How often do you reload a save?

[genjiboy]

Honestly, with a game that takes as long to play as Civ does, I have no problems with reloading when I make really huge mistakes. I would love to be able to play all the way through to learn from these huge mistakes, but it often seems like too big a time investment.

I may become a better Civ player if I don't reload at all, but I can't say that I care too much. I don't really mind how challenging or not challenging a game is, as long as I'm having fun.

 

[Equisilus]

I've never reloaded because of a poor choice on my part, or a poor outcome (for me) after some event. I just keep on at it. Even games where I'm being wiped off the face of the planet I keep playing until the end. The only times I load a game is when I'm continuing from my last play, not to change the way something is done. I find the game fun even when I'm losing.

Although, there was that time I had to reload several times to figure out why the game crashed. Turns out, to prevent the crash, I had to have Open Borders with everyone possible. Interesting fix, but I was able to continue on with the game.

 

[Reprisal]

Sometimes I accidentally misclick when I thought it's one unit but it was another ... other than that, I don't reload saves unless I want to go back for a screenshot or something like that.

 

[Dreef]

People that consider reloading home games (to get ahead) cheating because it is. If someone has more fun when they reload, that just means they enjoy cheating more than playing it straight. It doesn't magically mean that it's not cheating.

See this is where you messed up. "to get ahead". See, there is no competition in a personal game. There is no e-peen enlarging. There is no bragging rights. Just a bunch of people at home playing for fun and hopefully to learn to play better. It isn't the reloading that's a problem, if your magic epeen feels threatened because some noobs say they can beat diety. It is your fragile sense of accomplishment that needs to be re-evaluated. Play multiplayer or GoTM where reloading is not an option. Stroke your epeen in the correct places. Calling somebody a cheater because of personal games is misguided.

ZOMG its cheating!!! what a loser

 

[Caprice]

People that consider reloading home games (to get ahead) cheating because it is. If someone has more fun when they reload, that just means they enjoy cheating more than playing it straight. It doesn't magically mean that it's not cheating.

I won't argue that it is techincally cheating. I just think it is silly if someone gets worked up just because someone happens to occasionally reload their game for whatever reason.

 

[Dreef]

Ex2: You are golfing by yourself, and you miss an tremendously easy put, you take a muligan. Cheating, especially if you don't count it on your score card
Does this have impact on anyone else?
No
Is it cheating yes

I think the golf one is somewhat analagous but not the way you are presenting it. Worldbuilder cheating is more paralel to fudging your score card. Altering game mechanics.

Lets say I have a tough shot near some water. Normally my safe routine is to lay it up short and get to the green after. Hell we are playing CIV *save* lets go for the green on the first shot just for fun. Whack into the water. Well I thought that was going to happen, I am not good enough to make that shot yet. *Reload* alright lets stick to the safe shot.

Or to an extreme, I wonder how far I can drive with my putter *save*. Whack, huh not very far. *Reload*

According to you, I should replay the entire 18 holes if I want to take a couple silly shots like that.

 

[apdavis828]

Whatever it's cheating and yes i do it - i got enough barbs to deal with without having to worry about hostile villages or villages that give me 24 gold even with a scout.

 

[Islandia]

I don't think that there will ever be consensus on this type of thing. There are people who seem to think that the game of civ in all its purity must be played in one sitting straight through without any alteration to be a game. Otherwise it is some form of cheating. While I don't agree, I do not really wish to get into argument over something which again impacts no one, so I shall continue to play the way I like and others can do the same.

In a long game like this, the only way to improve in my mind is, whether you win or lose, go back after the game and evaluate each of your moves to see where you could have done better. Many of the clan practice games that I play in multiplayer involve exactly this. We will play through, and at a certain point when victory by one side or the other seems inevitable, we may well stop reload from an old save and point out where someone went wrong, make a change and play it through again. If this is cheating, then indeed we cheat in order to win more often and are darn proud of that fact.

 

[Memphus]

I think the golf one is somewhat analagous but not the way you are presenting it. Worldbuilder cheating is more paralel to fudging your score card. Altering game mechanics.

Lets say I have a tough shot near some water. Normally my safe routine is to lay it up short and get to the green after. Hell we are playing CIV *save* lets go for the green on the first shot just for fun. Whack into the water. Well I thought that was going to happen, I am not good enough to make that shot yet. *Reload* alright lets stick to the safe shot.

Or to an extreme, I wonder how far I can drive with my putter *save*. Whack, huh not very far. *Reload*

According to you, I should replay the entire 18 holes if I want to take a couple silly shots like that.

No that is not what I was saying. I was saying that is how I would do in a golf game. I would take the best shot which I thought was playeable on that hole. If I tanked in the water I would drop my ball and continue playing from there learning from my mistake that I was over aggressive. In this case if time allowed I would go back to hole X and try some other possibilites, probably even try the exact same shot again (kinda like getting a good RNG) to see if it could be done.

However you are right If I was playing a golf game as a pure experiement I would take many different approaches and come back to them and try again, but I wouldn't consider that playing the game of golf, but practicing the game of golf.

So i guess that is the confusion lies. IMO people associate cheating with doing something wrong. This is not nessecarily true in the Case of civilization.

For the golf comparison again (which is funny because I golf like once a year...should have come up with a hockey example )
If I was going to play a golf course I went to it and practiced every day, took many different approaches to it, played the same course numerous times, I would undoubtly get better at that course and arguably a better golfer overall. However I would be fooling my self into thinking I was better than I actually was, seeing as my experience draws on the similar set of conditions.

So in concluion for people who think I have a beef with reloading I don't, I used to do it avidly, right up until civ 4, as mentioned in another thread I started:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144352

But what gets me is someone who has convinced themself they can play a Monarch level game by reloading it 50 times through out to make sure everything happened jsut right for them. And even then I shouldn't care and don't really actually, but it is the same as the office party guy who tells coworkers (other civfanatics) he shot 81 on his last round of golf, when he did, when you account for muligans and other variable experiments he tried on that game. The honest thing to say would be "Man I was out shotting golf today and tried some really interesting shots, some worked some didn't leet me tell you about what I did..."

 

[MyOtherName]

I wouldn't get myself in that situation in the first place.
If I see I have 2% to win, I run away!

Must be hard to take well-defended cities then, without any suicide catapaults! (It's fun when a sacrificial unit wins a fight like this -- not only is the surprise pleasant, but you get a whole heap of experience too!)

And besides, it's hard to run away when someone else is doing the attacking.

 

[dcode147]

A while back in civ 3, I used to save after every five or six turns. If I was in a war, I would save after every turn. Though I could achieve ridiculously high scores through frequent save and loading, I soon found playing the game to be more of a chore rather than a game. Many of my games (especially on larger maps) would bog down to fifty or sixty hours. Nowadays, I never go back to reload. Civilization is a game of matching wits with history's greatest leaders and a lot of luck. It has nothing to do with atopping twenty-eight thousand.

 

[Quantumduck]

I agree with the second option that LordTerror stated. I have played the same starting position now 7 or 8 times, and it has helped me understand the way the game works and how to better win.

I started by reloading the game at around 1200 AD and playing differently several times, and then moving back to the 4000BC spot and playing differently.

Sometimes I have won, sometimes I have lost, but at least I know what decisions caused the losses and wins.

 

[MyOtherName]

I won't argue that it is techincally cheating. I just think it is silly if someone gets worked up just because someone happens to occasionally reload their game for whatever reason.

Do you not find it silly that people will vehemently argue that it's not cheating? I do.

 

[Caprice]

Do you not find it silly that people will vehemently argue that it's not cheating? I do.

Definetly. I think it is silly to argue at all about it.

I actually think I worded that particular sentence poorly. I meant to imply that I understand that it is cheating and I won't argue otherwise, in case there was some confusion -- I managed to have a hard time understanding my own words so I have to guess it was confusing to others too.

 

[Methos]

A year or so ago I use to reload all the time; than I joined the GOTM games. After playing where reloading wasn't allowed at all I realized how much more fun it was to play through your mistakes and failures. It soon came to the point that I wouldn't do it for any reason.

Learning from my mistakes was more enjoyable than just winning.

In other words, I voted 'Never'.

 

[BenniusCaesar]

Yes it is cheating, I always feel guilty after doing it!
But after all it's a game, I am playing, it's supposed to be FUN!

So if I'm really enjoying a game and I do something really stupid that spoils it for me then I reload and that way i can keep playing and keep having fun.

Don't feel guilty for endulging yourself in a good time.

 

[Memphus]

Yes it is cheating, I always feel guilty after doing it!
But after all it's a game, I am playing, it's supposed to be FUN!

So if I'm really enjoying a game and I do something really stupid that spoils it for me then I reload and that way i can keep playing and keep having fun.

Don't feel guilty for endulging yourself in a good time.

Very well said

Fun is the main goal,
however you have this fun, thru cheating or not does not matter, as long as you are having fun.

 

[worpete]

I am not a fan of reloading saved games if I mess up. Although thats probably why I have only finished 1/10th of the games I have started.

 

[CivCorpse]

For those of you holier than thou types that say reloading is "cheating"....do you turn on always war? If not your cheating, or maybe if you do your cheating. Do you take advantage of prechopping? if so you're cheating. do you cop rush settlers? if so you're cheating because how do you make people from trees? It's only cheating if it is against the rules, since people playing single player make the rules, then they aren't cheating. Give them them the $40 dollars that they paid for the game and THEN you can decide if they are cheating. If reloads were cheating why did firaxis create FOUR auto save slots?

 

[Memphus]

For those of you holier than thou types that say reloading is "cheating"....do you turn on always war? If not your cheating, or maybe if you do your cheating. Do you take advantage of prechopping? if so you're cheating. do you cop rush settlers? if so you're cheating because how do you make people from trees? It's only cheating if it is against the rules, since people playing single player make the rules, then they aren't cheating. Give them them the $40 dollars that they paid for the game and THEN you can decide if they are cheating. If reloads were cheating why did firaxis create FOUR auto save slots?

But specifically:

do you turn on always war? If not your cheating, or maybe if you do your cheating. Do you take advantage of prechopping? if so you're cheating. do you cop rush settlers? if so you're cheating because how do you make people from trees?

If reloads wern't cheating there would be an "undo move option" or button upon which in game after losing a 90% battle you thought you should have won you would click 'undo' and got back to right before attacking and not do it.

Since this option and or button doesn't exist:
unlike always war on/off (option)

prechopping(strategy) some argue explotive though

chop rush settlers(strategy)

people don't come from trees but to found a new settlement you need wood...

reloading a save game(Strategy?) maybe... I suppose some would argue so... it is cheating. I do it, everyone has done it at some point, but like I said before:

So i guess that is the confusion lies. IMO people associate cheating with doing something wrong. This is not nessecarily true in the Case of civilization.

Disassociate cheating and wrong and we have a solution.