Do you reload saves when things go bad?

[gunter]

There are several people who loves to specify which level they play on.

Now I understand the reason they claim to win at higher levels,they simply uses cheats like the reload one.

Everyone could have fun in an own way , that's fine , I am able as well to call them super mega extra cheaters as well

 

[Horace]

I dont really reload or regen. I like to have to fight my way out of difficult situations and this is one of the main reasons i like civ. I like the AI to surprise me and be sneaky. I personally get more satisfaction out of it when I do win

 

[azzaman333]

I don't think reloading is such a big deal. I do it myself sometimes, mostly if I invested a good ammount of hours into the game and something happens by stupidity or mistake that ruins/loses the whole game. I have finished games without a single reload and I have finished games with reloads as well!

How do you learn from your mistakes if you can magically fix them?

The HOF does not allow reload, I am sure people do it never the less.

It wouldn't be worth it since the HoF Staff would catch it.

It does allow however to pick oponnents, certain maps/conditions, that obviously are advangeous to the human player.

It's either that or people regenerate maps until they get the most advantageous set up anyway.

So the HOF is not just a about better play, it is mostly about finding the right combinations, maps/speeds, oponnents etc that the AI performs worst on.

You clearly have no idea how the HoF works.

Also the best scores/finish dates in the HOF are games with same settings/ oponents played over and over again until for example " the AI does not attack my cities that only have one warrior". I cannot see how that is cool, while reloading is not.

A good strategy is much more important than good luck.

An even competition is the GOTM games where everyone plays the same start/game, HOF is not an even competition.

You clearly have no idea how the HoF works.

 

[jessiecat]

Nope. Reloading is not allowed under any circumstance according to the CFC HoF rules.



That would be a cheat, since it gives unfair map knowledge.

Would agree if you could zoom in and see map details, but you can't. All
you do get is continent shapes and start positions. I'm talking about save
and resign, not worldbuilder as I'd never use the latter. see what i mean?

 

[azzaman333]

Would agree if you could zoom in and see map details, but you can't. All
you do get is continent shapes and start positions. I'm talking about save
and resign, not worldbuilder as I'd never use the latter. see what i mean?

It gives map knowledge you wouldn't otherwise know.

 

[Lightwave]

What is random seed on reload, or more to the point, why does it exist. What is added to gameply when you select this option ??

not a rhetorical question, i just dont know what it's meant to achieve.

The random seed is what the random number generator uses to give a stream of seemingly random numbers. The current random number state is used to generate the next state and therefore can be saved like any other data to ensure continuity of the game on reloading. If you don't want continuity for whatever reason, they provide the option to discard the old seed.

Every single random element in the game is tied to it and not just combat. Therefore, if you reload and even change the order of combat or any random element, it can affect the rest of the game though not necessarily in a bad way.

Personally, I like the saved seed. Recently there was a game that I accidentally had the "View Enemy Moves" unchecked from a previous game and my early game Scout died by walking into a barbarian. I could reload and repeat the same sequence of combats up until the Scout was butchered and move my scout to avoid the obvious danger. I suppose some would consider this cheating as well, but I do not.

 

[Indiansmoke]

How do you learn from your mistakes if you can magically fix them?

It is not magically, it is reload!! You do learn from mistakes only when you replay a certain situation to see what could have been done different. If you quit and start over every time without finding out what you could have done better you will never improve. When I reload I do not do it to win and post my win somewher to be proud of!! I do it because i am interested in the game and want to max my knowledge on how things work.

It wouldn't be worth it since the HoF Staff would catch it.

What if it is playing the saves to a point and then reloading the saves? Is that not possible? People have claimed to do it even in this thread with 4000 bc saves!

It's either that or people regenerate maps until they get the most advantageous set up anyway.

You tell me that HOF people do not regenerate? Oh yes they start a new game!

You clearly have no idea how the HoF works.

Yes that is propably why in the HOF you find 0 games under a lot of conditions.

A good strategy is much more important than good luck.

I don't know what you mean with luck? Perfecting a certain map type.size/opponents/speed etc by playing it over and over is not strategy to me. Strategy is to play all random and be able to adjust accordingly every time.

 

[jessiecat]

Maybe I don't understand HOF either. If I save and resign at 4000BC to
reveal the map each time then each save overrides the previous one. How
could HOF know? All they'd see is one 4000BC save, wouldn't they? Is that
anymore than a cheat than No Barbarians etc.?

 

[thelibra]

Out of curiousity, how would they know if there was a reload used in a HOF or MP game?

 

[Bandobras Took]

I've got to agree that I learn an awful lot from reloading a few turns eariler (usually an autosave) and seeing what doing things differently causes. Once you already know everything about Civ IV, reloading seems pointless, but when trying to see the long-term effects of early choices, reloading is a great help.

 

[Antilogic]

My answer is the "screw things up by accident". I'm not a reload nazi or anything, but if I lose several battles in a row that I should have won (well over 90% odds each), I'll chalk it up to having an incompetent general in the field, and keep on fighting. I turn it into a story, and that's what keeps me interested in a game from session to session. Besides, just because I lose battle or two that were heavily in my favor doesn't mean I'll lose the war. In the end, if most of my troops are fighting when they are heavily favored, I'll win.

The only time I feel justified in reloading is if I accidentally move a worker to a square I didn't intend to, or accidentally move my stack of defenders outside the city with enemies at the gates while I'm trying to do something else. In that case, because I did not intend to make that move, I reload and leave them in place. I believe it's the decisions you intentionally make that should affect the game's outcome, not a wrong mouse click.

I will regenerate starting positions if it looks too similar to a previous game. I don't want to play with the same early resources all the time, or sometimes I want to start more out of the way-looking near the tundra and sometimes I want to be in the absolute middle of the map (typically where there is more jungle, less cold terrain). Again, all part of the story thing.

 

[Diamondeye]

It is not magically, it is reload!! You do learn from mistakes only when you replay a certain situation to see what could have been done different. If you quit and start over every time without finding out what you could have done better you will never improve. When I reload I do not do it to win and post my win somewher to be proud of!! I do it because i am interested in the game and want to max my knowledge on how things work.

I am sure Azzaman doesn't mean that he quits if something goes wrong, he doesn't reload, that's all. Same here. If you reload because something doesn't go according to plan, then you should play on and change that plan.

You tell me that HOF people do not regenerate? Oh yes they start a new game!

... That's needed to submit multiple games...

I don't know what you mean with luck? Perfecting a certain map type.size/opponents/speed etc by playing it over and over is not strategy to me. Strategy is to play all random and be able to adjust accordingly every time.

Nope. That's improvisation. Or the ability to say: "Okay, I am playing Portugal on a highlands map - what do I do?" Strategy is something like:
"Settlerspam!"
"Early rush"
"Going for a culture win fueled by my UB!"
"Running a SE fueled by Pyramids"

 

[MrFrodo]

Ahhh, a chance to confess my sins

I reload more than I should, but less than I used to. Mainly I will sometimes "cheat" in the following ways:

1) If I press the wrong button and inadvertently do something I did not plan to. Like declaring war when I didn't mean to, deleting a unit or moving a big mass of unit the wrong direction by accident. I mess up moving workers all the time, I let that go.

2) If I make a very stupid mistake or have very bad luck. e.g. I send an early settler out to a nearby city spot with a warrior escort, and before they get there 2 barbarian lions pop out of forests and eat my warrior. I might reload that, take a different route to the spot or pick a less dangerous spot. Another common one is: I have my war forces massed on the border of my next target and forget to declare war before I move them into their Open Borders the next turn

3) I will regenerate maps if I really hate the starting position. But not just to get that ubar food resource starting point. I'll live with so-so starting positions, but not stuck on a peninsula with e.g. Shaka blocking your expansion.

4) Occaisionally I will place an early resource in range of my second city placement. For example, if I want to try a new leader and the UU's resource is no where to be found. Instead of playing without their UU, I will place it nearby. But lately I just try to figure out how to get it, or go without, particularly if its a leader I'm familiar with already.

5) As someone else mentioned I like to save games at key points and sometimes I will reload to them just to take a different path and learn from the experience. Often I will test different approaches to attacking a neighbor (e.g. split stacks vs SoD vs. pillage and seige), or I will even replay the whole second half of a game only instead of staying peaceful, I'll try warmongering and see if I can win that way. You can learn a lot doing this, but you can also overdo it and end up reloading too much.

I DONT reload when I loose a combat I had good odds to win or to get a goodie hut tech or when I loose a scout to a sneaky Bear or get a bad event or have a resource too far away or whatever.

Ultimately, I just want to enjoy the game in a casual way. I'm not trying to prove anything, or be the greatest Civ player in the world. I often play while watching TV or while distracted by wife and kids, so it is hard not to make stupid mistakes. I had been addicted to World of Warcraft for 2.5 years, where I would spend 3-5 hour stints almost every night glued to my computer, where one mistaken key stroke could wipe 19-39 other peoples characters and there is no reloading. So it is a lot of fun to have the freedom to play a Single Player game and have a bit more control over the experience. Having said that, I generally enjoy the games wehre I overcome some hardships the best, I used to reload just about anything bad, and always play easier levels, now I try to recover and challenge myself with harder levels. Someday I might try civ MP and see if I can handle that level of concentration again

 

[Lightwave]

Given the argument over saves, I will explain my thoughts a little. I try to limit my saves to "reasonable" reloads (almost always accidental situations) based on the fact that if I abuse it I will ruin my own enjoyment of the game. The saves are there to be used. Otherwise, Firaxis/2K could have just restricted all saves and sold a much smaller number of copies of the game.

Aside from being able to save to leave the game for work, saves also make up for game shortcomings in other ways:
1. If I force myself to always move every unit manually so that I see that new barbarian, I make my own life more tedious. I try to keep a watch, but if I get up to get a sandwich or accidentally still have "View Enemy Moves" unchecked from a previous game, I will not feel bad about reloading. The point of the automated mechanics is to make the game more playable but still nicely complex.

2. I've only done this a couple times, but if I do not take 5 minutes per turn to mouse hover scan every stack's contents (particularly after railroads when entire stacks can move cross continent easily), I do not consider it cheating to reload occasionally. One time Sitting Bull's main stack split and it was not clear that it had done so in the between turn moves. I had every reason to suspect he was attacking another closer city that his units had been moving on. I try to be aware, but due to the way the stacks move, it is not always obvious. My generals would be able to tell me that, Hey we've got a massive enemy force just changed direction and is moving this way. Don't be fooled that it just looks like one Cuirassier unit. I agree that this is much more like cheating, so I do not abuse it. If I did nothing but play games, it would be different; but it would ruin the pace of the game to force myself to manually keep tabs on every enemy unit every turn. The game already takes 1 - 2 days to play which I really can't afford to do even that.

3. As in my game last night, I got smashed by barbarians because I took a chance and ignored archery near the middle of a big continent with Raging Barbarians turned on. I want to reload and try again from scratch to see if I can do better even though I now have some knowledge of the surrounding terrain.

There are also cases where use of the world builder is justified.
In one of my recent games, I had just taken 2 major cities of Mansa Musa (one of them holding the Statue of Zeus which was a goal to capture since I knew I would be in trouble later), but his culture was so strong that both cities were surrounded. I could not sustain the attack, and I knew he was willing to sign a peace deal.

I knew that his cultural control would trap my units in the cities (It's stupid not to have a right of passage type agreement as a condition of peace, but it is not in the game); so except for a defense force, I purposefully moved my units out of the city. However, since his culture still controlled the surrounding area, I could only move one square with my cannons and machine gunners. I was then one square from my main territory, and I thought "ok now I can sign a peace treaty. When the game automatically removes my troops from enemy territory, it should put the units into my main territory." I did not want another turn of war because Sitting Bull had just declared war on me also, so I signed a peace deal, and the dumb algorithm put my units back into the cities, exactly what I was trying to avoid.

It was exactly opposite of where I was moving them because I knew I wanted them on my other front. Therefore, I opened world builder and temporarily reduced the culture of the nearby cities so that I could get my units out as my original intention and attempt was to do. It would have even been a condition of my peace agreement if the game diplomacy would have had the option.

In this case, the game mechanics were introduced to stop human exploits of the AI by declaring war while having troops within their territory. The change in mechanics also messed up a very obvious effort to relocate my own troops out of his territory. Therefore, it was the game mechanism that was the problem and not my "desire to cheat."

Basically, I don't let game mechanics hinder my enjoyment of the game. Game mechanics are a means to an end (my enjoyment) and not the end itself. If, in the limitations of a human construction, that the game structure causes a logical failure, I correct it using other parts of the game mechanics, and then I move on to continue having fun with the game.

 

[Collier20]

I reload if I lose a wonder by one turn or if I accept someone as a vassal and several civs declare war on me. Other than that, its only when I do something I did not want to do, like use a GE to start a golden age.

 

[Antilogic]

Ahhh, a chance to confess my sins

I reload more than I should, but less than I used to. Mainly I will sometimes "cheat" in the following ways:

1) If I press the wrong button and inadvertently do something I did not plan to. Like declaring war when I didn't mean to, deleting a unit or moving a big mass of unit the wrong direction by accident. I mess up moving workers all the time, I let that go.

2) If I make a very stupid mistake or have very bad luck. e.g. I send an early settler out to a nearby city spot with a warrior escort, and before they get there 2 barbarian lions pop out of forests and eat my warrior. I might reload that, take a different route to the spot or pick a less dangerous spot. Another common one is: I have my war forces massed on the border of my next target and forget to declare war before I move them into their Open Borders the next turn

3) I will regenerate maps if I really hate the starting position. But not just to get that ubar food resource starting point. I'll live with so-so starting positions, but not stuck on a peninsula with e.g. Shaka blocking your expansion.

4) Occaisionally I will place an early resource in range of my second city placement. For example, if I want to try a new leader and the UU's resource is no where to be found. Instead of playing without their UU, I will place it nearby. But lately I just try to figure out how to get it, or go without, particularly if its a leader I'm familiar with already.

5) As someone else mentioned I like to save games at key points and sometimes I will reload to them just to take a different path and learn from the experience. Often I will test different approaches to attacking a neighbor (e.g. split stacks vs SoD vs. pillage and seige), or I will even replay the whole second half of a game only instead of staying peaceful, I'll try warmongering and see if I can win that way. You can learn a lot doing this, but you can also overdo it and end up reloading too much.

I DONT reload when I loose a combat I had good odds to win or to get a goodie hut tech or when I loose a scout to a sneaky Bear or get a bad event or have a resource too far away or whatever.

Ultimately, I just want to enjoy the game in a casual way. I'm not trying to prove anything, or be the greatest Civ player in the world. I often play while watching TV or while distracted by wife and kids, so it is hard not to make stupid mistakes. I had been addicted to World of Warcraft for 2.5 years, where I would spend 3-5 hour stints almost every night glued to my computer, where one mistaken key stroke could wipe 19-39 other peoples characters and there is no reloading. So it is a lot of fun to have the freedom to play a Single Player game and have a bit more control over the experience. Having said that, I generally enjoy the games wehre I overcome some hardships the best, I used to reload just about anything bad, and always play easier levels, now I try to recover and challenge myself with harder levels. Someday I might try civ MP and see if I can handle that level of concentration again

I agree with one, and have done so myself. But I can't say I've been doing the rest of those...

In any case, I probably play a little below my difficulty. I haven't lost a Prince game in ages, so I could probably move up a level...but then again, Prince is a very good level for my "casual" gaming.

 

[AngryZealot]

I reload if I push the wrong button (left instead of right with a settler straight into barbarians ). I don't think that's cheating at all.

I'll also reload if a city goes into disorder from population growth, at least at the start when turns aren't too long. I simply don't have the patience to check every city for unrest at the end of every turn.

Other than those I try to play the game straight through, although I have a tendency to go for the best possible starting position.

 

[Powerslave]

I checked, and I was completely wrong. The HoF doesn't allow reloading for any reason. Maybe I was thinking of something else, like restoring crashed sessions.

I think you learn better by taking poor starting locations, losing wars, and dealing with bad luck, but not everyone wants to become a HoF submitter or Deity player. I know I sure don't want to play on Deity. I'm still having fun on Monarch, even though it's probably time to move up to Emperor. I hate the idea of dedicating my life to micromanagement.

 

[Roxlimn]

I reload when I'm about to lose. I just don't see the point in playing a game out to its conclusion when I've been at the bottom of the pile for going on 100 turns into the Modern Age. Second to the last, that I can crawl back from, but dead last is just insurmountable for me.

 

[ezwip]

How do you learn from your mistakes if you can magically fix them?

How do you fix Shaka and Isabella acting like complete tards then attacking your least defended city the first second they get, while attempting to create a stack and march that forward through enemy territory?

You do not understand Shaka! There is no fix there is nothing to learn from except that he's a nutball and you need a stack of 10 in every single coastal city.