The Guild: Gold Edition doesn't have any victory conditions when played in "Free" mode.

There will only be any victory conditions if you select a Challenge at the start of the game.
There are different challenges, from Very Easy to Very Difficult, and lots of types inside those difficulties.

When you finish your challenge, you will get a small cutscene which relates to your challenge, and then given the opportunity to pick another, harder challenge, or quit.

The reason this is important, is because your objective will determine how you play the game.

Title, Office, and Mastery are all very important for your character, in different ways.

This is a measurement of your wealth, as determined by the Emperor (or something like that). This goes up as you acquire properties and coin. It updates automatically each turn, and you will get a notification when it changes.

These are public offices which you can hold. They grant a salary along with special powers unique to each office.

The offices look like a branching tree shape, with different offices belonging to different organizations. However, the actual structure of the offices is linear, from Bottom to top.

You can only apply to a position which is exactly 1 rank higher than your own, but it can belong to any of the organizations laterally.

For instance, if I'm a Prefect (which is 5th rank Church office), then I could apply to Bishop OR Mayor.

There is no downside to holding office, except the bribes you will pay when running for office. There aren't any special duties required of you, and you can continue to run your businesses.

You must be a Citizen to apply to the lowest level offices.

This is like the "Class" of a normal RPG. This is your job. This is what allows you to manage buildings. You can still own buildings which belong to other Classes, but you can't directly manage them.

As you level up your Mastery, you gain the ability to manage better buildings of your class. You still need to pay to upgrade the building though.

You level up your Mastery by clicking on the Portrait of your character in the Study room of your residence.

If you want to succeed, you will need to make the best use out of ALL of these traits.

When you Title levels up, you have a higher status with others, you get bodyguards, and you get a higher credit score.

When your hold office, you get a Salary which will depend on your office rank, so it can get quite large. You also can change laws if you get high enough.

When your Mastery levels up, your rate of production will increase and you will earn money more quickly.

So, it's important to take advantage of All 3 of these.

Action Points and Skill Ranks are additional traits of your character which measure what you can do, and how well you can do it.

Abbreviated as "APs," these are a measurement of what your character specifically can do throughout the course of 1 turn (1 year).

Action points usually focus around building your characters skills, OR hurting your rivals in some way.

Any special actions which are granted by your Title or Office will be found by clicking on the Name of your character on the top left of the screen.

Some Actions which can be taken are illegal, so it's wise to check the laws in the Town Hall before doing them

Here's a list of the most common Actions:

• Train a skill in the Residence
  
• Level Up your Mastery (after experience bar fills)
  
• Preach a sermon at curch (earns money) (for Church Mastery)

Here's some Actions which are sometime illegal:

• Torture (Takes away AP's from your rival) (only available to some offices)
  
• Insult (Removes some reputation, and may innitiate a duel)
  
• Threatening (Prevents rival from sabotaging/thrashing you)

Here's some Actions which are usually Illegal:

• Kidnapping
  
• Sabotage
  
• Thrashing

Your character will also have Ranks in 5 different skills:

• Negotiation
  
• Handicraft
  
• Combat
  
• Stealth
  
• Rhetoric

These will determine how well you perform different actions, and sometimes will affect your job, especially if you're a Robber, Thief, or Mercenary.

The maximum Rank in each skill in 6 stars, and the ranks are gained in 1/2 star increments, so technically you need to rank up 12 times to max out.

Stealth will help you pull off Illegal activities without being caught.

You cannot run for any Offices before you are a Citizen.

Citizen is a Title. You usually start with the Title of Gentleman, so to become a Citizen you need to go to the town hall, and click on the poster on the back wall, and this will let you register as a citizen.

The clock runs very fast. I recommend 15% speed. (In game options)

How each turn (year) plays usually goes like this:

0. Starts at 6AM, workers are on the way to work.
1. Build any available improvements or Hire any empty positions. (you want your business to run as fast as possible)
2. Workers arrive, Assign tasks to your workers.
3. Bring your goods to the market.
4. Bring raw materials back.
5. Workers go home around 9PM.
6. Pick your actions if you haven't already. Shop around the market for special items which help you gain Offices or hurt your rivals.
7. Day ends at 11PM.
8. Repeat.

I recommend observing the market carefully, because you want to sell your products when they are High Price. Usually, one of your items will be a high price while another is low price. So in those situations, you want to keep the low-price ones, and wait until they are more expensive again.

Courting a spouse is a very expensive and time consuming process, but naturally, it's the only way to get children.

Children of age 12+ are the only way to continue your game in the event of your untimely demise.

You can only court 1 potential partner at a time, and you must pick them in the Actions menu. (although it's not an action).

You will occasionally be prompted to send a gift to your potential partner, and it seems that the better gifts really do get the best results.

In my experience, sending no gifts or only occasional gifts often results in the partner either choosing someone else, or dying before they make up their mind.

You will get a notification if your potential partner chooses someone else, but you won't if they die. So pay careful attention to your "Important People" tab.

I highly recommend sending Poems to your potential spouse, in addition to the other gifts. Poems will work on ANYONE of the opposite sex, regardless of your relation to them. (Poems are an item in the market)

If you successfully romance a potential partner, you will get a marriage cutscene, and you will occasionally get children automatically through cutscenes, but your assets will not be combined, and that character will continue to run their businesses without you.

However, when that character dies, you will inheret all of their properties and wealth if you're still alive.

If both parents die, then whichever child you choose to play as will gain all of the inheritence.

There are no other benefits to being married, it seems. They let you get more lives, and potentially get alot of wealth, albeit very slowly.

Basically, the combat system is a convoluted Capture the Flag gamemode where the attacker tries to control all 3 Flags of the Defender. If either side loses all of their minions (either dead or unconscious), then they lose. There's also an option to retreat for attackers.

Whoever wins gains (or retains) control of the property being attacked.

Combat is initiated either during an attack on a goods caravan (by robbers), or an attack on a robber/thief/mercenary guild. You can only order an attack from a robber/thief/mercenary guild too, using the special room object inside.

Since attacks are launched via the guild, you cannot combine your forces from multiple guilds.

The minions don't have ANY AI, so you have to micromanage them alot and spam the attack button.

Minions can be armed with weapons inside of you guilds in preparation for combat... but only certain minions can take certain weapons... it's really stupid.

The daggers are OK, swords are better, but the pistols/crossbows are by far the best weapons (depending on whether you're robbers/mercenaries). Basically, you want to have 1 or 2 melee guys to hold back the enemy, and then lots of ranged guys.

The reason is because your minions can't move through friendly minions, so only the front 2 guys will be able to attack if everyone has melee weapons.

You bum rush the enemy with the melee guys in front, and kill everyone. Don't both going for the flags, just kill everyone.

Also... the bomb weapon is worthless. I was really disappointed. It doesn't do very much damage, it takes forever to deploy, and it's the only weapon which can do team-damage. Yeah, just stay away from that.

Congratulations, you've learned everything you need to faff about in The Guild:Gold Edition.