Do you save/reload before every attack?

[TheMeInTeam]

I save before major wars, but also before major strategic decisions. The intent here is learning - if what I did fails and it puts me in a losing situation, then sometimes I'll do a "what could I have done differently that would have allowed me to win the game" line of thought, go back to the earlier save, and see if a different decision improved the outcome.

I must admit, by now my incidence of reloads for the above reason is quite low, although I still do save. My weakness nowadays seems much more micro/empire management oriented though, which is far more subtle and not something you can save before.

 

[troytheface]

reloading is a quick way to get to Emperor level and then you can go on the boards and write about upper level games and tactics. One can start sentences such as "and on my last Diety game i invaded with amphibeous sword and use Carracks"
This ability to never lose a battle also allows one the opportunity to give a tip of the hat to Alexander the Great who never lost a battle either.

 

[Stephanus]

Playing mainly at marathon-speed, I usually save only when my session ends.
The end of my session is generally before any major decision: do I DoW or not?
I saved a lot in Civ2, but this had the effect that I had to clean out my saved games files very regularly, due to the increasing space taken on my hard disk. And this time could better be spent playing Civ

 

[Yesod]

So much for honesty, I've seen far too many posted games with ideal starts according to the planned strategy. Say an early rush and the capital is all forested grass-hills with 2 cows. Or let's not forget a certain player's Deity REX game where the capital had exactly 20 forests in the BFC....

But if noone else admits to relaoding at times, I will. I used to reload and use the worldbuilder liberally when I was moving from noble to monarch. I really only stopped completely when I got to emperor. If you want to try a peacefull REX strategy for example, it helps to take defense out of the picture at first to practice the micromanagement and teching that plays the bigger part. Instead of retiring when a stack of axemen rushed me, I just deleted them in the WB and noted the fact that my defense was not enough, or in the wrong places.

I mean it's alot quicker to experiment with a cultural victory in a debug-open game if you've never done it before. The same thing goes for combat. Either play a hundred games "as is" or experiment with different combinations during each battle and learn the mechanics way faster. Id even suggest using the worldbuilder more if your still green when it comes to combat. Say, if you want to find out how many horse archers to bring to take a city, worldbuilder them up with realistic promotions and try taking it with different numbers. As long as you stop once you get the picture, I dont see a problem.

Just my opinion anyway.

 

[gregh87]

I used to save and reload when I was attacking with my Great General-promoted units. I'd just get too pissed off when I lost one with 95% success odds, that I decided I'd never attach a GG to another unit, and just settle them in my military production city.

I know what you mean about changing around the attack orders. For me, it just seems to waste too much time, and I don't do it anymore. Instead, I sacrifice some siege units, and then attack with my low-experience units first unless there are overwhelming odds for my experienced units. If they lose, I get mad and then move on.

Also, I think you can kind of gauge when you'll have a good fight and when you'll have a bad one. I've found that after winning a fight with like 50-75% odds with hardly any damage, or winning a <50% fight at all, I will usually lose the next fight with good odds, or vice a versa.

 

[Kawalimus]

I save before doing something big most of the time. But the thing is I don't usually reload. I do it in case I make a mistake I didn't mean to do in the first place. And if a major war fails I'll reload and play the game and not do that war, because sometimes it's just annoying/discouraging to start all over if you were enjoying a game. And I just want to take that game in a different direction and still enjoy it.

 

[Negator_UK]

Whatever floats your boat. It's your game. I would advice against mentioning it if you're trying to impress a hot chick with your Civ skills, though.

I disagree, perhaps she would understand the futility of cheating at a solitaire game to impress folk you'll never meet. Honesty is the best foundation for a loving relationship...

 

[Negator_UK]

... but seriously...

A while ago, playing a game called "Xcom Terror from the Deep" I learned to play it and win in a style called "Ironman". Its not a part of the software, you just play, , win or lose and never reload anything.

Compared to playing and reloading the game was MUCH more fun playing ironman.

I play civ4 the same way, although I will experiment from time-to time (ie, start a game, bum-rush willy-nilly and quit after 20 mins).

Civ is a very complex game and if you learn all the mechanisms though "honest play" you'll spend far longer than you should playing at lower levels.

So if you do go Ironman, you should still find ways to experiment - here are some ways..

1. If you are concecding (like I do a lot) don't stop the game there and then. Gather your forces together, DoW the hard-case next door and go out with a bang.

2. If you are in the nuclear age, try and build a few, then go out with a really big bang. Recently I was racing to what I thought was going to be my first monarch space win, when some a**e of a AI decided to wage war on me with nukes. This had simply never happened to me before and I had no idea what to do. I was in a close space-race at the time and could not just switch out to fght a war. So I ended up conceding, but not before I gave the sucker a taste of his own medicine and learned a few things about nuke wars that may be helpful next time... Wringing the last bit of experience out of a game is very important, however you choose to do it.

 

[DutchJob]

Before a BIG War I'll save. When I then make a mistake i can reload. Or not.

Just learn to build the Heroic Epic ASAP and you'll have so many guys you will mind the losses less.

 

[Churchill's Hat]

If I lose half my battles at 90+% odds, I'll admit I go into WB and add the units I lost. It really ticks me off when that happens, particularly if:

1) I have already use some trebs/cannon/artillery to soften the defense
2) They're really good units (CR3 Maces just before Rifling, GGs, units with experience >15-20, etc.)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So much for honesty, I've seen far too many posted games with ideal starts according to the planned strategy. Say an early rush and the capital is all forested grass-hills with 2 cows. Or let's not forget a certain player's Deity REX game where the capital had exactly 20 forests in the BFC....

But if noone else admits to relaoding at times, I will. I used to reload and use the worldbuilder liberally when I was moving from noble to monarch. I really only stopped completely when I got to emperor. If you want to try a peacefull REX strategy for example, it helps to take defense out of the picture at first to practice the micromanagement and teching that plays the bigger part. Instead of retiring when a stack of axemen rushed me, I just deleted them in the WB and noted the fact that my defense was not enough, or in the wrong places.

I mean it's alot quicker to experiment with a cultural victory in a debug-open game if you've never done it before. The same thing goes for combat. Either play a hundred games "as is" or experiment with different combinations during each battle and learn the mechanics way faster. Id even suggest using the worldbuilder more if your still green when it comes to combat. Say, if you want to find out how many horse archers to bring to take a city, worldbuilder them up with realistic promotions and try taking it with different numbers. As long as you stop once you get the picture, I dont see a problem.

Just my opinion anyway.

Rather than reloading constantly and admitting to THAT, I usually just play games until I realize I can't win them, then throw them.

However, if I told the forum every time I did THAT, some threads would turn pretty spammy, especially immortal U. 1/2 the posts would be walkthroughs of failed games for me, some of them quite ridiculous .

You give some good advice in terms of learning though. When I was 15 I map hacked in starcraft a LOT in unranked games. I never really thought about it's learning potential until much later - but after playing a lot of map hacked games I could play ranked games without one and be just as effective - I knew the timing of good players with pretty much every strategy the game had to offer.

If, by cheating in civ IV, you learn how things work more quickly, go for it (if you're not in MP or succession games ). I also strongly recommend just an occasional save before major strategic decisions - ones that can turn the outcome of a game. That way you can go back to see if the decision was optimal.

 

[brades]

I dont reload because of combat odds, I mean if it said 100% than you would have to win, but you play enough civ and obviously you will lose 90% odds of I dont know about 10% of the time . As far as worldbuilder I've never opened it, but just like many of you I save before DoW because it could go wrong, and like Mad pointed out why waste 15 hours on a game to see it go to . .. .. .. . in 15 minutes because of a premature DoW. I'll reload and figure out the better way to do it, learn from my mistake, and move on. Some games I'll go the entire game without reloading, some games I'll make mistakes and reload and win the game, some games Ill reload and theres nothing I can do to get out of my predicament - those I give up.

 

[brades]

I dont reload because of combat odds, I mean if it said 100% than you would have to win, but you play enough civ and obviously you will lose 90% odds of I dont know about 10% of the time . As far as worldbuilder I've never opened it, but just like many of you I save before DoW because it could go wrong, and like Mad pointed out why waste 15 hours on a game to see it go to . .. .. .. . in 15 minutes because of a premature DoW. I'll reload and figure out the better way to do it, learn from my mistake, and move on. Some games I'll go the entire game without reloading, some games I'll make mistakes and reload and win the game, some games Ill reload and theres nothing I can do to get out of my predicament - those I give up.

 

[troytheface]

didn't realize that civ4 harbored so many cheaters. all the reloaders ought to form a league in Multi player and anytime they lose a battle they can quit and cry home to mama.

 

[King Jason]

I'll save before wars sometimes. Not before battles though.

I used to have a severe problem saving and reloading in some older strategy games. It never crossed my mind how trivial it makes the game though. Because seriously, you'll count yourself as good or skilled at the game, when in actuality, you're not good at all. Or at the very least, you don't really know if you're good at the game.

I mean think about it... If you save and reload for every "battle", and then you go back through the history of the game after you finally win and factor out the loading - You just played a game where you won every single battle. Something that is so improbable it's almost an impossibility, even at lower difficulties.

That to me isn't playing the real game. It's more akin to directing a slideshow or a movie about whatever it is your playing. Because the outcome is predetirmined at that point - you win. There's no room for the situation or scenarios to change. It's always a game of "So I'm gonna start... and I'm going to build up.. then I'm going to win".

Though I'm also a strong advocate of the "do whatever you want if it's fun for you" mentality. If it's what makes the game entertaining for you then go crazy with it. I have zero problem with anyone who cheats, saves/reloads, designs scenarios in their own favor, or whatever else anyone can do in the game.

The save/reload issue is just something I ended up having to deal with at some point so it's something I have more of an opinion on. Though it's strictly personal. If you like to do it, I'd only hope it's actively entertaining you. Once I grasped the concept of it, I decided that playing games that way didn't entertain me at all.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I have a bad habit of saving before I attack ANYTHING and if the attack fails, I automatically reload. While waging war, I save right when my stack reaches enemy city, then I reload as long as I get the best results.
I have random seed off, so I won't take advantage of that, but I keep on messing around with unit attack orders, until I get the best result.

Can this be considered cheating? If yes, I won't do it anymore.

Unless you're in some kind of competition, then play the game any way you like. Reloading isn't cheating, but it does have some drawbacks.

That said, here are my personal views of reloading:

1) I try to save/load as little as possible. Usually, I'll only save at the end of a session.

2) Reloading is like lowering the difficulty level. You may feel better because you're winning, but you're also not getting better at the game.

3) If I lose a game, I'll usually reload at the point I think my game made a turn for the worse. This is usually to learn what I should've done better.

4) Constantly reloading slows down the game, and my games are slow enough as it is.

 

[xfactor99]

I save before wars and before taking big cities, but just as a precautionary measure. The only time I ever reloaded was when I lost a Great General-boosted unit with over 10 promotions with 99.9% combat odds to a goddamned longbowman. That really sucked.

 

[Elrohir]

I have a bad habit of saving before I attack ANYTHING and if the attack fails, I automatically reload. While waging war, I save right when my stack reaches enemy city, then I reload as long as I get the best results.
I have random seed off, so I won't take advantage of that, but I keep on messing around with unit attack orders, until I get the best result.

Can this be considered cheating? If yes, I won't do it anymore.

When I played Civ3, I used to reload every time I lost an Army unit, and every time I popped a good hut for something other than a tech. Obviously I spent tons and tons of time waiting for it to reload, and I completely sucked at the game. When I switched to Civ4, I dropped that habit - and have since moved up three difficulty levels. To use a bad boxing metaphor, you have to learn to roll with the punches, or else you'll never learn how to fight. It's your game, you can do what you want - but if you want to get good, I'd advise you to learn to deal with minor losses.

Anyway, yes, I generally still do save it before I declare war, and at other crucial points. But I don't reload except under one of two circumstances:

1. I'm testing something, and I want to go back. (Large civics changes, how bad WW is if I declare now rather than later, DoW on trade route income, and so on) Generally I won't play it out and see what happens, I'll just reload after I can see what effect it has.

2. I accidentally do something that has a major effect on my campaign/game. Like, if I accidentally give all Swordsmen set aside for attacking cities the Woodsman promotion. (It's happened before) Or I accidentally move all my defenders out of a city, which is vunlerable to attack the next turn. I don't reload if I fail at something - if the AI is smart enough to destroy my stack, then more power to them - but only if something bad happens as the result of a misclick or something of the sort, not an error in judgment. I suppose some people might see even this as 'cheating' (Maybe call it transcription errors in military orders; plenty of those have happened in history ) but it's my game, and I have no problem doing this. I'm playing to have fun, and yes, to get better at it - but not to penalize myself for ever misclick or accidental button press in a 10-15 hour game.

Note that I'm not talking about adding or reloading things for experimental purposes. If you want to create a game solely to test how good or bad Horse Archers are at taking cities, or what's the highest defense you can get, or whatever, then fine. I think experimentation is different from cheating so that you can win a game that you otherwise couldn't, through skill alone.


EDIT: And yes, I admit to occasionally going into WB to give myself a couple dozen Modern Armor to raze Tokugawa or Montezuma's empire to the ground. But - and here's how I rationalize it - I never continue the game afterwards. As I see it, once you "break the rules" by giving yourself a bunch of MA's or deleting an enemy stack, you've effectively thrown the game. So while you can derive some useful knowledge from the rest of the game (Or demented pleasure in burning Tokugawa's stupid city with it's Garrison 3 Longbown to the ground along with the rest of his frigging miserable empire....) I don't think you can fairly claim to have "won" the game. Because you didn't, really. You broke the rules in order to make up for your own inability to solve a situation. And you can do that, that's fine - just don't pretend that you didn't.

 

[Negator_UK]

However, if I told the forum every time I did THAT, some threads would turn pretty spammy, especially immortal U. 1/2 the posts would be walkthroughs of failed games for me, some of them quite ridiculous .

Nooo, you've just taken all the FUN out of your posts..

Many beginner and intermediate players come to the forum to see whats "normal" in climbing the Civ learning curve, so any "real life" civ exeriences will help them identify their problems more clearly and that they are not just the extraordinary idiotic butter fingers they percieve themselves to be, just ordinary ones...

In fact this highlights one of the problems with the board - people leaving only sugary "sanitised" posts leave me wondering if me and the poster are playing the same game. I don't care about other people cheating in single player, I just want to learn. (haven't tried any of the compos yet though).

Finally if "things that make you reload" issues are made public this will eventually get back to the game developers and maybe they will learn to make games that have less of these ridiculous features in.

Supressing the truth should get you spanked

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

Saving at key decision making points in a game is important. i always save before a big war or a big civic change or at any key point in the game really, and label the savegame accordingly. then, if 1000 years down the line that particular tactic didnt work, i can go back and revise what went wrong, and do it differently, maybe choose not to attack the AI, or to choose different civics, or build units instead of wonders... Its the best way to learn for me.