Save/Reload Cheating

[Flak]

It's my game, my computer, I pay the electric bills here and the rent. I work for my money and can spend it any way I choose. If I want to take the disk (DVD here in the UK) and roll up and down the hallway in my house, and that's how I have fun with Civ IV, then it's my business and nobody else's. What do I care if some anonymous screenname doesn't like the fact that I reload the game or use the world builder? They didn't pay for my game, computer, electricity or rent.

Inneveitably, we will get to a point where someone claims to have beaten immortal level and offers a screenshot as proof.

So? I mean does anybody really care that much? It's some post on a message board.

There will be regular controlled contests on this board and if you really want to know who the best player on the Vanilla version of Civ IV is, you can always go check out the results. Consider this though. The version of Civ IV out of the box is just the 'mod' that the developers decided upon for default. They could have made a practically infinite number of choices for the Vanilla mod. They've already changed that mod with the upcoming patch.

The problem is that the first person to do this will almost certainly do it by save scumming (wow I miss nethack) extensively.

What does nethack have to do with somebody posting a screenshot of their game?

 

[SlayerofDeitys]

If you are referring to combat then he can reload the game till his fingers fall off and it won't change a thing.
I typically only reload when I make a mistake, such as moving a unit to the wrong spot or if the AI war declaration bug rears its ugly head. Whether or not you reload under normal circumstances however one is sure to learn from the mistake anyway since in order to correct it you will probably figure out what you did wrong. There is allot to be said about coming back from a deficit however, especially if you want to play MP.

 

[jayeffaar]

I answered "never", but with a caveat: I do reload after making a mistake by pressing the wrong button, or using the wrong hotkey, and it looks like it would matter.

I would never reaload simply because my strategy failed or the odds didn't go my way.

 

[RIT Beast]

I do this, but I'm a very casual player who isn't very good at the game. I didn't even know about GotM until about a week ago. Do I consider it cheating? I suppose. I don't do it often, but I'm struggling to win on the third-easiest level at this point.

I love the civ games, I just struggle with building a military (not with using it, or knowing what units to pump out). I have no sense of how many units my opponents have, and how weak/strong I am relative to them. So, I use the save/load function when they get lucky and take one of my cities before I know I'm at war.

 

[j_buckingham80]

I don't mean to ahem pick on anyone in particular, but how many people so far have "cheated" on the word never, it seems like quite a few just by their own description.

Either way, I doubt very many people save and reload with great frequency, but it certainly does help you learn, and I agree with a previous poster that you have to be able to play the game without saving and reloading if you're going to be at all successful in multiplayer.

And for as much as I defend the practice, I'm probably along the same lines as many of the other people and the nature they play with little to no reloading, but, that's because I think you learn better that way, not because I think it's "cheating."

 

[lances]

It IS cheating, but not as egregious as, say, using a cheat code.

In the game I'm playing now, the Mongols came out of nowhere (ok, not nowhere, I knew they were there, and pissed at me) and trashed me. I went back to an autosave and built some spears, since I knew what was coming. A lot of spears. Those Kershiks (or whatever they're called) are some bad mfers. Even knowing the attack was coming, I could barely hold them off. But it made the difference between playing and not-playing a really fun game. So I don't feel bad about it. Even though it IS cheating.

Usually I restrict myself to misclicks and oversights - like moving my whole stack of defenders out of a city, when I meant to move just one to protect a resource.

 

[RedRum4Fun]

I like to do a healthy save just before I declare a nasty war.. just on the off chance I bite off more than I can chew. I have smacked the wrong civ upon a few occasions...

 

[Gato Loco]

How do you cheat in a single-player game? The very concept of cheating implies that there's someone else who makes the rules for you. Of course, reloading during a GOTM is cheating, but that's because it's an official tournament with specific rules. I don't reload in the middle of a game unless I make a dumb, unintentional mistake (I'm absentminded, so sue me. I don't play civ to practice bean-counting). The only real problem I have with reloading is that it turns the whole game into an exercise in optimization. Every time something doesn't turn out perfectly you're tempted to do it over ten times and find the absolute perfect solution. I sometimes reload startinng locations if I'm looking for a specific start to practice a specific strategy (e.g. lots of neighbors to practice land-grabbing or hills to practice early wonder strategies, or if I'm just starting out at a higher difficulty level and get handed a complete stinker of a start that's way beyond my ability at that difficulty. That's certainly not cheating, since I could with a bit more effort have gotten the same results by making a scenario in the worldbuilder.

 

[Meffy]

Last night, my cat gave away my only source of marble while I was getting coffee!

:-D Hem, hem, pardon me. :-} (heh)

I've also got a kitten who loves to sit on my lap and watch whatever's on the display. When that's Civ, he becomes verrrry intent upon the animated bits. Sometimes he strikes a pre-emptive assault but the enemy doesn't appear to notice.

 

[Efexeye]

It's definitely cheating to continually save and reload the game, but, as you're only cheating yourself, go ahead! Who cares? Personally, I'd rather lose a good game than win a bad one, or one where I cheated by reloading a save after something didn't go the way I wanted it to.

Oh, and to the guy who used to reload games until he got the pops he wanted from goody huts? Dude, if you don't think THAT is cheating , you need to have your head examined.

I play mostly multiplayer, I play single player to practice multiplayer strategies. So, continually reloading would defeat the purpose.

On this thread of thought- how good could someone possibly feel about beating the game on Deity by using save scumming? How fun could that possibly be, anyway?

 

[Tae]

I do it all the time if necessary and for a number of reasons...not just to "win". Hell I have only "won" one game so far, so it is definately not to win.

I have found that I like the beginning of the game up until about the 1800 a lot. It gets a bit too busy for me past that. So I like reloading to earliar saves if like the game I am playing just to try a different strategy.

Also sometimes it is pretty obvious you are going to get destroyed because of some mistakes and I don't like getting destroyed, I don't consider it fun. So I either will restart that game far enough in the past to make a difference or start a new game.

I have used the autosaves when I hit the key or clicked something by mistake.

I will always restart if an animal kills my settler, but that shouldn't happen from now on since I now use escorts. If a barbarian kills me when I have an escort I let stand even though it pisses me off.

It seems most of my restarting is to go from say 1500AD back to 1000BC just to try a different strategy. I have one game that I keep redoing because I like the game and setup, but I have yet to enter the modern era the way I would like. So far because because I haven't liked the Tech Path I went down.

A game is for fun, if I am not having fun I will not play. So I don't put any preconcieved notions of cheating on myself against the AI. If I were in muliplayer it would be different.

 

[KevinTMC]

I allowed myself to get far too sloppy in Civ III with the reloading, but am trying to change my ways in Civ IV. Especially when it comes to the truly egregious reload cheats such as re-popping goody huts.

I appreciate the good discussion in this thread (despite the occasional lapses into self-righteousness and righteously-anti-self-righteousness). It has helped me greatly in thinking through my own personal "house rules".

I think the single most-difficult thing for me to give up is the practice of starting over, about ten turns into the game, if it starts to look like I made a blunder in where I placed my first city. It is so painful to realize that future expansion would have led to a much better city layout on the continent...if only that first city had been a smidge to the right...

-- Kevin​

 

[werttrew]

"Cheating" is too strong a word for it, IMO, if it is a single-player game with no intention to compare with another player. "Weak" or "wimpy" I could acquiese to, since I often "cheat" if an important battle doesn't go my way.

 

[Prince David]

This is a game. Games are supposed to be fun, however you define it. If fun means having everything go your way and doing whatever you can to ensure that this happens, well, have fun.

For me reloads serve two purposes - the inadvertant goof or to try new strategies. I'll save at a decision fork and see how if goes. If it sucks, I may back up and try something different. I may play on.

I do reload less as I play the game more. Right now I'm still very much on the learning curve. My stretegy gets better, my goof ups fewer. I still tend to R-click to learn more about a tile and send a random unit there. Old Civ III habits die hard.

 

[lysander]

good thread, there was something similar to this in the R:TW boards.

No, I dont use the save/load exploit in this game, or any other strategy title for that manner. It simply takes the fun away; where's the fun and challenge when you simply reload after making a mistake? People also do it to 'predict' the future; by saving the game, running a few turns, and seeing what the AI does. Then they can reload, and exploit the AI, already knowing what they are going to do.

RTW is a completely different story. Before the expansion pack, the AI broke their sieges everytime you reloaded the game. Meaning if you reloaded with any kind of frequency it was impossible for the AI to take any cities at all.

In Civ I reload some in the early game, usually if I lose a battle to animals (cause this really bugs me) or if I get overrun by barbarians. I never reload when I lose things to AI civs.

 

[microbe]

I do not see anything wrong with that as long as you play a private SP game. Who are you cheating?

This is especially the case if you are still learning the game. We all learn from the mistakes.

 

[Wlauzon]

There are a lot of "what ifs" in this game that if you are not totally familiar with you may not know exactly what will happen if you take certain actions.

IMO, saving and trying different things to see what the different results are is a good way to learn the best strategy.

It is not always about war, perhaps you just want to see which works better - building barracks first or workers first for example.

I used it, for example, to find out what was the fastest way to get Code of Laws.

 

[damunzy]

I have used it once, when my settler was killed by a bear. I try to complete a game from start to finish, fair and sqaure, even if I am lagging behind.

I'll retire if I know I am going to lose. It at least puts my lose on record and I have something to show for the 1+ hours I spent.

 

[Kolyana]

I'd quit out and start again if things go wrong ... I never reload. If you do this, you have no idea if you can turn a certain defeat into a [future] victory.

 

[Oblivious]

I've only ever done something similar a few times when I get frustrated with an AI opponent and start a war that I really have no intention of truly pursuing/saving.

I do save alot late in games though since the game crashes about every 15 minutes. I hope the patch comes soon, but not so soon as to have a buggy patch.