How do you organize your turns?

[moderation]

So, I've been noticing that there are lots and lots of different little tasks that you need to complete in order to finish up your turn without missing anything. In particular, I've noticed that it's very easy to forget certain actions that may not jump at you all the time and these things can have pretty big consequences (forgetting to recruit units comes to mind).

I've sort of started a system of writing out what I need to do on a pen and paper and keeping a checklist, which is rather funny because we have this pen and paper tabletop type which has become a computer game, and now is back on a piece of paper. So I'm wondering what kind of systems people have for working out their turns and if they would like to talk about how they plan out their turns.

[Cor2]

I am interested in this topic as well.
Nothing I hate worse than taking a magic item away from a commander and forgetting to reset the move order and losing a major battle because of it.

I dont have any special tricks, I use the "n" button alot, I try to keep useless commanders off that list by setting them on patrol or preach if possible. After I have given all commanders orders, I check all my castles, based on production left, and recuit. That is about it.

[Micah]

I always make sure to go through my F1 list and check on commanders that have "defend" orders before I submit a turn, which helps a lot. I'll usually get the easy parts of the turn over with (gold-related stuff usually, including recruitment, since this tends to be an easy call)

Other than that I usually start with strategic planning and figure out what I need to get taken care of, either enemy threats or objectives I need to meet, and then assign resources as available in order to meet my goals for the turn. I also think about what I'll need for next turn and assign as needed for that, especially item forging. Once I have all my assets assigned the turn's pretty much ready to go. Hopefully that makes sense.

[CUnknown]

Let's see:

First I check the turn messages and watch battles.
Then I collect goodies from clams and blood hunters if any.
Then I check to see if I got any cool randoms on the mages I just hired, and set them to research typically.
Then I spend my cash money.
Then I move my armies of doom towards the enemy and the survivors of previous "armies of doom" towards the nearest safe area.
Then I hit 'n' to find my sneaky guys and I move them.

Then I sit and think. I might try to do some diplomacy at this stage.
Then I might change some of my previous orders around.

Then I know what items or summons I wish I had, so I forge or summon them if I can.
If I can't do this because of lack of research, I check and see what the heck I am researching and modify it.

Then I double check to see if my battle orders are consistent with my new strategy if I came up with one during the "thinking" stage.

Then I look at the Hall of Fame to see if anyone's SC Pretender died.

Then I hit 'n' again to make sure I didn't miss anyone.

Then I stare at the score graphs for a while if I haven't looked at them much lately.

Then I submit my turn.

[Zeldor]

You don't count forge item orders so you do not overflow the lab?

[vfb]

I look for the piece of paper where I wrote down what I had planned to do this month. I can't find it. I can't remember who I have a NAP with, so I read through all my PMs. I find all my commanders in mystery provinces and wonder what they are doing there, and send them back to the province they probably came from. I look in my item stash and put some items on commanders that may do some good, and send out those commanders on various missions. I look at my research, and curse when I find that I overflowed my last research level, and make a mental note to fix my research levels before I End Turn this time. I occasionally attempt to keep the game thread alive, and send some messages to my neighbors. I try to think of something fun to do next month, and write it down my plan on a piece of paper so I don't forget. And finally I put the piece of paper somewhere easy to find in a couple days when the turn hosts, and submit my turn. Oh, crap! I forgot to fix my research targets again.

[DonCorazon]

LOL! Sounds like my turns except I don't even have the piece of paper. Opponents who scout me must think it is some kind of head fake - why does he keep moving that army back and forth?

My magic lab gets filled with all sorts of junk that I don't remember why I forged it. And I usually balance my research just perfect so there is no overflow, then later I make one last minute forging change, forget to look and on the new turn, find I missed the key new research level by 2 points.

[moderation]

Cor2 said:
I dont have any special tricks, I use the "n" button alot, I try to keep useless commanders off that list by setting them on patrol or preach if possible.

Yes, exactly. I have this same problem. Having useless commanders is very annoying because then I get tired of cycling through all of them. I wish I could give them an "Idle" order which means "only cycle to me by pressing the I key, but not the N key." Would be nice is cases where patrolling is not appropriate or where you want to make sure you come back to the useless commander later. Just another pipedream management feature we can hope for someday.

My strategy is a little like CUnknown's except that I tend to rearrange the list in a random order, bash 'n' and F1 a lot, flail about, yack on IRC, come back to the job, bash 'n' some more, then press 'e' in frustration and mail in the turn. Then I go find my piece of paper and see if I can submit an updated copy.

Also, I really really really wish I could queue up a set of research targets like Const 6 -> Thau 2 -> Evo 2, etc. Because sometimes, having access to that particular spell a turn earlier can make the difference between winning and losing a battle. Maybe someday... Until then, piece of paper is my friend. Actually, one of the fun things about having the piece of paper is that you can kind of process the 'idea phase' of your turns without a computer. If I could only figure out a way to neatly print out a copy of the map with just the borders and neighboring province links, but without the extra artwork, it would be even better.

[Argitoth]

1. Set some commanders to move to a province.

2. Now select the province your commanders are moving to.

3. Hit 'y' on your keyboard. Vuala.

[Edratman]

Seems like I am not the only one with turn organization issues.

The one thing that I always do is start my "N" button cycle in my capitol and I leave one commander there without orders so that I will always cycle back to it. That keeps me from going through all the provinces multiple times.

Another item to add to my list of end of turn omissions is forgetting to change orders of an army that attacked the previous turn, is not attacking this turn, but is now adjacent to a force that requires a different spells/troop placement plan. Included in this is the death of a critical commander that I didn't notice because I was too lazy/rushed/drunk/tired/stupid.

Other than that I have made every mistake previously itemized, and will make them again and again.