how do you keep track of everything?

i love how dynamic and involved this game is and all the unique mechanics. definitely a lot of big improvements over lioden. but i keep finding myself kind of overwhelmed by all the little things that affect gameplay (personality, stats, hunting party compatibility, and anything involving math bc i haven't done anything without a calculator since high school)

if anyone has some magic method for smoothbrains like me i'm all ears. and does it even matter for a casual player? the bare minimum is my middle name

The most important thing to remember is probably hunting party compatibility. I divide it up into 'nice' and 'not nice wolves' to make it simpler for myself - that is, friendly and romantic wolves will hunt together, and stoic and aggressive wolves will hunt together. Easier for me to remember than trying to keep straight if its friendly or romantic that stoic fights with. 

To keep track of which personality is in which category, I keep this guide pinned in my bookmarks. Skudde has lots of guides like that and I find them SUPER helpful for quick referencing. The Grouse House guides are great, but often too info dense when I'm just trying to double check something. 

Honestly, the Grouse House guides are indispensable. Need to remember all the different personalities? Here you go. Trying to figure out which illnesses need to be treated now and which ones can wait? There's a thread for that. Want to get the most out of hunting? Grouse House has you covered. There are a lot of other good threads in the user guides forum too, but Grouse House is my go-to when I need to double check something.

As far as personalities I don't think *anyone* has them entirely memorized, so check the grouse house charts to find out whether your 'irritable' wolf is aggressive, friendly, romantic, or stoic (most are pretty easy to figure out though.) As far as compatibility, if you want the easy method just use the personality checker snake. You only need to check a hunting party once, if you need to swap wolves and you want low-effort, just make sure your new wolf has the same personality as any of the ones you had before (that the snake said are compatible) and you'll be fine. 

Lets see.. other things that effect gameplay. Well, with hunting knowing the roles is easy enough. Every role except Finisher takes 2 different stats, every other stat doesn't matter. These stats are conveniently right above/below each other, so as long as you can remember 1 of the stats necessary for a role you'll be fine. Finisher is easy, to "finish" a prey you need to be strong enough to kill it, thus, strength (first stat listed). Chasers do the work of chasing the prey down, tiring it out, and thus they need to be agile and fast (agility, speed, second and third stats). Stalkers are the ones who find the prey, and that takes intelligence and know-how. (smarts and wisdom, fourth and last listed stats). Your total stats on a wolf does not matter, a 500 stat stalker with 90 wisdom and 90 smarts will be worse then a 400 stat wolf with 110 wisdom and 110 smarts. Pupsitters do not use any stats, herbalists do not use any stats, scouts stats all depend on the biomes you're scouting (so check Grouse House guide until you memorize that.) 

For raising puppies, the math you want to go by is 100% - (total survival % without a pupsitter) + 7%, as long as mom/dad/puppies are fed and played with every day. This is because a puppy who is taken care of will always receive a 7% boost to their survival each day, and that 7% is added to their base survival chance BEFORE the game rolls the dice on if they live or die. Still confused? Make sure your pup has at least 93% chance to survive after putting a pupsitter on, and they'll be fine. 

For breeding, generally the better the stud the better the babies. A higher tier base will generally make better bases, more markings will pass more markings, rarer markings can pass those rare markings, etc etc. There's a lot of math involved here too, but you can take it slow and use grouse house for specific questions. (Ie: I want a Lavender baby, I have a Cool Dark II genetic mom, what kind of stud do I need? Grouse House's genetics guide will give you that answer.) Don't bother memorizing it all up front, it comes slowly. 

I hope that helps! I can't think of anything else that matters to gameplay, really, but if you have more questions just ask!