Most orders can be set up as standing orders. Standing orders enable you to repeat an order each turn without having to issue it again. This saves precious orders for other purposes. Clever use of standing orders can greatly increase your realm's chances of doing well in War of the Avatars, especially during the early turns when you have only 12 or so orders.

Standing Order Example: Perhaps you want the town of Greenville to muster a human militia unit every month. You simply fill in the appropriate information in the order line on your Order Sheet, and then check the Standing Order box that appears at the front of that order line: [X] C210 MUSTER UT92. On the next turn and every turn thereafter, a new human militia unit is mustered at Greenville, and it took only one order! If you combine this with a Link order or other community move order for Greenville that tells the human militia where to go, you can have a line of human militia units bravely marching off to the front, leaving you free to use your orders for other purposes.

There are limits to the number of standing orders each community, unit and realm may have. A community may have as many standing orders as the number of units it can build per turn (see Community Characteristics chart). A unit may have only one standing order at a time. A realm may have up to eight standing realm orders (orders without a entity or community as the subject like Ally, Announce, Give, Declare, Inquire, Investigate, Offer). Items and garrisons can not be issued standing orders (items can only be issued the Assign order and garrisons cannot be issued any orders).

If a community receives more standing orders than the number of units it can build, the oldest standing orders are canceled until the community is down to its maximum number of standing orders. New orders given to a community are handled before existing standing orders of the same type. If a newly issued Muster order (for example) is given to a community, that order is processed before an existing standing Muster order.

If a unit already has a standing order and is issued another one, the old order is canceled and the new one is followed. If a unit with a standing order is issued a normal order, the unit obeys the normal order until completed and then reverts back to the standing order. If a standing order takes a unit more than one turn to complete, the unit follows that order until it is completed, and then repeats the standing order on the following turn.

If a realm has more than eight standing realm orders, the oldest standing orders are canceled until only eight standing realm orders are in effect.

All standing orders that are in effect are listed on the back side of your Order Sheet each turn. They are also listed under the community, unit or realm to which they apply. To cancel a standing order without replacing it with another, you use the Repeal order. Standing orders for slain units and conquered communities are automatically canceled.

The following orders are implicitly standing orders (i.e., a regular order of this type remains in effect until changed or canceled somehow): Assign, Conflict, Explore, Follow, Occupy, Proclaim, Pursue, Seclude and community movement orders. There is no need to formally declare these orders to be standing.