Hall: elections and laws

Every settlement has an elected MAYOR: 48 hours of candidacies, 48 of voting, a 14-day term. Anyone can stand with a program and vote (orators' voices weigh more). The mayor writes LAWS: sales tax, duty on foreigners, price cap, subsidy, licence fee. Each law takes effect after 72 hours' notice and is ENFORCED by the market and the engine.

The TREASURY collects taxes, duties, licences, fines; it pays subsidies, civic orders, public works (upgrading structures: shorter times for all). Anyone can donate.

The CHRONICLE records everything: laws, elections, fines, houses bought, guilds founded. JUSTICE is light and traceable: the mayor may fine (max 20 coins, reason required, once a day per person).

Tavern: games, talk, board

The Tavern has six corners: ZARA (dice: call a number and bet against a patron), two-player BRISCOLA, ARM WRESTLING (Strength vs Strength, with bets), the INNKEEPER selling rest, the HEARTH where people talk, the JOB BOARD.

CHAT is per place (village square and tavern) and inhabitants really talk about what they do. Talking trains Oratory. There is a filter and a rate limit: conversation, not shouting.

JOBS: civic (the Town Hall pays from the treasury) and private (a citizen escrows the reward; the first to accept takes it and delivers by the deadline, or pays a penalty).

The Guilds

Every city has a Guild Hall. One GUILD per craft per city: found it with skill ≥8 (50 coins charter to the city + 50 into the chest) or join by paying the dues set by the consul. RANKS follow level: apprentice, journeyman (≥3), master (≥6); the CONSUL is the highest master. Joining requires level 5 in the craft; from 5 every job yields one extra unit (two from 10).

Enforced powers: the collective contract (minimum price of the craft: the market refuses members' offers below it), two-hour priority on civic orders of the craft, guild missions paid by the chest, the workshop bonus (−5% time in your city).

Inhabitants join and rise: the guilds are already alive when you arrive.

The Bank

Big cities have a BANK: an account where coins are safe (deposit and withdraw wherever there is a bank) and CREDIT against a pledge: leave goods in custody and receive up to 70% of their fair value (cap 300), flat 10% interest, three days to repay. One loan at a time.

The bank lends FROM THE CITY TREASURY: empty coffers, no credit; interest returns to the treasury. If you don't pay in time, the bank keeps the pledge and the debt is closed.

The Church

In church you receive BAPTISM (faith appears on your sheet) and attend MASS: half an hour, no energy, and you come out BLESSED — for 6 hours every job costs 5% less time. Those who pay the TITHE (a share of sales, set by the priest between 5% and 15%) get a longer, stronger blessing (12 hours, −8%).

The parish chest pays ALMS (food orders for the poor). The PARISH PRIEST is ELECTED by the faithful every 14 days among those who attended at least three masses: a career parallel to the civil one. On feast days (Epiphany, Annunciation, St John, Assumption, Michaelmas, All Saints, Christmas) the blessing lasts twice as long. The priest may impose a reasoned PENANCE (max 10 coins, once a day per faithful), paid into the parish chest.

Citizenship and votes

You are a CITIZEN of the village you chose at registration: that is your homeland, and there — and only there — you may vote. Whoever arrives after a journey is a guest: they trade and work, but do not vote.

You may change homeland: at the Town Hall of the city you are in, request CITIZENSHIP (100 coins to the treasury, at most once a month). From then on you vote there.

With citizenship you vote for: the MAYOR (elections every 14 days), the PARSON (with faith and at least 10 masses), and REFERENDUMS — like the war one. If you are far away when a referendum opens, the town crier writes to you by MAIL and you vote straight from the letter.

Your vote's weight grows with ORATORY: 1 up to level 4, 2 from 5, 3 at 10.

Arms and armour

In the BIG CITIES (Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Avignon, Barcelona) the Town Hall grants two special workshops: the ARMOUR WORKSHOP (helmets, mail, cuirasses, greaves, sabatons, shields) and the WEAPON WORKSHOP (knives, spears, pikes, swords, halberds).

The golden rule: ONLY the workshop's owner with the ARMOURER craft at level 10 forges. Everyone else BUYS at the market. It is the most exclusive trade of the Realms.

How to become an armourer? Through APPRENTICESHIP: anyone may pay a workshop's fee and train (up to level 5), then study at the Academy (6 to 10). It takes years — plus Milanese STEEL and the tannery's BOILED LEATHER as materials.

Arms and armour are WORN from your sheet (Weapon and Shield slots; helm on the head, cuirass on the body). Each piece has ATTACK ⚔ and DEFENSE 🛡 values: they count in battle.

War

Two cities may go to WAR. It takes THREE assents. 1) The MAYOR declares from the Town Hall, naming the enemy and the casus belli, committing a 300-coin war chest from the treasury. 2) A 24-hour REFERENDUM opens: CITIZENS vote (by mail too, if away), weighted by oratory. 3) The majority of the guild CONSULS must also agree. If the people refuse, the chest returns and nothing happens.

Once approved, 48 hours of MOBILIZATION begin: citizens of both cities ENLIST at the Town Hall (and may withdraw until battle). Mayors of third cities may ALLY with a side: their citizens can then fight too.

Peace can be BOUGHT: the defending mayor offers a TRIBUTE; if the attacker accepts, the deal is done — gold moves, blood does not.

THE CAMPAIGN: it is fought in ROUNDS, one every 30 minutes, UNTIL THE LAST SOLDIER STANDING. Each round the losers lose half their men and the winners a sixth (wounded on the spot): more soldiers, more rounds. Every soldier counts Strength + Constitution + the weapons and armour they WEAR (⚔ and 🛡, greaves and sabatons included) — and in EVERY round the dice weigh: luck (±25%) can let the few win a single clash.

VICTORY AND DEFEAT: the loser pays 40% of its treasury — half to the winning city, half split among its soldiers as war pay. ALL fighters come out battered: the beaten lose 25–50 health and much energy, the winners far less. The graver the wounds, the longer the CONVALESCENCE (up to ~12 hours): no work or travel, and cures restore HALF. Gear is damaged. The Chronicle remembers it all, forever.

WAR SKILLS (on the character sheet): ATTACK = Strength + weapons (knife +3, spear +6, pike +7, sword +8, halberd +9), DEFENSE = Constitution + armour (helmet +4, mail +6, cuirass +8, greaves +5, sabatons +3, shield +5), AGILITY = Dexterity minus the burden of heavy steel (mail −2, cuirass −3, shield, greaves, sabatons, pike and halberd −1; knife +1). POWER = Attack + Defense + half Agility is the number that counts in wars, faction feuds and ambushes. Worn steel wears down with every clash: the smith repairs it.

Roads, brigands and lamps

The ROADS between towns are not safe. In the Tavern's Underworld an outlaw can LIE IN WAIT on a route (1–3 hours, with a weapon equipped): whoever arrives on that road risks an ambush — up to 30% of the coins in their purse and one stack of goods. Never the bank, never the house. Newcomers are untouchable for 7 days.

Defend yourself: when leaving, on the Map, hire a Commune ESCORT (10, 25 or 50 coins); the Mayor and the Parish Priest always travel escorted. A foiled ambush puts a BOUNTY on the brigand: anyone can arrest them (a real fight) and send them to the pillory for 12 hours.

Towns also have ASSASSINS: anonymous, secret contracts from 500 coins. The outcome is uncertain: success (real death), assassin STOPPED (interrogation: confess or stay silent) or escape. The Mayor can light the PUBLIC LAMPS by buying oil at the market: for 7 nights the streets are watched, and an assassin under the lamps is stopped far more often.

The Emporium and Florins

The EMPORIUM (🌕 at the top) sells FLORINS for real money and exchanges them ONLY for comfort and time: faster work and travel (−30/−40/−50%), faster study, auto-rest (eats and drinks from your own stock), a longer holiday, a cosmetic title («the Wise», «the Fox»…).

Nothing that grants power is for sale: never coins, goods, votes, offices, or the outcome of laws or battles. Those who pay finish sooner; they take nothing from anyone. You can also GIFT a bonus to another character by typing their name.

One courtesy exception: whoever returns after at least 10 days away receives ONCE a free relief; afterwards there is the anti-death bonus (200 Florins) restoring every value — invisible to daily players.

Gold, jewels and fine clothes

The GOLDSMITH works gold from the Gold Mine into five grades of JEWELS: ring (+1), bracelet (+2), necklace (+3), amulet (+4), diadem (+5) — each raises CHARISMA beyond its natural cap («7 +3»), and the diadem takes the head slot like a crown. The TAILOR sews fine gloves (+1 Dexterity) and cloaks (+1 Constitution).

These are PRESTIGE GOODS: like gold, saffron, weapons and armour they cannot be dumped below 60% of fair value (automatic minimum price). The Mayor can also set a legal MINIMUM PRICE on other goods.

Items are WORN from the character sheet: the figure really shows them, and what you wear leaves your backpack (remove it and it returns).

Mercenaries and allies

During MOBILISATION the Mayor can post a CALL for MERCENARIES: N slots at X coins each (2–200), escrowed at once from the treasury. The call appears on Tavern boards across ALL of Europe; citizens of the towns involved cannot apply.

Mercenaries are paid AT THE END OF THE WAR whatever the outcome; unfilled slots return to the treasury. They do not touch the citizen soldiers' loot.

ALLIED towns send their soldiers: at the end every allied soldier receives 5 coins of participation pay, and the allied treasury a share of reparations proportional to the soldiers sent.

Oil and its trades

The Olive Press's OIL serves four purposes. CONDIMENT: with oil in your backpack, eating bread or cheese uses one and the meal nourishes more (+5 satiety, +3 energy): the olive on the Eat button tells you.

PUBLIC LAMPS: the Mayor buys 10 oil at the market and lights the streets for 7 nights (assassins fear it). HOLY OIL: the Parish Priest buys 5 oil with the parish chest and the sanctuary lamp burns 5 days: mass blessings last 50% longer.

SALVE: the Herbalist prepares, from herbs, oil and wax, an ointment that heals (+15 health) and restores (+15 energy).

OIL and WINE (13/9): the OLIVE GROVE (Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Palermo, Provence) yields 3 olives per gathering and the OLIVE PRESS turns 3 olives into 1 oil; the VINEYARD (Florence, Siena) yields 4 grapes per harvest and the WINERY treads 3 grapes into 2 wine. Grove and vineyard are town lands: 3 coins to the treasury per gathering. Olives and grapes can be eaten as they are, and sold in the square.

Absence, return and streaks

While you are away your character LIVES on: hunger and thirst fall, jobs finish, the Chronicle rolls. After days without bread and water you die of want (with inheritance); after 15 days of total neglect comes RUIN.

Whoever returns after at least 10 days away finds ONCE the community's relief (energy, bread and water to restart). Afterwards only the Emporium's anti-death bonus remains.

Every DAY you open the game the tavern offers breakfast (+10 satiety and thirst) and your STREAK grows; every 7 consecutive days the Realms gift you 10 coins. Constancy is rewarded by the game.

The Mayor at work

Manage the treasury: civic errands, public works, lamps, war and peace, mercenary calls. PUBLIC WORKS raise structure levels up to 5 (30·60·90·120 coins): level 2 jobs −10%, level 3 −20%, level 4 +1 unit per job, level 5 +2 units and a NEW ACTION for the land resources (Prime sowing, Fell an oak, Deep vein, Cistern, Shear the flock, Great salt pans, Great gathering, Citrus harvest, Gold lode). Town lands — Vineyard, Pasture, Gold Mine — are used for a fee paid to the treasury (3, 2, 5 coins).

They manage the chest: civic errands, public works (structures level up and work faster), lamps, war and peace, mercenary calls. Commune lands — Vineyard, Pasture, Gold Mine — are used for a fee paid to the treasury (3, 2, 5 coins).

They deliver JUSTICE with reasoned fines (disturbance, speculation, negligence, fraud, contempt: up to 20 coins, the writ arrives by mail) and grant LICENCES for private workshops. Public workshops have limited WORK SLOTS (7 in big cities, 5 in cities, 3 in villages); private ones 2, and the owner always gets in.

Veteran's advice

The game rewards steadiness, not haste: a well-chosen action, a glance at the market, a word in the square — every day. Pick a craft and get good at it: specialists work faster, lead guilds and command prices.

Factions and feuds

GUILDS are your trade; the FACTION is your banner. A player with ORATORY 6 (past 5 you only rise by studying at the Academy) and 200 coins founds a faction in the “Factions” tab: gives it a name and motto, uploads a CREST (PNG or JPEG under 300 KB) and decides whether membership is open or by approval. The realm's inhabitants also swear to open banners and drop coins in the chest: a faction has substance from day one.

You swear to a banner after one day of play; one at a time; whoever leaves waits 7 days. The leader appoints CAPTAINS, who accept and expel plain members. The chest fills with voluntary donations and pays for feuds. At elections every voter weighs their own faction's candidate more: a strong banner in town makes a mayor.

The FEUD: leader or captain declares it on another faction with a stake from the chest (20–1000 coins); the rival matches it as far as it can. After 12 hours of mobilisation, members with health ≥ 20, not jailed nor wounded, take the field: one round every half hour under the rules of war (strength and steel, ±25% dice, attrition, half the losers out each round) until the last one standing. The winner takes the whole stake; then a 7-day truce. During a feud, AMBUSHES on enemy members are lawful: no Suspicion, no bounty.

Mail, attachments and nuisances

MAIL is private letters between characters: write from someone's profile (“Send message”) or by replying. The realm's inhabitants answer at their own pace, from half an hour to a few hours. One letter every 30 seconds, 500 characters.

ATTACHMENTS: to a real player you can attach ONE IMAGE (shrunk to 1024 px in your browser) or ONE VOICE NOTE recorded on the spot (max 30 seconds), at most 10 a day and after your first day of play. The recipient sees NOTHING until they press “Accept”: if they reject, the file is deleted. Attachments delete themselves after a month. Inhabitants of the realm get no attachments: they would not open them.

NUISANCES: from any received letter you can REPORT the sender to the game warden (⚠️) and BLOCK them (🚫): their letters no longer reach you and their pending attachments are rejected; unblock whenever you like. In serious cases the warden SUSPENDS the account from the game for days or for good.

Frequently asked questions

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