Reload question

[Nightfang]

This is the first GOTM that I have considered submitting, but I have played others in the past, just to guage my results with the finishers. In those cases, I would reload and try new approaches. Therefore, I never submitted them, I saw them as a learning experience.

Well, I took on this one seriously, with the intention of submitting my results. No reloads, just live with the consequences playing. I like it, makes it more challenging.

Last night I did something stupid. I loaded from the wrong save file, 430AD, and continued playing. It wasnt until five turns later when I saved and saw two other save files, one from 450AD and another from 470AD (I think that is right, I cannot remember). At any rate, I had started from the wrong save, and did not even notice. I am continuing on my game with the knowledge that I went back a few turns, but I want to know if this will disqualify me from submitting this time. I do not even remember what I did on the other saves that I had, so its not like I started over to retry.

Will this be a problem? If so, I will just wait until next month and be more careful.

Thanks.

 

[cracker]

Let me reassure you and others that this sort of thing will probably not even show up as a pebble in the great road of civ3 game play.

Accidently doing this once in your game will rarely change the outcome of your game or change the overall profile of your game.

The profile of the average number of turns that you played per game session is just used as a screening tool to identify those submissions that standout from all the other submissions in any given month. To earn the distinction of having your game selected as "weird" you have to be doing something that is significantly different from 80 to 90 other players who you want to consider as your peers and your comrades at arms.

Your game will not reflect any advantage from your mistake and probably will not trip any red flags due to this one event. Even if it did, someone wise and experienced in the type of game that you are playing would contact you to try and identify if you need any help to avoid getting fouled in the reload minefield.

We want you to play the game with confidence that your efforts to play well and share your experiences with others will be honored and protected.

We have a process in place that continues to improve and evolve and this process helps to make sure that all the games that appear in the GOTM results will have a very high standard of validity. This process is also being expanded to make sure that we make an honest effort to contact new players and mentor them along if necessary. We want everyone to get the maximum enjoyment out of playing the game and participating in the discussion and other events that form a framework for the community. Participating honorably in the games is more important than winning and every player can find a comfortable and exciting place in the community even if they are in the middle or the bottom of the pack.

 

[Nightfang]

Excellent. I just waged a very successful war against the Chinese dogs and caught myself up to the AI pretty quickly. I haven't thrown in the towel yet, even if my good start turned south a bit.

Thanks for the clarification, cracker. Would rather be honest and get clarifications now rather than be upset later.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by cracker
Let me reassure you and others that this sort of thing will probably not even show up as a pebble in the great road of civ3 game play.

It could also be like a pebble of sand on an endless desert, too.

 

[Yndy]

I chose not to submit one of the GOTM's because the computer crashed and next day I found that all the autosaves were deleted by my cousin who played later that night. The only save was 40 turns earlier and I would have had in depth map knowledge if I were to continue that one. But a 3 turn error is excusable IMHO.

 

[Ribannah]

I agree. But not because it won't cause any red flags as Cracker says, that is a bogus argument.
The point is, Nightfang, that you made an honest mistake AND did not have any advantage by it.

I never rely on the autosaves. I create a permanent savefile after every session (also to review my game afterwards) and a named temporary one at the end of every turn, just in case.
At the beginning of the next session the computer automatically suggests to load the last savefile that was created.

 

[Von Karstein]

I'm now playing my first GOTM game. I play it like I've always played the civ games, with only one save file. Do I need more save files or did I misunderstand something?

 

[cracker]

Von Karstein,

Welcome to the Games of the Month. Hope you have fun and meet some nice people.

When you get ready to submit your finished game so we can include it in the statistics, all we really need at this time is your final save file from either the turn immediately before your defeat or the turn right after your victory.

To help document your game and avoid disasters, you should probably open a folder in your /Civilization_III/Saves directory and name that new folder something unique like "Gotm15_Russia". Then use this folder to save some extra save files at selected perios throughout your game. These extra saves will help you to go back and review parts of your game for self improvement after you finsih playing it through. You may also want to compare the situations in some of these saves to the discussions you read in the spoiler threads when you are later able to access and read those threads.

In some cases the game validation process may request that you individually submit additional save files from earlier periods of your game. We suggest that you save a save file from every 40 to 50 player turns just in case they may be needed. Some suggested target dates would be around bc2000, bc1000, ad0010, ad0500, ad1000, ad1200, ad1400 etc. You may save more often if you want to. You should usually hold onto to these save files for at least 30 days after the final submit date of the game just in case any technical problems arise or to support your own efforts to get more out of the process of playing the GOTM games.

Good luck in your game.

 

[Justus II]

This is a slightly different question, but I guess this is the best place to ask it. I understand it is not allowed to reload an older game and play forward, but is it allowed to load an older save for information purposes? For example, let's say it is 300 AD, and China attacks me. I don't know if China had Chivalry or iron or whatever. I can't go into diplomacy, since we are at war. Would it be legal to open a save game from 290 AD, look in the diplomacy window to see what techs/resources/whatever China has or needs, then close that game and return to the 300AD game. No actions were taken, no results changed, you pick up again in your original save game. I'm not sure if this would be considered acceptible or not. I have done it in normal games, but after seeing some of the discussions here, I have not done it in this game, but I don't know how it would affect things. Or, for that matter, opening a prior save to get a screenshot or score totals? I assume that is OK, but just wanted to check.

 

[RufRydyr]

Justus II,
I would think it would NOT be ok to open a previous save to gain information that you can't gain currently. Results would be changed if you learned something that caused you to do something differently if you didn't have that knowledge.

I think it IS ok to open a previous save for score checks, screenshots, etc.