Okay, some of you may have heard about this, and may have your own preconceptions of what it actually is, but essentially, it is a economic and (somewhat) political simulator set in the 1400's.

I'm way too tired to explain it as properly as I should (I stayed up all night playing it when I was supposed to be testing that it worked) so I'll just use a quickie anecdote of the game I just spent the past nine hours playing.

SLEEP DEPRIVED WRITING BELOW

I'm Wilbur Soper (random name), and I'm a rogue. This means I'm good at being mean to people.
First off, I head to town hall to buy myself the title of Citizen with some of my starting cash.

I then purchase a smugglers den in the middle of town, and I burgle a couple of buildings.
This is fine and dandy, and I'm making a fair bit of cash, but I run out of buildings to burgle.
This puts me in a tight spot for a couple of years, so I turn to politics. Free coin for sitting in a meeting once a day? I'm in.

So I spend more of my hard earned cash to apply for the position of bailiff. I figure that I can tell the guards to piss off whenever I want to rob somewhere. By sheer luck I manage to get elected. Wow! This political thing is pretty good!
Naturally, I first for more. I apply for the position of mayor.
And again.
And again.

At this point, the not insubstantial cost of applying for the top dog position has me in a tight spot.
I decide to hire a couple of ruffians like myself and murder one of my political competitors, a Juliane Hollmeier.
I dislike her especially because at one time, after I insulted her for being a ♥♥♥♥♥, she challenged me to a duel. I was quite lucky not to get shot, but she only sustained minor injuries.

So. Murder.
She is lying dead in a side alley, and my hired help has run off.
Job done. Except, I probably could have held her to ransom instead. She was bloody rich.
Still, no great loss, right? No one saw me, and I ought to be able to make mayor now.
So I reapply for mayor.
And again.
And again.

This time, I realise that it is not my competitors that are the issue, but the woman (always the women, eh?) who votes for them over me.
So I decide to have her killed. Naturally. So I add Gabriele Schonz to my hit list, and ask the same ruffians to accompany me.

Except she is always at the bloody holy water fountain surrounded by bloody priests, except when she is in a meeting.
♥♥♥♥ it. I run up to her and start stabbing. My companions are too glad to aid me.
The bell for meeting time goes, and she makes a feeble effort to get to town hall. She fails.
I have an unconscious enemy lying on the ground. I could have killed her quickly at least, but I decide to rob her and break her bones for extra XP.
As I'm gussying up, I realise that I still have to attend the meeting, and run to town hall.

Unbelievably, I make mayor.
Well ♥♥♥♥. This is good. I have immunity. I can do whatever I like.
I decide to set up a robber camp next to the local mine, which is bursting to the seams with gold and jewels (literally).
I watch a tramp run between the mine, and the camp. Jesus, that is a lot of gold.
Eventually, I have so much that I buy a handcart to get it to market.
Wealth is good.

I've been skipping over the romantic side of my life, but at this point I have a wife and one child.
Neither of them are particularly noteworthy.

I have some trouble with another group of robbers, who consistently waylay my carts. It is when I remember that the carts are full of either gold or jewels that I take action. I hire all the robbers and thieves that I can, and march towards their camp. My robbers are elite. Their robbers were not.
So, the trouble stopped. I finished it entirely by killing their leader, another woman whose name I forget. I have a group of my robbers stab her into unconsciousness, and when I discover that none of them have the authority to kill someone, I am obliged to run up from the other side of town and stab her. I break her bones before hand. XP, you see.

So, I go out and buy a lot more titles (I am up to nobleman now) and upgrade the robber camp and smuggler's den, as well as my house.
And suddenly, the mine collapses. I took so much that it became unstable, I guess.
Never mind, I'll just plunder this croft instead. Aha! 40 units of... wool.

What does it matter. I've the second best title and the third best house.
I'm the second most wealthy individual in town.
I'm at the level cap.
I'm eighty-five.
I'm Wilbur Soper.
And I die.

END SLEEP DEPRIVED WRITING

So, uh, that went on for quite a bit longer than I expected.
The point, is that this game is really good, despite the interface, laggy (but decent) graphics, and odd gameplay.

From your little story the game sounds like a blast! I wish I could play, but it seems it isn't free...

Would you say it's worth the money?

Seems interesting.
Are the character classes strict (you can't be a priest that decides to set up a farm), or just the initial stuff you start off with?

Also, it has the most badly worded Wikipedia article, only coming second to Kidulthood.

Okay, first off; a couple of things I forgot.
It has up to eight player multiplayer. I'd guess that that is where the real fun is, especially if they're not on the same team.

The story above was in multiplayer, with my brother- Robert Courage. He was a tailor, and I named my son after him.
I wouldn't have been able to become mayor without his wife. The village was pretty corrupt by then anyway.

MLC: I've seen it on Amazon for 5 dollars, or 2 pounds. I'd say it was worth that.

Bear in mind that while it does have quite nice graphics, they aren't optimized at all.
Personally, I can live with the lower fps for the eye candy. (I ran Farcry 2 at max settings and didn't realise it was running at 20fps until I watched someone else play on their PC.)

Make sure you don't buy it solely on the anecdote above. If you don't like trading, then you'll not be able to get the most out of it.
That said, I have not once been anything other than a rogue.

The character classes are strict, but when you marry or have children, you gain control of them, and you can pick what class your children are. I decided that Robert Soper would be a tailor, like his uncle. So yeah, you live, hopefully have kids and a profitable business, and die.

This game really brings out the long poster in me.

Pretty sure I saw this on Steam...


Yep: http://store.steampowered.com/app/39650/

Apparently there's a bunch of expansions as well.

Yeah, I've just bought the Renaissance expansion. The others aren't supposed to be super amazing, especially not the Venice one. The one with pirates is decent, supposedly.

But yeah; Renaissance. It adds nine new professions (more than were in the original game) and the new maps are twice as big.
I'm still not entirely sure why I enjoy The Guild in general so much.
Actually, I should make a bumper-thread on all the stupid and oddball games I've bought and enjoyed.
(the new alone in the dark, german truck driver, emergency 4, et cetera)

I tried the demo, and I'd say its definetly worth five dollars.
I can imagine it being repetitive, but it's probably a lot more fun multiplayer.

If people had the game maybe we could organize games of it?

Some organised games would be fantastic.
If we could get another person we could have four dynasties, which is sure to be amusing.

I'm getting the game now, just gotta see if I like it or not. You don't want someone who quits halfway because of boredom now do you?

Are we playing with the pirates version or just plain?

Well, I now own both the original, and Renaissance.
The original is cheapest, and I guess people are most likely to own that one.

I though Renaissance was the original, my bad.

I must say that this is a rather interesting game, even though I nor the AI understand the trading system.

Ive been playing this against my bro for some time. I play as the Atreides and he as the Harkonnen.

Either The Guild 2 stole the dynasties.
Or that was the worst attempt at trolling ever.

Imho, The guild 1 is so, so, SOOOOOOO much better then The guild 2. But I have played both alot.