[BTS] How often do you re-load? I do it all the time and I want to know if I'm the only one

[Master_Of_Ideas]

I've played this game for the last 3 years and I can't tell you how many times I've raged/reloaded!

I usually try to avoid re-loading. When I gamble for instance, fine. But...

Lose a super-promoted great general in a 80-90% odds battle? Reload. Lose a settler to a bear? Reload. Mis-click? Reload. Lose your fully fortified double-forest promoted warrior on a forested hill to a barb archer? RELOAD!

What do you guys do? Do you all reload or just rage-quit? Now me? I've had my fair share of rage-quits and in my earlier days, nothing like being DOW'ed when I'm having an amazing game (but have weak power) to make me immediately do something else with my life, such as buying a new keyboard and monitor.

I only reload when I made a decision mistake. I don't reload, when the problem is caused by random events (including fights) or my map knowledge, and when map knowledge gets important, I do the same like in another save, even when I know, that I settle on a high-value resource or do other things.

Strong promoted generals I use only when chance is >99%. They are not for fight, they are for healing. Lose a settler to a bear? That cannot happen, when you fogbust the area first. Better use the settlers carefully or accept the risk.

And losing strong units - well... thats the game. Plan with it. Sometimes you win such fights, sometimes you lose such fights.

 

[drewisfat]

3rd degree reloader here. It's a single player strategy game turn-based, no timer. To me that means it's not a performance sport, it's about decision-making. If something transpires contrary to my intended decision, I will reload. Example would be if I was planning to max OF, but waited one turn too long and got stuck with a 1-pop whip no OF, I will reload. Regardless of the size of the impact, I want to be judged by my decisions not my clicks per se. More rarely, I'll also reload if there's information available to me say a turn prior but that I didn't see.
I'm already a really slow player, so the idea of further slowing myself down to make sure I make 0 mistakes -- there's just no incentive for me outside of a competitive game. And I don't like competitive games because they encourage risky strategies over consistent wins. I do admire the streamers who more than anything else, tend to be very mentally organized. It's all chaos over here.
I get that there are BUG text warnings but there are a bunch of them and they slowly trickle in, so I never got in a good habit of using them, preferring instead to just check every city every turn. I can't get behind reloading because of "bad luck", that would defeat the decision making of the game which is to manage risk/reward. I think you can generally tell who reloads for bad luck by a few trends. Do they always build the National Epic? Do they pick the leadership promotion? Never tech archery? Go for Oracle frequently? To me, those are red flags. But ultimately to each their own. I've learned a lot more in this game from reloading/experimenting than searching the forums (which let's admit, doesn't have a perfect search function). So if that's your goal, more power to you.

 

[konata_LS]

The principle about reloading depends on situations/settings. The principle of competition might be different for the principle in non-competitive games. For example when people play for HoF, they can share T0 save only after game submission. By contrast, when people start a shadow game in S&T, they often post T0 save so that others can play along.

In competitive games, certainly reloading is considered as cheating. But for non-competitive games, reloading is fine, though it would be better to mention that in people's write-up, such as "this is my second attempt" or "reload for correcting a mistake".

 

[Snowygerry]

Well certainly in competitive games you do "functional" reloads, to see the exact effects a switch in civics have on a large empire for example ?

That's somewhat different than reloading to change the flow of a game imho.

 

[Harv]

3rd degree reloader here.

This.

I'm already a really slow player

...and this.

The consequence of reloading is it slows me down even impossibly more. The other consequence is I very often do not finish my games.

 

[devolution]

Never ever!

 

[gavenkoa]

Like forgetting to switch to Repre/US after Pyramids

Classical stuff ))

For anyone reloading there is a setting in BUG to save every X steps (and keep last Y saves, deleting more old). I use 2.

Reloading is feedback instrument. Without feedback people progress slowly. That's great if you see a mistake and apply a fix.

Some my reloads are shaming: they are based on revealed new lend. Player should pay price for uncovering unknown land!

 

[gavenkoa]

Replaying the same 25 turns segment over 30 times has a way like no other to contrast the trade offs and make them apparent.

There are two problems here:
* some game rules are hidden and you need to build intuition to develop adequate reaction. Like I do not know the penalty on building a new city - the formula is too hard to calculate / remember
* human brain is incapable at solving combinatorial tasks. We need in game solvers that visually assist with decision making: like in sulla's critique on civ5 of "one unit per turn": civ is strategic game (of logistics and economy), dealing with tactical tasks ruins the game (hello fog busting, early huts or workers stealing). Workers micro is the most visible (hello move + half build of road).

 

[AspiringScholar]

Reloading feels like cheating to me, and if I do it I can't rid myself of the feeling that I can no longer take any credit for success in the game. So, mis-clicking something absent-mindedly is about the only thing I'd allow it for. Losing 99.5% battles with a GG unit (which seems to happen in every game somehow...) is not something I would reload. One other possible example is DoWing/accepting intervention against someone when I forgot that they had a DP or a vassal I didn't want to fight.

 

[ArchGhost]

I reload a lot in the early game, where turns are most critical and the extrapolation of outcomes is most massive. Most commonly due to brainfarting and screwing up a whip threshold, or bullsh*T combat odds with archers in AI cites (really Mansa? You stop 7 immortals, 3 of them triple promoted, with your 2 skirms in your flatland city? Get the f outta here...). I'd rather reload than throw the whole game away on the AI getting f-ing lucky, they cheat enough as it is.

Later on not so much, as with a greater "foothold" in the game it's easier to absorb the outcomes of poor RNG and I lose the stomach for it and will just want to stop playing. Typically I will reload during this stage if I missed something, like a trade or OB agreement the event track failed to tell me about in time, or if I missed something on diplomacy that allowed a bribe-in to happen when I could have prevented it, etc. I autosave every turn because the game is very complex and I end up missing a fair amount of stuff like this over the course of a game.

 

[prloko]

Long time lurker, first time poster. I am notorious for cheating myself when I start to get bored, so at ths start I lock and disable random seed. If not, if things aren’t going well I wreak havoc on my games.

 

[Mezmorizor]

I'll sometimes replay maps if I think there's something to be learned by doing it again, but reloads are for misclicks and computer crashes only. Anything beyond that is cheating as far as I'm concerned.

Though it's worth mentioning that I'm a player who tries to win the largest percentage of maps I can rather than trying to get the highest score or fastest wins. I can see the value in reloading a lot to learn how to hyper optimize things.

 

[chinemol]

played an iso game today. not planned, just happened to be iso. reloaded first for missing glh because of bad capital placement (went for an inland commerce rich option in the first attempt). reloaded again for missing a civic change during a golden age. also for attacking brennus in a divided fashion which got half my stack wiped. think a couple more times also..

 

[Izuul]

I reload misclicks probably 90+% of the time and I sometimes save and reload to learn game mechanics. Like where units will teleport if i dow/close borders and that kind of thing.

I don't reload decisions that I've made that turn out poorly.

One other thing i will do though is occasionally reload something stupid that i overlooked. For example, I'm planning to bulb Astro and trade for CS the turn before i get my last GS to bulb it and then when i go to bulb Astro it says Paper instead. Yeah.. that's getting reloaded in a NC game.

 

[Re-loader]

All the time. I don't play.competitively, and Civ4 allows us to play and challenge ourselves however we please.

The challenge for me, is having world wars on earth maps at maeathon speed, and utilising all the late game features, which is why I play LoR dave uk modmod with improved AI and some equalising of the DCM. I used to play earth 18 maps but am currently trying out the Ghenghis Kai Giant Earth Map with my own modifications(check my previous posts to see what I've done).

It's a very difficult map to adjust to and building a huge empire without revolutions is challenging, so lots of reloading is required in the early stages. After that I'm happy to let the game decide how it goes.

I just changed my username to reflect my playing style.

 

[Gumbolt]

There are two problems here:
* some game rules are hidden and you need to build intuition to develop adequate reaction. Like I do not know the penalty on building a new city - the formula is too hard to calculate / remember
* human brain is incapable at solving combinatorial tasks. We need in game solvers that visually assist with decision making: like in sulla's critique on civ5 of "one unit per turn": civ is strategic game (of logistics and economy), dealing with tactical tasks ruins the game (hello fog busting, early huts or workers stealing). Workers micro is the most visible (hello move + half build of road).

I think there is a guide to city costs and upkeep costs for city size. @Tonny did some numbers on out last SGOTM 26 for Phoenix Rising. The costs go up for size of city and number of cities. Only really an issue if you are leaving 4-5 tiles distance between cities. Or on deity where if you over expand it can kill your economy. Of course this is all part of the game. Knowing which techs to skip and how to manage commerce where needed.

Of course some of these issue are down to basic game management and understanding how to balance worker actions/ expansion/city placements and manage city tiles to add more commerce where needed. BIC covered this nicely in the deity game where working a commerce tile for 10 turns helped bring in AH sooner but worker 1 turn later on deity. I suspect you are on immortal or lower. If you play smaller maps the tech costs should be much lower anyway.

This is what many like about Civ 4. Micro and depth the game provides. Which is why micro and misclicks at some times need reloading. Of course on SGOTM and BOTM no relaods are allowed. However most forum or private games are for fun. Compare this to Civ 5 or 6 and this is where there is a huge Ocean of difference.

 

[gavenkoa]

If you play smaller maps the tech costs should be much lower anyway

I checked civ4worldinfo.xml, parameter iResearchPercent:
100 duel
110 tiny
120 small
130 standard
140 large
150 huge

Tiny / small are almost as standard. Still units obsolete faster...

Seems need to try Standard with high water level. More land more events longer the games ((

 

[Gumbolt]

I guess the idea is smaller map so techs should be quicker as players will fill out land quickly. Where on huge maps you can often build 15+ cities before all the land is taken up so a slower tech rate makes sense.

Not a fan of small maps as often you have 4-5 AI? If you start with 2-3 peaceful Ai the game should be pretty easy if they only have 4-6 cities all game. On huge maps the AI can at least build 30-40 strong stacks and at times go to war. Different challenge I guess. Perhaps it's nice that Civ 4 has so many ways of adapting difficulty and fun to the game.

What is so great about small maps? Is it a difficulty thing to stop the AI getting too big?

 

[qouigv93027]

For me it honestly depends on what's more fun. And I'll play some games "seriously" (i.e. little to no reloading; reloading only for mistakes), and some games "casually" where I reload whenever it annoys me too greatly what just happened.

 

[gavenkoa]

Not a fan of small maps as often you have 4-5 AI?

In the Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4WorldInfo.xml:

iDefaultPlayers / iTargetNumCities

DUEL    2 players 4 Cities
TINY    3 players 4 Cities
SMALL   5 players 5 Cities
STANDARD 7 players 5 Cities
LARGE   9 players 6 Cities
HUGE   11 players 6 Cities

What is so great about small maps?

Less tiles: less events. Compare managing workers for 6 towns vs 20 towns... 1 turn could take 10 min ))

I even learned a rally point shortcut (Shift+Right Click) so lessen micromanagement burden.

On Duel I practiced rushes with Warriors and other units...

On Tiny / Small I practiced putting extra 2-3 AIs to lower AI land-power when practiced Immortal level. Seems I feel comfortable now as games ends before modern era. So need to stop packing AIs for a greater challenge.

As you pointed, smaller maps has lower tech costs. I'd like to experience slower tech rates to widen unit relevance. For this I'll try the "standard" map with higher sea level: to keep amount of world data less time consuming, as each tile requires attention during power gaming.

One downside of small maps is low trade roots income as city distance is a major contributor... It is really a different economy.