How do you keep track of everything thats going on in your game?

The game is good about prompting you when most decisions need to be made. However, in the turn-based minimanagement, its easy to get distracted from the grand scheme of things.

Often in my games, especially after loading a savegame, I forget exactly what my plan is, or what "my people" are supposed to be doing. Sometimes its very intimidating to have to go back through each city and each unit to figure out whats supposde to be going on. I even occasionally forget about major colonies or offensives that are supposed to be happened.

This is obviously much more of an issue in the larger maps. However, quicker game speeds can make this worse, by causing you to make many more distracting decisions per turn.

One of the most significant sorts of trouble I have are remembering plans in the form of: "When [X] happens, I need to do [Y], then I need to do [Z]." When I get several plans of that sort, and my empire starts to get fairly large, I start to forget and abandon parts of my plan.

How do you keep yourself organized in Civ4?

Well, I don't really have major plans for the future (altough it could help). When X happens, I do Y, I just haven't planned it before X happened. And I do forget things (in one game I forgot to use my airforce) but it wasn't a real catastrophy.

LOL

I have the same problem. Sorry I don't have a solution for you, but I just wanted to say that's my main problem as well.

And "Hehehe"'s response was hilarious to me

It simply happens.

Some suggestions,

Use sentry and automation. This will make you aware of when troubles arise. Other than that just keep on your toes... The game wasnt designed to be easy...

I use my advisors a lot - especially on Huge maps where you can have dozens of cities if you're going for Domination.

The Domestic advisor is the main one I use as it will let you see all your cities in one screen so you can avoid things like unhappy people, unhealthy people, you can rush things easily, change production, etc. Only thing you can't really do is manage your citizens, but I generally automate citizen management in all but a few important cities.

Military advisor is useful for finding certain unit types, though the military advisor in Civ 3 was far more useful. Financial advisor will show where all your money is going as how many beakers you're pushing per turn (which is more useful to know than the research %).

I like to use signs a fair bit. Enter sign mode by pressing ALT + s, and stick signs around the place. For example:
-You can stick signs over certain tiles to indicate what future improvements to make, if your workers currently have their hands tied with something else. I often do this for future irrigation projects and things like cottages that I've half-built.
-You can note where you believe countries are in the shroud by guessing based on where you first saw their exploers.
-You can make notes of what National Wonders to put where.
-You can make notes of important targets like an enemy holy city you plan to take during a war.
-When near an enemy city, make a note of what units you see, so that when it's in fog later on, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's there - The AI doesn't move defensive units around very much once their tasked to a particular city. I use these sorts of signs a lot.

Anyway, you get the idea.

Also, I'd just like to mention an idea I had, which seems to be appropriate for this thread. I always hoped that either through a mod or patch or expansion pack, we could be given the option to "add a reminder".
You could add a custom reminder to pop up in x turns. Or you could make it pop up after certain triggers, like the Pyramids being built, or a tech being discovered, or a city reaching a certain population size etc.
Honestly, the lack of any feature like this is what irks me most about the game. Since the developers seemed to be pretty focused on making the game "fun" this time round by getting rid of tedious MM etc., they could have done something to reduce the amount of frustration people go through when they forget to do something so simple.
No-one could possibly count the number of times people have forgotten to change civics after building the Pyramids, or waking up workers after Railroad is discovered.
An "add reminder" feature would IMO greatly help players keep track of things in their games. I don't think it would be too difficult to implement either, though I am not much of a programmer myself.

I myself have a small knack for remembering my plans. Although I do forget here and there... or worse keep "puuting it off" until I end up putting it on hold for too long :wallbash:

One thing that helps me if I am playing for a bit is using the "ingame magic marker" and drawing things on the map. I wish a savegame would save this though. once you load the game again you will lose all your lines.

I like digging in my cities for the first ten minutes of loading up my game to continue. I dig into the advisor screens, city screens, sometimes contact leaders from the start of the reload. Then I pull out the magic marker and get to work if I need to. My first turn of reloading a game takes a long time usually. But once I have a battleplan, I am pretty well set.

Pen and paper. Old-fashioned maybe, but it works. Usually when i end a session, i write up what ive planned to do next, whats going to happen soon, and all sorts of things that id like to know when i load next time.

Good Kleppo. I don't feel like the only other stone age player now. After I've played I pull out the clay tablets inscribe everything in pictograms. Keeps everything straight.

just write everything :):D

Pen? Paper? Didn't someone outlaw those a few years ago. Seriously, it'd be nice if CIV had a notepad of sorts. I've never tried the in-game magic marker or sign mode (though I think I will now).

My standard MO is to spend the first few minutes of each session going through each city. Click on the capital, and right arrow until you get back there. I find myself doing this every few turns as I'll often manually avoid growth, but forget and leave a city starving for too long.

Ditto what Rast said about advisors. Get used to using them. Good tools.

I keep a written diary of events, including notes of keypoint saves from which I can reload later to try different strategies. For example, I'll save just before a GP is due with roughly equal probabilities of his being a Prophet or an Artist and a lesser chance of an Engineer: then play on with whoever turns up and save again before deciding whether to assist a Wonder or a tech or add to a city, etc. If then after finishing 'route 1' I think I could have done better, I'll try to beat myself by following 'route 1A' and so on. This is why multiplayer holds no interest for me, nor can I envision human rivals waiting patiently for an hour or two while I cogitate over whether to train an Axeman or a Longbowman.
One of these days I'm going to set up a spreadsheet on my notebook to keep track of what buildings exist in my various cities, such as just where did I put my only Taoist monastery or the Spiral Minaret. Why this version of Civ doesn't tell you where the Wonders are is a niggling annoyance.

I keep a document that lists all the things I need to do by category. I have attached a sample Word doc. Of course, you can add categories as needed. This way, I just use Alt-Tab to switch to the doc and make an entry and then Alt-tab back to the game. When the doc gets long, I can always print it for easier reference.

Hope this helps

--Babak

Also, I'd just like to mention an idea I had, which seems to be appropriate for this thread. I always hoped that either through a mod or patch or expansion pack, we could be given the option to "add a reminder".

Efthimios' reminder mod (in the C&C section, along with the autologger) does exactly that - hit a button, type in the text you want to display and when, and away you go. I believe he was working on something to do more like your later suggestion about finishing buildings, growth etc (though of course you can do so with the existing mod - if the pyramdis is done in 6 turns, set a reminder for 6 turns from now...)

In 18 civs games I usually keep pen-and-paper track on diplomacy, who I am supposed to like and who not, to answer those quick "we want you to cancel deals with XXXXXs" questions in correct manner.
Otherwise I just go with the flow, occasionally forget things and generally no do that long-term planning (which might explin why I would get skewered on higher difficulties...)

I check the advisors a lot and play small maps. I complete games in 1 or 2 sittings. Governing 4/5 cities is not that hard. Once you're starting to conquer and gaining the upper hand, there is no need for precise micromanaging for me.

I'm not good at administrative tasks at work, so I'm going to avoid them at home as much as possible ;) This is what keeps me off playing large maps.

i always change my mind on what im doing. i get bored when nothing happens for a few turns. so i make lots of small plans of things to do.

but in terms of keeping track of things... i only keep track of things that i really have my mind set on doing. like if i wanna destroy the japanese, or i wanna colonize the new wolrd on a terra map. otherwise, i wait to be told on the pop-ups.

I seem to manage to remember it all. If I had to write things down to keep track of the game I'd give up and do something interesting.
Of course I forget to change civics or religion now and again, but I don't forget my friends, enemies or the barb invasion force massing up north.

I would like to be able to store notes about the game before I save. This goes doubly for MP because it can be very long stretches between sessions.

Of course I forget to change civics or religion now and again, but I don't forget my friends, enemies or the barb invasion force massing up north.

Well, for a really succesful suck-up diplomatic campaign it's not just who are your friends and enemies but who are the friends and enemies of people you want to suck up to...and this can be exhausting if you have little to no contact with, say, Napoleon and Huyana, and one wants you to cancel open borders with the other...when Catherine, who you have been eyeing for a permanent alliance, really likes one and hates the other but which one was which?
Then it is helpful to have little +/- list on your side since you cannot go and check while on communication screen.

Well, for a really succesful suck-up diplomatic campaign it's not just who are your friends and enemies but who are the friends and enemies of people you want to suck up to...and this can be exhausting if you have little to no contact with, say, Napoleon and Huyana, and one wants you to cancel open borders with the other...when Catherine, who you have been eyeing for a permanent alliance, really likes one and hates the other but which one was which?
Then it is helpful to have little +/- list on your side since you cannot go and check while on communication screen.

LOL I find myself spiderwebbing through diplomacy myself. That is the area of Civ 4 that gets alot of my attention in a game. And oh how I wish they would throw in a "Let me check with my advisors" option when they pop in out of nowhere and say "CANCEL YOUR DEALS WITH X!" I hate when this pops up and I havent been watching my diplomacy for a little while and I dont know how to respond. If I was a reloader, this alone would tempt me, as it does alot anyways but I stick it out.

Once, I ended up cancelling my deals with Monty because well, its Monty. He is usually hated by alot of people s I figured I had good odds. Turns out Monty had been working his buddy list in the past 20-30 turns and he was a more valuable friend than Peter was who told me to cancel. :rolleyes: I had to end up kissing Monty's butt for that one.

Step One;
Power up the game, F1 for what my burgeoning cities are up to, F3F4 for what my neighbors are up to, F5 for what my military is, where it is and who's out of date!

Step two;
Simply CIV ON! til you finish. You forget nothing!!

Works if you don't start another game straight after. I invariably do, so it's back to step one if you have to save and return.

LOL I find myself spiderwebbing through diplomacy myself. That is the area of Civ 4 that gets alot of my attention in a game. And oh how I wish they would throw in a "Let me check with my advisors" option when they pop in out of nowhere and say "CANCEL YOUR DEALS WITH X!" I hate when this pops up and I havent been watching my diplomacy for a little while and I dont know how to respond. If I was a reloader, this alone would tempt me, as it does alot anyways but I stick it out.

Once, I ended up cancelling my deals with Monty because well, its Monty. He is usually hated by alot of people s I figured I had good odds. Turns out Monty had been working his buddy list in the past 20-30 turns and he was a more valuable friend than Peter was who told me to cancel. :rolleyes: I had to end up kissing Monty's butt for that one.

King Flevance,
When an AI brings opens up the negotiation table, for example by asking for you to stop trading with X, you can bring up your advisors by using the function keys. I think it's F3 for your foreign advisor. After closing the advisor screen you can make your decision.