Taking Notes During Grand Campaigns

[Chosun]

I will be the first to admit that I don't have the greatest memory. That said, how many others have a notepad nearby when undertaking your latest grand campaigns? What do you take notes of?

At a minimum, I write down a list of cities and what guild and level it is so I know what to produce to reach the HQ level the fastest.

In the middle stages of a game, I write down briefly what I'm trying to do so that when I return from an absense, I know what my general strategy was.

I note some other things once in ahwhile but these are the 2 main things I jot down.

What do you guys write down and any more suggestions? There is a lot of info to digest in the middle and long campaigns and if you expand very quickly, I think notetaking will help even more.

[FactionHeir]

I don't write down anything. Usually when I fire up my campaign the next day, I instantly remember everything I needed to do and wanted to do.
Of course there is the occasional lapse where I might forget a tiny thing during a turn, but nothing major like not remembering my next moves.

[Frederick_I_Barbarossa]

Same here, though I've often wished that the TW games had some sort of journal or something that kept track of events. Would help TONS for writing AARs and so on.

[Eparxos]

Occasionaly I write statistics of wins-losses ratio against each factions.

[Chaos Cornelius lucius]

I'll occasionally leave myself a post it note (remember to do....), when my wife kicks me off the pc so she can play.
I started doing this when I forgot about a couple of crusades and left them sat in eastern europe until they all deserted

[Henry the Fifth]

The game defjnitely meeds a screen or screens that allow you access to mor e of the information you want to see during game play!

[chilling]

I never take notes.

Every time I fire the game up I start doing stuff, then remember that I'm working against what I was actually trying to achieve the last time I was playing.

Ahhhh, that's why I had a fleet full of troops in the Med!!!

[TevashSzat]

Don't take notes either as I usually remember what I was doing after a turn or two playing an old campaign

[_Tristan_]

Same here, no notes... Even I, a self-described micromanagement freak, doesn't see the point in notes...If I have a doubt as to what I was doing when I left my game I select a character and une the "jump from character" function (or whatever it is called) to make a round of everybody on map to see where they are and what they are getting at...

Generally, anyway, the action centers on three or four fronts where it's pretty obvious what to do and it is the lone merchant,spy or adventuring army that needs to be remembered...

It's also the reason why I tend to give move orders beyond the reach of my armies or agents to get a immadiate idea of where they were going...

I'll perhaps start taking notes on cities to remember the most useful constructions or what designs I have for such city...

[DukeKent]

I am a micromanager myself, and sometimes I wonder if I suffer from early onset of alzheimers. lol . No really I have my own system on how to manage turns. I take notes in text pad, especially late in the game with a lot of provinces and generals. I have a lot of generals since I modded in recruitable generals. To enable other windows at the the same time you have to play the game in windowed mode. Put the following in your medieval2.preference.cfg file. This file is in the M2TW root. In your medieval2.preference.cfg file put the following -

[video]
windowed = true

link explaining the mod switch, windowed mode, and a lot more -
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71291

If I remember correctly the medieval2.preference.cfg file gets overlaid each time the game is started. So you will need to copy your version of this file on top of medieval2.preference.cfg each time you start the game. You can do this in a windows .bat/.cmd file.

Happy Note Taking

[Quickening]

I have no need to take notes either. If I leave a campaign and don't play it for a few days I will usually just start a new one. I like all that has passed to be fresh in my mind.

One idea might be for like a log of events for your Kingdom. You know like how at the end of some strategy games you get a history of your empire.

[wzup]

taking notes seems a bit too neurotic imo. I can leave the game for about 1month and still remember where I'm going what IBM supposed to do. IF worse come to worse and you forgot to do something vital you can just hit the load button...

[HoreTore]

An ingame notepad would be VERY appreciated. Easy to do, and very useful to some of us.

[SadCat]

I forget to take notes. So things get lost over the work week. I jest say that the last spy must of stolen the orders pouch. Send a new runner to get them moving again. The game takes longer and not as smooth but still fun. SadCat

[Stuperman]

I take notes on and off, I find that once your empire has 30+ provinces, keeping track of generals can be a pain, espeically if you don't want all of them to become lazy alcoholics.

[andrewt]

I would support some ingame notetaking as well. I usually plan which city or which castle techs up to which unit or building first and of course, it's almost impossible to keep track of all of it if you're micromanaging. That and planning attacks, sending agents, etc. Whenever I play a game again after a break, whether a few hours to a few days, I always end up repeating the first turns because there's always something I'd forget.

Oh yeah, I was going to send all these priests to this province because it's about to revolt. Oh yeah, I needed to move some garrisons from these cities to a newly conquered one. Oh, that's what that ship is for and why these armies are moving here...

[Chosun]

Good stuff all and thanks. If you play the game in windowed mode,(have not tried it yet) can you at least have notedpad running maybe? As my games always end up being a bit unstable after awhile, I still like a pen and paper for quick reference. Kinda low tech I know but effective.

[_Tristan_]

You sure can open notepad behind MTW2 if you can run it windowed...

I've done time and again to access the EDCT and EDA files while playing

[DukeKent]

Windowed mode is a godsend for modders. You have the game running in a full screen window. You can also have as many other windows available from the bottom taskbar as your hardware can handle. I usually have textpad (multiple M2TW .txt files open for editting, plus my faction notes file), a browser (firefox of course, with multiple tabs open), and the windows explorer minimum. But then I have a dual core with 2 gig of memory on my home rig. Occasionally I also have paint open for trimming a cool screenshot

Try it, you'll like it!

[Aaron A Aardvark]

A couple of times I've started writing things down but it was just too boring. (And my memory is lousy.) I have lost the ocasional priest, army or settlement that way.