regarding crashes and reloads.....

[jm4civ4]

Question 1:
so lets say I have just loaded an existing game (from 1260 BC, lets say), during the first turn something bad occurs during that very first turn.....if I haven't ended that turn (its still 1260 BC) the session hasn't ended, so is it legal to abort and reload the 1260 BC file?

Question 2:
The Crash Recovery, Disallowed Rules section says after a crash only the most recent auto save may be reloaded (fair enough) but then it says that only one turn may be replayed....this seems problematic because in my experience (with the unmodded Warlords) several turns elapse between auto saves, so if I crash 3 turns after an auto save, how can I replay only one turn?

or.....are the rules telling me that I can replay the 1st turn JUST AS I HAD PRECRASH then on the next turns perform different moves so I will have created a new reality?

thanx

 

[playshogi]

Ques 1: Absolutely not.

Ques 2: You can go into your configuration settings and change autosave to every turn. Although if your game crashes your just out of luck anyway. You'd have to re-play the turn exactly the way you played it the first time, which may be impossible to remember.

 

[Methos]

Question 1:
so lets say I have just loaded an existing game (from 1260 BC, lets say), during the first turn something bad occurs during that very first turn.....if I haven't ended that turn (its still 1260 BC) the session hasn't ended, so is it legal to abort and reload the 1260 BC file?

No, that is against HOF rules and is not allowed. Even if you accidentally mis-click something, you are still not allowed to reload to fix the mistake.

Question 2:
The Crash Recovery, Disallowed Rules section says after a crash only the most recent auto save may be reloaded (fair enough) but then it says that only one turn may be replayed....this seems problematic because in my experience (with the unmodded Warlords) several turns elapse between auto saves, so if I crash 3 turns after an auto save, how can I replay only one turn?

As playshogi said, you just need to go into your config file and change it to autosave every turn.

or.....are the rules telling me that I can replay the 1st turn JUST AS I HAD PRECRASH then on the next turns perform different moves so I will have created a new reality?

No, you can only replay the one turn that happened during/prior to the crash and you must play it as close to as possible as you did up to that point. Note that in order for us to consider a crash exception, you need to email us prior to our checking it and inform us of the crash. We also request you send the autosave you started from and a save just after the crash.

 

[Miraculix]

No, you can only replay the one turn that happened during/prior to the crash and you must play it exactly as you did up to that point. Note that in order for us to consider a crash exception, you need to email us prior to our checking it and inform us of the crash. We also request you send the autosave you started from and a save just after the crash.

1) The rules do not use the word 'exactly' but 'as close to as possible'. The difference between the two is quite significant.

2) The requirement to submit a save just after the chrash point is not mentioned in the rules.

 

[Methos]

1) The rules do not use the word 'exactly' but 'as close to as possible'. The difference between the two is quite significant.

I agree and will edit my post.

2) The requirement to submit a save just after the chrash point is not mentioned in the rules.

Hence the reason I used the word 'request' and not 'required'.

 

[jm4civ4]

Thanks to all three of you. After more thought and reading forums, I realized that Q#1 was not needed, but now I know.

Re Q#2: I am moderately comfortable making changes to a config file. But I may check back for more help.

I appreciate your patience........

 

[Misotu]

I'm not sure what is the difference between "exactly" and "as close to as possible" and where the line is drawn on those games that are not replayed absolutely exactly. It would be nice to know a bit more.

For example, I had a game disallowed recently where (IIRC) I had something like 3 scouts & a warrior exploring. It was way past the point where huts were likely - I was exploring along rivers to get trade links established with other civs & I am fairly methodical about how I do this. Computer froze, got it going again after about 10 minutes, replayed the turn (I thought exactly as I had done before, but obviously not! Trouble is, I don't pay huge amounts of attention once I'm running along the rivers) ... and the game was disallowed on the basis that I hadn't done the same moves. I was really surprised when I saw it had been disallowed because although I can easily believe it wasn't exactly the same, I can't believe the variation was significant and it certainly wasn't advantageous. It would be good to have a rather better indication about exactly how this rule works if possible. If there are no huts, if there are no battles, if the variation is slight (and it would be, like I said I was mostly following rivers!!!) then could we have a bit more indication about how the decision is made? Thanks

 

[Denniz]

"Exactly" is the ideal. "As close as possible" is sometimes the reality due to the RNG. If you are able to remember the exact order you did everything then you should theoretically get the same results.

The difference is hard to judge. It depends on what was going on in the game at the time and some other factors. Normally, at least two of us take a look at a game with such a request unless it is really clear cut. If there is any doubt we have to err on the side of exclusion.

We have never advertised the crash exception policy because of the inherent difficulty in telling the difference between a real crash and something else. The number of requests has been increasing over time, which is of some concern to us.

One change we have been contemplating is requiring an additional intermediate save from point in the turn where the crash originally occurred. This is so we have the "before" (autosave) and "after" view to look at. Right all we have to look at is the autosave. In a couple of cases recently, we have gotten a save from that point after and it was helpful. Does that sound too difficult?

 

[Misotu]

I wouldn't have a problem at all with submitting an extra turn, if I could do it! Does that mean playing the whole turn and sending it before hitting turn end - or do you mean just moving those pieces that were moved before the crash and then saving before going on to complete the turn? If the latter ... um, well it might be hard to remember but I wouldn't mind trying at least, especially if it meant that the game was less likely to be excluded.

Do you think you might be getting more crash exception requests because more people are participating in the EQM and are trying to play games they'd usually avoid because of their PCs' limitations? I have to do a couple of Time victories on this basis, which actually I rather like playing - find them very relaxing - but I'm dreading it because, in a game lasting 2-3 days (I play very slowly!), the chances of a crash are virtually 100% and the chances of two crashes (and having to start again, usually around the year 1940 ) are over 80%. I've abandoned loads of Time games for this reason - if I get a crash before 1200 it's just not worth carrying on.

 

[Denniz]

I wouldn't have a problem at all with submitting an extra turn, if I could do it! Does that mean playing the whole turn and sending it before hitting turn end - or do you mean just moving those pieces that were moved before the crash and then saving before going on to complete the turn? If the latter ... um, well it might be hard to remember but I wouldn't mind trying at least, especially if it meant that the game was less likely to be excluded.

Just the moves before the crash. (ie. the part that was replayed)

Do you think you might be getting more crash exception requests because more people are participating in the EQM and are trying to play games they'd usually avoid because of their PCs' limitations? I have to do a couple of Time victories on this basis, which actually I rather like playing - find them very relaxing - but I'm dreading it because, in a game lasting 2-3 days (I play very slowly!), the chances of a crash are virtually 100% and the chances of two crashes (and having to start again, usually around the year 1940 ) are over 80%. I've abandoned loads of Time games for this reason - if I get a crash before 1200 it's just not worth carrying on.

I guess some of it is in response to EQM and Gauntlets. Some of it is probably because BTS is less stable. Who knows. :shrug:

As you noted, it is an unhappy situation all the way around. Have you done anything to mitigate whatever is your machine's issue? With some people it is their video card overheating. With others it is memory or something that is cumulative with play time. Improving ventilation or periodic pauses for a pc reboot are the traditional solutions.

 

[killercane]

Hey Denniz, my HOF mod keeps crashing. I know this isnt the right thread for this but I see you are around so...

The Microsoft error report says Mod Unknown and it just crashes to desktop. Nothing really has changed on my system but maybe there is some program conflict malfunction. Do you think reinstalling HOF Mod will fix it? GFX card is Nvidia 5200 or something I believe.

 

[Denniz]

Hey Denniz, my HOF mod keeps crashing. I know this isnt the right thread for this but I see you are around so...

The Microsoft error report says Mod Unknown and it just crashes to desktop. Nothing really has changed on my system but maybe there is some program conflict malfunction. Do you think reinstalling HOF Mod will fix it? GFX card is Nvidia 5200 or something I believe.

Possibly, you might also check that Civ4 is patched properly. You might want to rerun the patches manually if you did them thru the advanced menu. People have had the patches not complete properly. That can cause a crash.

 

[Misotu]

Have you done anything to mitigate whatever is your machine's issue? With some people it is their video card overheating. With others it is memory or something that is cumulative with play time. Improving ventilation or periodic pauses for a pc reboot are the traditional solutions.

I'm afraid I've tried everything including, most recently, changing my graphics card and then manually decreasing the hardware acceleration (in accordance with Microsoft's advisory error messages when I kept crashing). I think my machine has several issues because although it definitely used to get less stable the longer I played, it would also often keel over after just a couple of turns & shortly after booting. I used to recover memory/reboot regularly with the old card, but found that the game sometimes crashed shortly after the reboot and then was useless ... because I hadn't played for at least an hour (as it was then).

My new NVidia card *might* be better from the point of view of the number of catastrophic crashes I get - the Time games will be the real test but so far huge maps seem to play ok. My previous card would suddenly keel over, often with no warning, and the game would hang. The new card keels over all the time, especially in the early game but seems to become more stable as the game progresses (which *really* confuses me because I'd expect it to get worse due to play time & as the game gets larger in terms of units, visible map etc). When I say it keels over "all the time" I'm talking on average every 2-3 turns and for short periods sometimes *every* turn. I put up with this because it's only the very early game and, more importantly, the way it keels over is at least recoverable - the graphics become unplayably corrupted, I hit the Windows key & then return to the game from the desktop, at which point the graphics are fine & I can continue. So far it has only failed to restore the game once, which I find quite encouraging.

If you or anyone else have any other suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them!

I could get very despondent if your speculation that BTS might be less stable proves to be correct ... I have BTS but am only playing Vanilla/Warlords at the moment