Please read: A reminder.

[solenoozerec]

This is not good...

Do not worry, you probably misunderstood AlanH as I did. He meant reload&save, like this: make a turn, save, exit a game go to a restroom, come back load a save, make another turn, save, go smoking and again and again.

Just saving many times within the same session like I do is fine.

I also would like to add one more reason not to reload: before I found this site and GOTM I used to reload every time something went wrong.
It was very hard not to reload when I was playing my first GOTM (C3C2), but not reloading gives a sense of very fun element of reality.
You cannot undo things like in real life and you have to deal with even stupidest mistakes like misclicks, falling mouse that sends your workers towards barbs, etc.
It is misfortunate, but it is also fun, because you start to really worry about what is going in this small planet.

 

[alamo]

There goes my 1 archer rush....

Some of us have the advantage of never actually doing well enough to arouse suspicions.

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

But how do you get a number of reloads in some game? I know that Civ3MultiTool is showing some number - but not correct, probably the function from what we want. Do you now that function or there are some another ways?

( Sorry, I really don't know the number of mistakes in my posts)

 

[ainwood]

But how do you get a number of reloads in some game? I know that Civ3MultiTool is showing some number - but not correct, probably the function from what we want. Do you now that function or there are some another ways?

( Sorry, I really don't know the number of mistakes in my posts)

The method we use is well-tested and proven to be correct. For fairly obvious reasons, we won't share it.

 

[Gyathaar]

I there a tool to easilly check how many sessions a savegame has had?

Reason I ask is because I noticed that the savegame editor in Civ3MultiTool has a 'This game has been continued xxx times.' in the histograph tab...
BUT... I loaded up some of my old saves here, and saw an extremenly high number here..
So I did an experiment by making a new random game, saving at 4000BC, then playing to 3500BC, never saving untill 3500BC, just moving around units and ending turns...
And the Savegame editor shows that 'This game has been continued 8 times' when I load the 3500BC save?!? (the 4000BC save shows 0 times as expected)

I then reloaded the 4000BC save, and saved at end of every turn.. as expected it showed continued 1 time every turn.. including the 3550BC turn.. then on the new turn from 3500BC it shows continued 9 times? (the autosaves shows the same numbers..)

Anyone that can explain what happens here to me?

All the saves was put in an empty save games folder (except the 4000BC and 3500BC saves was there on the 2nd try)


Edit: crossposted with the earlier posts

 

[Kodi]

Oh! Well.. I'd better start again

Reloading is habit of mine .. if I make mistakes, I go back to fix them, as my way to learn from mistakes. Each game I play has a decrease in reloads, as I slowly work my way up.... I often make a list of those mistakes as well, but if I continue to play GOTMs, then I'll break that habit.

 

[a space oddity]

Remember guys and gals, the rules are about behaviour, not about the number of reloads.

It's fine if you play less turns per session in a difficult game or when you can only play short sessions. You have nothing to worry about if you just play the game with just one load per sitting.

Like was said before, we have enough statistical data to analyse the saves. Don't worry, just play the game and enjoy it!

 

[Sandman2003]

One thing I have noticed is that the likelihood of Civ crashing seems to be much higher if I have already played a session and exited the program, then later restart Civ and play a second session. The second session is almost too fragile, often lasting only 3-4 game turns before crashing, while normally a decent number of hours can be played without suffering a crash. Is this a common phenomenon? And is there anything, aside form the obvious (reboot between sessions) that can be done, or is this just another hidden benefit of the Windows2000 platform?

 

[solenoozerec]

Oh! Well.. I'd better start again

Reloading is habit of mine .. if I make mistakes, I go back to fix them, as my way to learn from mistakes. Each game I play has a decrease in reloads, as I slowly work my way up.... I often make a list of those mistakes as well, but if I continue to play GOTMs, then I'll break that habit.

Just imagine you driving your car, hitting a pedestrian, than reloading a few meters before pedestrian and continuing driving avoiding that pedestrian.
Would it help you to drive more carefully? Or would it encourage you to hit more pedestrians?
Try not to reload – you will be surprised how rapidly the amount of your mistakes will decrease.

 

[solenoozerec]

One thing I have noticed is that the likelihood of Civ crashing seems to be much higher if I have already played a session and exited the program, then later restart Civ and play a second session. The second session is almost too fragile, often lasting only 3-4 game turns before crashing, while normally a decent number of hours can be played without suffering a crash. Is this a common phenomenon? And is there anything, aside form the obvious (reboot between sessions) that can be done, or is this just another hidden benefit of the Windows2000 platform?

Indeed it might be something related to a platform. During my entire GOTM career (7 completed GOTMs and one in progress) I had two crushes, therefore it is not enough to build a correlation with anything.

 

[Sandman2003]

Indeed it might be something related to a platform. During my entire GOTM career (7 completed GOTMs and one in progress) I had two crushes, therefore it is not enough to build a correlation with anything.

What platform do you use?

 

[solenoozerec]

What platform do you use?

XP. Very happy with it, probably a first one that I am happy with.

 

[AlanH]

@Sandman2003: If a second session is more fragile than the first one then it sounds like the first one used up some memory resources and didn't release them when you quit. Win2K should be able to recover all the used space after you quit, but maybe it's failing. If others don't experience this then maybe an OS reinstallation is required.

 

[Randy]

@Sandman2003,

If I play on my computer I have no problems. But my computer is a laptop so my wife likes to take it.

If I use her old computer it will crash and run slow, but if I reboot it before I start and only run civ. iii it will work ok most of the time.

 

[ainwood]

Civ appears to be rock-solid on every platform that I've played it on (even ME). I now use XP.

The only real problem is that when I shut-down civ, it does take a few seconds / a minute to free-up resources (eg Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer can stop responding for a while).

I have had crashes, but these were pediaicons.txt or scenario bug issues. Best option is normally to ensure that your video drivers are up-to-date, and that you have the latest patches.

 

[Sandman2003]

XP. Very happy with it, probably a first one that I am happy with.

I actually like Xp myself, it is on my laptop. It surprised me a lot too...

AlanH - if I reinstall the OS, it will be an XP install. It only seems to be Civ that causes a problem. Other apps can be started, ended, restarted etc without noticing an issue. I guess at least I am aware of Civs fragility on my box, and can either keep it running (play time stats gets distorted though), or reboot between sessions.

 

[Sandman2003]

I have had crashes, but these were pediaicons.txt or scenario bug issues. Best option is normally to ensure that your video drivers are up-to-date, and that you have the latest patches.

My OS is patched up to date, unsure about the video drivers. I will check.

 

[solenoozerec]

Civ appears to be rock-solid on every platform that I've played it on (even ME). I now use XP.

The only real problem is that when I shut-down civ, it does take a few seconds / a minute to free-up resources (eg Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer can stop responding for a while).

I have had crashes, but these were pediaicons.txt or scenario bug issues. Best option is normally to ensure that your video drivers are up-to-date, and that you have the latest patches.

What appears to be unstable on my computer is CivAssist
I like this program very much, it has many small pleasant gadgets, which are absent in CrpSuite, but unfortunately in some games I cannot even start it. It reports an error immediately. Though, I am not using the most recent version. Is latest version more stable?

 

[Kodi]

Oh yes, and one more question. C3C CD has both C3C and PTW in it, but when I want to play on PTW, it says that the CD is not inserted. Do I actually need the PTW CD to play it? I think I would prefer playing on PTW than Vanilla Civ

 

[Sandman2003]

Best option is normally to ensure that your video drivers are up-to-date, and that you have the latest patches.

You may well be right on the money with this. I seem to remember that before every 2nd session crash there is usually a video glitch. Anyway I have just downloaded a new driver (going from 3.1.x.x to 5.6.x.x), so fingers crossed that this sorts the issue!