Players manage guilds by participating in the Tribunal of Merchandise and assigning leaders/members to appropriate tasks/missions to amass money, members, and power their guilds (and possibly the city as a whole). Leaders are effectively autonomous agents that, once assigned to a mission, will auto-resolve dilemmas according to their personalities. Success is determined mostly by their available skills and choices. Leaders can be lost and gained, and losing more than half of a guild's starting number of leaders will cause bad things to happen.
Victory conditions vary depending on a given guild's alignment, but here are the drafted ones:
- Astetian hegemony: Subjugate Moneleti and secure relations with Sesari. Draft partnerships with other cities in the region.
- NGO minus the N: Depose the Serene Doge of Astice in favor of some sort of guild council.
- Status quo: Survive a Reman annexation attempt without gaining or losing power, influence, or guilds.
- Imperial victory: Astice rejoins the Reman Empire (whether peacefully or by force).
It's possible secret actions will make up a significant fraction of all actions. Here are some guidelines on what should and shouldn't be secret:
- Must be secret: Assigning leaders for missions/dilemmas, Tribunal verdicts
- May be secret: Initiating plausibly stealthy missions,
schemingtalking to other guild heads in secret, backing someone else's bid for free stuff from the Tragicommunity Chest - Must be public: Public actions, Tribunal prosecutions, Tribunal resolutions other than verdicts (proposing and voting), bids for free stuff from the Tragicommunity Chest, opposing someone's bid for free stuff from the Tragicommunity Chest
The Tragicommunity Chest is a bountiful source of supplies that represents underutilized Astetian assets like money, arms/armor, supplies, raw materials, and contracts that would surely be better off under guild management. Loot from the Tragicommunity Chest can be used to rapidly improve guild/leader stats. Sadly, the Chest isn't bottomless, and overdrawing from it for too long can have long-lasting effects on the city's health, defenses, treasury, population, or a variety of other things. Any guild can publicly bid for stuff from the Tragicommunity Chest, and in the absence of opposition, it only takes the (possibly secret) approval of another guild to succeed. Any opposition at all to the bid spawns a small mission relating to taking from the Chest.