i noticed as i was about to submit WOTM 9.. "You may only submit one entry for each game, and it must be your first attempt at the game, played without reloads." no reloads, i saved that game when i went to bed and finished next day, and as said no reloads, i didnt submit.
I expected no reloads made a lot of sense as people can reload from a save after someone loses a city and wants the battles to be redone and hope they win if they think they should have without bad luck the first time. So yes, i thought this rule made sense? am i misinterpreting?
I have always thought the term "no reloads" was misleading, as you have to load the game to start a new play session. As Ronnie1 said, the prohibition is against REPLAYS. But not just of unit moves, you should not "do over" any irreversible decision. So if you declare war and wish you didn't, or refuse a tribute demand and then wish you hadn't, etc. you cannot load up the turn before and REPLAY that decision differently.
So no REPLAYS or DO-OVERS (no Mulligans if you are a golfer
)
RESUME events are permitted: save the game, exit (without any changes since the save), do those distracting tasks like eat, sleep, earn a living
, and then RESUME the game by loading the save you made just before you exited the previous session. Nothing has to be replayed.
The easy way to do this is to activate the save on exit feature of the HOF mod (Tab HOF 3 in the options). It makes a save at the time you exit, which is the perfect save to load for the next session. The save on exit gets named with three letter chunks of the game parameters, such as Chu_Mon_Epi_... for Churchill, Monarch, Epic etc. I think the game year is also in the name by default ... that or the save date in real time sorts them out.
For completeness, what to do if you have a crash? First of all, set autosave to autosave every turn (default is every 4) if you plan to play (S)(G/W)OTMs. Then if you have a crash, load up the last autosave, and if that is earlier than some decisons, play those again just as you did the first time (yes, repeat any mistakes). Send a PM to the gamemaster about when the crash occurred, and how old an autosave you had to load.
Crash tip (voice of experience): if you computer is prone to crashing late in the game (often a video issue), use low graphics, and create a file called, say, "GOTM9 running save" and save right before you hit end turn. Or make troop moves, save, inspect cities, then save, then hit end turn (I had video crashes in the interturn and in the new turn during city pop-up windows ... this save pattern copes with those without any replays). The autosave happens just before your next turn, so without a save before you hit end turn, an interturn crash means replaying the last turn.
If I have any of this wrong (unlikely), I am sure the mods will correct me.
Hope it helps.
dV
@ LC (formerly LtC?
) You beat me by what, seconds?
dV
p) open at this moment, you woulda put me to sleep 
