Is Reloading a Save Cheating?

Quineloe said:

If you want to know whether something is cheating, ask yourself this:

If you were to do that in a multiplayer game and the other players knew what you did, would they mind?

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I don't know. Maybe the question that needs to be asked is:

Who is being cheated?

I think that the same action can be cheating in one context (e.g., when other people are involved so there is a clearly identifiable "victim") and not cheating in a different context (it's just you playing a game).

Although sometimes a valuable learning tool I would say reloading is "cheating". The only time I would do it if it was critical that certain units were on certain tiles and due the bloody auto-cycle unit thing civ5 has made you embark a melee unit by accident.

As said before, it's just a game.
I had my period of reload 10 turns earlier. I was a good way too improve my skill.
Since a moment, I don't reload, except for a miss-click. I'm more on a rage-quit pattern, now.

Except for Game of the month and that sort of stuffs, play as you want.

krc said:

I don't know. Maybe the question that needs to be asked is:

Who is being cheated?

I think that the same action can be cheating in one context (e.g., when other people are involved so there is a clearly identifiable "victim") and not cheating in a different context (it's just you playing a game).

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I don't really understand the notion that it's not cheating when it's single player

we always referred to IDDQD as a cheat code. It's not really that horrible a word, people

I don't consider save scumming to be cheating at all, cheating means breaking the rules of the game, and there's no rule against saving/reloading. "Exploit" would be a better word.

In a game... if you play whatever the given rules are, then you are not cheating.

If at the offset the players agree to play a game where reloading is allowed, then reloading is not cheating. If they players ban reloading, then reloading is "cheating."

Reloading is a way to play Civ - if you set out with a "this is a reloading game" then you are not cheating. There have been competitions with really hard civ starts where you are allowed to reload.

Technically reloading for any reason other than fat fingering / bad mouse click in same turn would be time machine abuse.

Note that use of the time machine for any reason at all (including the fat finger case above) is against the rules for game of the month submission.

But if it's otherwise just Single Player game and not part of the tournament there's no one else being harmed.

It is a game... I reload when trying out different scenarios, and different civilizations... that is how I learn from the mistakes... and that some misclicks are not as bad as they seem at the time.

I rarely play those games to completion, they are training exercises.

Who gets hurt by me reloading a game, time travel back to try another strategic move, or see how an action affects the diplomacy... nobody.

Now if you are submitting the games for comparison to others, then you have to play by the rules for the submission.

I'm with everyone else. I only reload due to misclickings.

Personally, while I always save before doing anything risky (like declaring war), I never actually reloaded a save when things went wrong - misclicks or otherwise!

For a variety of reasons: I play at a low difficulty level (Prince), so mistakes can be forgiven. Reloading takes WAAAAY TOO LOOONG (specially near the end of the game)! I think it makes for better role-playing.

So it begs the question "WHY do you save before doing anything risky then?"...
And, truth be told... I dunno! I guess it works as a safety blanket, makes me more confident in my decisions...


As for the topic - meh, I couldn't care less! It's a Single Player game, do as you want and have fun!
I remember reading, in SimCity 4's manual, that they suggest saving the game, unleashing the Natural Disasters we want on our city, and then quit without saving and reload!
Sure, Civilization is not SimCity, but it's not like developers are not aware that this can be done - and, hey, if that's what you find fun, the more power to you!
If developers wanted to forbid you to reload, they'd work that in the game: see Paradox's efforts to have Ironman in EUIV and CKII, where they remove the ability to reload, use the console, and edit the save file.

Undefeatable said:

Is loading the game ~10 or more turns back because you made a fatal and easily preventable mistake in that time period cheating?

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Yes. It is savescumming and savescumming is awful. The only time when it is even barely acceptable to savescum is when it is a fatal and entirely arbitary mistake.

The only time it is ever acceptable, and only barley, to reload is when you misclick or the UI flagrantly lies to you. For example, Germany offers me GPT for my copper. The screen tells me I have two copper, so I trade. All of a sudden, I'm at negative copper.

Why? The UI lied to me and told me I had more copper than I really had. If the screen told me I had one copper, I trade it, and I didn't like the outcome, I wouldn't reload.

Sonereal said:

Yes. It is savescumming and savescumming is awful. The only time when it is even barely acceptable to savescum is when it is a fatal and entirely arbitary mistake.

The only time it is ever acceptable, and only barley, to reload is when you misclick or the UI flagrantly lies to you. For example, Germany offers me GPT for my copper. The screen tells me I have two copper, so I trade. All of a sudden, I'm at negative copper.

Why? The UI lied to me and told me I had more copper than I really had. If the screen told me I had one copper, I trade it, and I didn't like the outcome, I wouldn't reload.

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So I did more research on the save, and found my mistake was...because of complete randomness. 30 turns before Assyria DOWed me, I paid Morocco to DOW Assyria. The first time I played, Morocco failed to capture Nimrud so Assyria was able to launch an attack on me. The second time I made the EXACT same decisions (same trades, bulb, BO, etc.) and this happened:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/1495887_555858404496061_2126802218_o.jpg

Turns out that what the AI does is random even between identical saves. Notice how Morocco captured Nimrud that time even though I did exactly the same things.

Also, I think my mobile SAMs somehow failed to intercept GWBs - that might be a glitch, since AI never air sweeps.

Yes it is cheating but in singleplayer everyone can play the game the way they love it

And IMHO it is not cheating if before reload you just didn't know that all those IDIOTS will immediately denounce you after capturing this one damn city state

Yes, it is.

Imo it's good to decide ahead of time whether it's gonna be a no reload game, or a no quit game etc etc. I still do a bit of reloading but I think once I'm a little better I'll just stop, reloading is fine when you're still learning. I still play a good bit of civ 4 and that was just the worst with my 95%+ units dying constantly.

If you have to ask, then you yourself do consider it cheating (even if on a subconscious level). Otherwise, there would be no need to present the question. Personally, I don't care. I have games where I have reloaded a save (or two) after a bonehead move (or two), and others where I don't allow myself to reload, no matter what.

As people have said, in a single player game, you can decide what rules you want to play with. For your initial example, I think you should recognize that you lost when Assyria DoWed you out of the blue, but you also should learn something from this defeat, which is to make sure to pay enough attention to your borders and other civs that this doesn't happen again. On the other hand, if you reloaded and learned from your mistake and ended up winning the game, that should be a valuable lesson in it of itself. I think reloading this to say you've won would be inaccurate, but reloading it and learning what you could have done differently is pretty valuable information.

As for the RNG, it seems like Morocco capturing Nimrod is different information you gained the second time through that made your initial strategy of troop preparedness more viable. I'd say doing the same tactics the first and second games, even when different situations occurred in the world, may be what caused you to win one game and lose the other.

If you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough!

As long as you are only screwing over AIs, it is not cheating. I do it every so often. When I get beat to important wonders, I reload and try to get it again by changing what I did or by finding someone to DOW the builder. Of course, if I didn't save it at the right time, I can't do it.

@Undefeatable No. Reload an earlier save, try different approaches, see what your results are. This is the best way to learn. It isn't cheating and it wouldn't matter even if it was. It's your game. You bought it, and your goal when playing is to have fun with it. Go in wb and give yourself a stack of nukes if you want. It's not multiplayer, and the AIs aren't going to whine to you about cheating so don't worry about it. If you're asking if reloading makes the game 'legitimate' then that depends how much modification was made and who you ask. If you ask me, going back and reloading a save is the best way to see what you did wrong and improve your game. Your Poland deity win is legit for all I care, but that doesn't mean that CFC will let you put it in their hall of fame.

Sturmgewher88mm said:

This

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