How much do you write down?

[SenhorDaGuerra]

take notes? are you insane? Do you guys all suffer from OCD?

seriously, i couldnt think of anything more boring and tedious!!!

 

[Jerrymander]

For me, time is the biggest factor. A game that ends in less than two weeks means I've been playing too much. But I also play really slow. I just don't comprehend how people can finish games in the time they do.

I finished a domination epic huge map in 8 hours, in one sitting. :3

Keyboard shortcuts and static leaderheads \o/

 

[Lord Chambers]

I was just thinking, I know I can't be the only one that takes extensive notes in a game. My wife doesn't get it, she often asks me why in playing a game for fun am I doing homework? I keep several pages of graph paper with charts on:

1. All of my cities, what they are for, how many of which units are protecting them.
2. How many resources I control or trade
3. All other civs, how many times they've begged for a free tech (2 points if they were withholding one when they begged), demanded I stop trading, demanded I go to war, etc. and use that for my own diplomatic idea of how I feel about them.
4. All of my invasion forces and aircraft carrier groups, though not my ships defending the coast, that would be too cumbersome.

So how many others take notes, and on what?

what.

Next game, press F1, F4 or F5. Click around a bit.

I need to start writing down where my military production cities are.

Are you a goldfish?

 

[EweezE]

All those notes sound like a form of OCD. Half that stuff gets tracked by the game anyhow. Whatever's clever though

Alt-S, because if it can't be said in 20 characters or less, it ain't worth remembering.

Alt-S is the perfect tool for marking city sites before the REX.

 

[CivCorpse]

I make small notes on post-its. the usually say Eat Food. Take shower. Visit outside

 

[carl corey]

Yeah, I get by with F1, F4, sometimes F5. I also use signs to mark which city has which national wonders, shrines, academies, military academies, military instructors or other settled GPs. So you'll probably see signs like "HE, WP, 2MIs" = "Heroic Epic, West Point, 2 Military Instructors" near a city. I will sometimes mark the most urgent tile improvements, especially when at the beginning of a round when I take a tour through all my cities, or when I expect a change of civics to, say, State Property. Very rarely I'll mark what each city is for (commerce, scientists, production, etc), as it is pretty obvious from a very quick glance. I also tend to plan wars by drawing lines from the earth view, to see in which order I should capture cities, and how many stacks do I have to use (usually one or two, rarely more, maybe some small stacks for key point defenses).

But no paper notes.

 

[Gwynnja]

So... you need notes to tell you what city is doing what? Here's an easy way to tell: if it's surrounded by cottages, it should be building multiplier buildings. If it's surrounded by mines it should be building units.

 

[KingMorgan]

I don't make notes, but i do find myself shouting and swearing at the AI.

 

[UncleJJ]

Sometimes I'll write down the economic data on the F2 screen before making a civic switch so I can keep track of how the various parts of the economy are functioning. I do have a spreadsheet on my laptop that lets me calculate a few things like economic multipliers when I'm in a perfectionist mood and trying to understand how the game works, but mostly I just play along and enjoy the action ... it is just a game afterall

 

[oyzar]

I don't use other notes than what alt + s gives..

 

[Peachrocks]

Nope, never... generally I have three types of cities, productive, economic or a mix of both and its easy for me to tell just by what is surronding it what is which and why. Generally speaking most cities are one of the first two and later on I get into hybrids. One or two cities are also likely to be a GP farm as well as probably being productive.

 

[jason77024]

I make small notes on post-its. the usually say Eat Food. Take shower. Visit outside

"Snacks are good in moderation."

 

[Silverdawn]

Next game, press F1, F4 or F5. Click around a bit.

And if that isn't enough, the latest version of the BUG mod has a much improved F1 screen with about 15 tables you can flip through. These include ones with columns of all the buildings in a given category with indicators of whether they are absent, built or being built in a given city.

Much more handy and up-to-date than a piece of paper or a spreadsheet on a laptop.

 

[spacez52]

I also tend to plan wars by drawing lines from the earth view, to see in which order I should capture cities, and how many stacks do I have to use (usually one or two, rarely more, maybe some small stacks for key point defenses).

I use Alt-S (well Opt-S on my Mac) but it didn't know that you could draw lines. Are you being metaphorical or literal? If you can actually draw lines using Alt-S please explain!!

Back on topic, I don't write down notes during the game but I do have rules (RPC style) for most of my games setup before hand. These and the in game menus (+ Alt-S) are enough for me. I won't however knock those that play with notes. Good for you! I wish I could slow down that much.

 

[carl corey]

Earth view is the one where you zoom out enough to see the globe (actually, enough not to see the normal interface). One of the options there is to actually draw lines.

 

[SirLamphead]

I don't take notes either.
However it it helps with your gameplay all the power to you nekom.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I use notes all the time.
- I need notes during a late-game war, to know what units the stack in the front needs replaced.
- I need to figure out what improvements need to be constructed, because I tend to build farms to grow population first, and then replace farms with cottages, so I could hit population cap faster

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Never. All the info you need is easy enough to access inside the game.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I make a table with info about each city. Very brief, though. A column for my production cities, a column for the science cities, and a column for the fishing villages/hammer-poor cities. I usually take a slow sweep thru all my cities when I load the game, to re-familiarize myself with what they're building, and what my plans had been when I last played.

Yes, all this information is available on the F1 screen. However, a glance down at a pad of paper takes less time ( < 0.5 sec) than it takes for the F1 screen to load. Just saves *my* time during a turn. Was Kagoshima supposed to be a science city, or a unit builder? Helps me keep my cities specialized, and not build all the buildings in all the cities.

 

[Brian Boru]

the latest version of the BUG mod has a much improved F1 screen with about 15 tables you can flip through

Exactly. If you're a note-taker or a spreadsheet user, give BUG a whirl. Particularly useful in the F1 screen is that you can add/delete columns to customize what you see. It's really excellent.

The only other notes I make are to name my cities to make them easier to find on the map, or clarify their purpose.