is reloading an unwritten rule of fail?

[JammerUno]

I'll reload when I make a mistake caused by inattention, and when I continue a game I usually reload a previous autosave since I notice I play far below my level in the period leading to me exiting the game. I'm a very fast player, with most epic games ending under 3h of play, so those reloads don't usually give me undue advantages, like map knowledge, since I'm usually well into the ADs when I quit after an hour or 2.

For me, there's no reason to not reload in those instances; I play because I enjoy it, I enjoy the game less when I trying to clean up the mess I made at 2 AM just hitting end turn, more if I just replay those turns at the level I'm capable of.

 

[TM Moot]

There is a Civ code of ethics - it believes that people are free to play the game however they want and can reload if they wish .

This.

Whilst I try to minimize any reloading, its up to the individual (it is a GAME after all!!).

There's 2 reasons which seem reasonable to reload (to me):

make a mistake - forget to rush build, forget to activate an army waiting to capture a weakened city, click the wrong square, press the wrong button

try out a different tactic - waged a war and got mullered, want to see if it could of worked better by another strategy

 

[vanatteveldt]

There are IMO two reasons to reload: to get a new random number, or as an "undo" button. I find myself reloading quite frequently in the first turns if I play sloppily and eg forget to change build to settler on new city size, forget to tell a sleeping worker to start working on discovering bronze working etc.

Wesnoth had an undo button that can undo a move unless a random number has been generated or unseen land has been revealed. That is not cheating at all, if you ask me...

 

[Rittmeyer]

I'll reload whenever I attack with 4 different units, having more them 90% chance of sucess and I'll lose 3 of the 4 attacks. Which happens very frequently. So yes, I reload a lot. Simply because this game has absolutely no respect for math. IF the game can mess up with the %, then I feel free to use my own weapon: reload.

 

[City Raider]

I'll reload whenever I attack with 4 different units, having more them 90% chance of sucess and I'll lose 3 of the 4 attacks. Which happens very frequently. So yes, I reload a lot. Simply because this game has absolutely no respect for math. IF the game can mess up with the %, then I feel free to use my own weapon: reload.

Lol! I do that sometimes.

My one complaint about Civ 4 would be the combat system. One, like Han Solo, never tell me the odds. I hate seeing them, it just makes losses more frustrating even if they shouldn't be.

Losing 3-4 troops to a fortified defending unit is one thing, but losing 3-4 when the odds are displayed and each one had (even as low as) 60-70% odds, means you win 2 and the AI wins two, not the AI wins 4.

I always thought Civ 2 had the best combat system.

As for Civ 4, I think each new age of units should receive a bonus built in over early aged units, but that's another thread.

As for Re-loading, I will do so very liberally for minor things, although if it is an egregious oversite like I stupidily left some boarder cities too lightly defended then I'll likely just call the game a loss and move on to a new one. I might reload to see if it would have been possible to defend with existing forces, but even if I do pull it out I really don't feel right about continuing the game so I'll save and probably move on to a new game anyway.

 

[Negator_UK]

Now that I know how strongly Troytheface feels about it, I will make an effort to do it even more often.

In that case, try one of these :-

1) Start by trying to get an early religion, if you fail reload and start some other way.
2) Beeline iron working, check out all the ore sites, then reload and build cities to grab them while beelining alphabet instead.
3) When in a wonder race, don't whip it when near completion - reload if someone else builds it, then whip it.

 

[Nares]

reloaders will cheat their own children

I'd say not specializing cities is a greater sin, and a stronger candidate for the Civ "unwritten rule of fail."

As one of the other posters pointed out, reloading becomes tiresome.

 

[JTMacc99]

At this point, I reload for the following:

1. Hideous keypunch or mouse click error. For example, moving all of my siege weapons up next to an enemy city, but accidentally hitting the end-turn button before I move the ground troops on to the same tile.

2. Warrior getting eaten by a bear on the 12th turn of the game. (Just WAY too many turns sitting around waiting for the worker to complete and then build the replacement warrior.)

3. Less and less of this, but I have specifically saved games at certain points to attempt something as a learning technique. For example, I got the hang of fighting wars with a technological advantage by saving games and storming into enemy territory with what I wasn't sure would be enough troops to do the job. Sometimes I would get stomped and other times I would be shocked to see how easily I could take out an enemy with the army I already had.

Let's face it, each game takes a pretty good chunk of time to play. It's a heck of a lot easier to make two or three stabs at a Cho-Ko-Nu invasion in a single game than it would to fail, restart a new game up through machinery again, fail again, restart a third game, play up through machinery and use the lessons of the first two games to finally get it right.

 

[Groogaroo]

I've only ever reloaded as a learning exercise to learn from my mistakes... but never reload because of bad rolls in battle, can't see the point in that.

But as others have said just play the game the way you enjoy it.

 

[DABegley]

As many have said before, "It is only a game.". Thus reloading in a single-player game is not "cheating" as you are not in competition with anyone. However once you reload that removes that game from consideration for comparison to other people's games, HOFs, any victory statements/calculations, etc. It is a loss. Reloading is a good learning tool and also if you have played a significant amount of time and want to see how the game would have turned out if you made a different decision, go right ahead. And like I said, it's only a game, your supposed to have fun. It's not fun to invest time in a game only to have it smacked by a series of horrible die rolls or events. So play however you want, reload, don't reload, just don't compare to other people's games if you do reload. That's not really fair.

 

[PatriciaCross]

It really depends

If I feel I need to focus on some part of my learning curve in the game I will reload when that comes up to make the better decision. Repeating the trial until I get it right. We learn from trial and error and if you find something that you tend to make an error on, then it makes more sense to focus on it right then while the situation is available than to wait until it arises again normally.

The current game I am in playing I have not reloaded once and I have met various situations where I would have either lost the whole game or had to reload if I had not focussed on them before. An example was having the majority of my troops at the far East of my land ready to declare war on the next turn and having that minor Civ that went legit just SW of my capital decide suddenly to declare war with stacks of troops. Through trial and error and reloading in previous games I learned how to fastbuild a defensive army well enough to buy the time needed to get my troops back and take that upstart of a civ out.

It took me alot of trial and error to figure all that out, and had I not reloaded in those situations previously I would have taken alot longer to catch on.

 

[mariogreymist]

In that case, try one of these :-

1) Start by trying to get an early religion, if you fail reload and start some other way.
2) Beeline iron working, check out all the ore sites, then reload and build cities to grab them while beelining alphabet instead.
3) When in a wonder race, don't whip it when near completion - reload if someone else builds it, then whip it.

I don't do any of those things. When I reload it's to try a different approach. An example of reloading I am guilty of: I will keep a game save file at the point I decide to go to war, and another when I am ready to DoW (have built my invasion army). Then, I can compare the outcomes of 1: going peaceful and focusing on infrastructure/tech/culture (by reloading the first save) 2: attacking someone else (by reloading the second) or even 3: Using the army as leverage to extort tech/resources/money from weaker neighbors. Only by doing this a few times did I learn to recognize which is the best option in the instance I am playing a game I intend to win without reloading. (When I start such a game, I don't keep intermediate save files)

And you should learn to take a joke.

 

[troytheface]

"Hideous keypunch or mouse click error"

in essence- "i was uncoordinated and bumbling so its the games fault"- cheat

"Warrior getting eaten by a bear on the 12th turn of the game."

"If i lose 1 unit I reload" - greed reloader- cheat

"It's a heck of a lot easier.... "

no endurance, no will, take the easy way out- even chess has a physicallity to it

-cheat

the evidence is clear-people who reload threads - "and this is my game i reload all the time and wow look at this"-

no compromise
this is the superior

 

[Elandal]

In a non-competitive single player game, you can cheat only yourself. So HOF games, competition games, and such are different in that you can cheat others. Which is why HOF games require a specific mod that contains additional security features.

Constant reloading takes the edge from the game: you get what you want, always. So it's quite pointless. Occasional reloading depends. And always remember that to not look like cheater you can use eg. BUFFY mod with Lock Modified Assets set, and just regenerate maps until you're happy, and only show those games that look good. A lot more work than reloading of course

 

[Lansky]

Reloading means you screwed up and want to try it again. As long as you present it as such when discussing your game who cares? However, do not kid yourself. Civ is a giant strategy game and many times a simple error can be overcome - 1 error is rarely the end of the game. If you screw up, or something goes wrong, try to keep playing. More often than not I bet you surprise yourself.

 

[JTMacc99]

"Hideous keypunch or mouse click error"

in essence- "i was uncoordinated and bumbling so its the games fault"- cheat

Now, now. I never said it was the game's fault. It is clearly the fault of the person who designed the odd mouse interface on my laptop. Therefore, with the fault clearly belonging to someone other than me, and the result is a random event that was not something the game designers considered as part of fair play (and as a matter of fact, by setting up the game with an auto save function, it seems like the designers were actually encouraging a reload in situations like this,) I submit to you that your logic is flawed, regardless of how unlikely that would seem.

"Warrior getting eaten by a bear on the 12th turn of the game."

"If i lose 1 unit I reload" - greed reloader- cheat

True. Others alter the game settings to avoid things like this. Who's the real cheater?

"It's a heck of a lot easier.... "

no endurance, no will, take the easy way out- even chess has a physicallity [SIC] to it

-cheat

Dear, oh dear, two flaws in logic in the same post? This analogy is poor. Not every chess lesson starts at the beginning of the game, now does it? Tiger woods doesn't hit a drive and an approach shot before he practices each putt does he? It would certainly be unfair for a person to take great pride in a game on his hall of fame that featured four reloads before he figured out how to take out Sitting Bull, just as it would be unfair for Tiger to hit three drives and then play the rest of the hole from the best one. However, saying that a person must practice his skills only by starting each game from turn one is clearly the inferior. Imagine if people learned to sword fight only through actual live battles.

 

[Nares]

make a mistake - forget to rush build, forget to activate an army waiting to capture a weakened city, click the wrong square, press the wrong button

I call it the handicap.

try out a different tactic - waged a war and got mullered, want to see if it could of worked better by another strategy

Now that's borderline cheating. Take note of whatever strategic changes you want to make, and implement them in a future game.

You're not testing a strategy by reloading; you're really just playing the RNG, hoping that the random seed coerces the AI to declare on someone else instead of you, or pick a different research path instead of Education/Liberalism, or send it's scout north instead of south so you can get all the huts between the two of you. It's even worse if you play with events.

 

[Lynxx]

Is it cheating? Up to you what you think. The game designers put it there...

Do I reload? Yes. Once in a while I want to declare war and alt-click the WRONG AI... I miss with the mouse sometimes, its embarrassing I know, the I reload.

I might reload to a really early save to try out different approaches to the game to see if I could have done better (only do this if I end up in a hole to painful to get out of).

 

[chasbolt]

Just browsing and saw the thread. Reloading is possible, that would make it part of the game. Whether it is ethical depends on those that you are competing with you. It is a learning tool in an individual game. When you are playing and hit the "wrong" button, replaying means you did gain additional knowledge prior to replaying. In an ethical game it is wrong. In war, if a soldier accidentally pulls the trigger, the bullet doesn't come back for a replay. Game play depends on who is playing and who you trust and what safeguards are inherent in the game. In PBEM there is reloading to some degree. Why else were all the questions about being unable to load the game after the BTS 3.19 change. PBEM is still fun for those that can't find time for LAN or Pit Boss
Me, not that it matters but generally, I don't reload......

 

[foobarred]

I reload as a learning experience. I'm currently playing Immortal for the very first time and it's useful to know how to win, and more importantly, whether it's possible to win in a given position.

I'll generally replay a game from the very beginning and try different strategies and tech paths to determine which one is optimal.

It's useless to reload if you get a crappy roll. Crappy rolls happen and your overall strategy should be able to handle crappy rolls here and there. However, if I start a war too early or with not enough units, I'll often try again to get some sense as to how long I can delay a war before it becomes too late.

Beyond that, as long as you're having fun, you can re-roll, you can world build. It's your game, and you can play it however you like. It's a free country, unless you switched to Police State/Slavery.