When are verbal commands issued to conjured animals?

Question

I’m losing a lot of actions with my (Druid) conjured animals, especially when there are lots of actions, and the battle is fluid.

So many things change during a turn, so that my verbal command, issued during my turn, has typically long since been obsoleted or is far less optimal. For example, an invisible enemy is exposed, or a charmed target needs to be hit, or innumerable other circumstances arise.

Can I issue the “verbal command” on the conjured animals' turn? Or does the verbal command need to be issued on my turn?

(And is the answer an “official” answer? The DM might overrule it anyways.)

Otherwise it’s like tossing the dice and hoping my command is still applicable at the time of their action.

Being a concentration spell makes it worse as it limits my actions enough as it is without the added pain of losing a turn as the animals do something not what needed to be done.

Answer 1

You can only speak at all on your turn.

From the section titled "Other Activity on Your Turn":

You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn.

That said, I'm not sure what kind of commands you're giving, but in general they should be able to do something useful no matter how the situation changes before their turn. If the command is "protect that guy", then unless the guy teleports away or gets disintegrated immediately after that, they're going to be able to protect him somehow. (Unless nobody is threatening that guy, and then the fight's over, right?) If it's "attack the orcs" then they should pick an orc and attack until they run out of orcs.

Also remember that even with no orders, they will defend themselves against hostile creatures.