Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I don't play it for that reason alone either, what made you think that? Don't be ridiculous.

You may say that nobody likes the fact that it doesn't include the save/load feature, but the game programmers, the posts of some other people in this thread besides me, and the fact that D3 is selling well despite the fact that it has no convenient save feature just like D2 say otherwise.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

IMHO Dominions is selling well because the number of comparable games is very small, not because you need to copy/paste files if you want to keep a save.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

There is an old Hungarian phrase..it sounds something like this in english: "It is a bad man who thinks bad things about the other man."
Most of you lads [especially the old players] tends to think, that the newbies would use a save feature for "cheating". You've never realized that it could be helpful for them. I guess it was discussed already that why. I think that most of the newbies will surely miss this feature. Personally I absolutely don't need it, and the same is true about the Doms 2. players. However try to accept their opinion also in this topic, a save function is not necessary bad. Not to mention that as someone has pointed out, young kids would surely need it.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Yeah, that's true. I think at least a named save file in case of corruption like some one pointed out before would be a good idea.

I just consider it another flavor of a familiar game, like some MUDs I have played with permanent death for the character.

It personally does not matter to me how you choose to play the game, knock yourself out.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

DominionsFan there was a program made for Dom2 with one function- Save. There where threads for Dom2 and 1 about need for Save. I myself copy pasted in Dom2 for years. So its not a correct assumption that only newbies need Save. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've never accepted an enforcement of Ironman mode in any game (not even Nethack). It should be a personal choice whether to save or not.
But if the devs withhold Save function out of personal ideology then this argument is moot.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

This IS save game abuse. This game is not balanced on the "backsies" principle, unlike other games which become pointless because they expect you to cheat until you win. If things don't go your way, live (or die) with it. Live and learn. Die, and learn faster. Otherwise, you're cheating yourself, and breaking the game balance, removing the tension, etc.

If you insist on doing this, you can. Just back up the game file and save it under a different name or under a different folder. It's fairly easy, but not so easy that players will start to rely on it and end up ruining their experience or misunderstanding the game design and thinking it's like the bazillion other games out there that are balanced on the bizarre concept that players will cheat when something goes wrong for them.

PvK

P.S. If you wish for a Doom Horror and he doesn't show up and eat your soul, consider yourself more lucky than you deserve. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Doing save/reload GUI interfaces which work on Linux, Mac and Windoze equally well is not an easy and fast done task.

And don't forget - this game is programmed by Johan in his spare time.

I'd rather see him fix bugs and alter some things in the game engine than have him do 2 more GUI windows which call the different OS APIs to present those players a comfortable reload feature which seemingly can't live without. You know what - if you really need that feature, play windowed and move the files yourself. Of write some script to do it for you. Or even wrap up those scripts or do a 'real' application as George McGinn did with the "backupper" for Dom2 in 2001.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Personally Id like to see it NOT be included. I for one would abuse it to death which would ruin one of my favorite games. Yeah yeah "just have willpower and down save". Well hell if I had that kindof willpower my whole life would be different, but it aint. DONT TEMPT ME SATAN!

Gandalf Parker
--
Deja Vu is proof that God is into game saves

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

> And thats just stupid. Illwinter is in the market to make money. So your saying poeple would would like saving and reloading just shouldnt buy the game? Instead of you just not using that feature.

Actually were not in the market to make money, not me at least, and I think JK shares this sentiment to a degree. Money is nice, but I don't know what to do with it.

Still, we like it if people like our game and might change it in that direction, even though it is more important if we like our game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm personally quite fond of the no-save functionality, but I can understand if people prefer saveability. It would probably mean some 'meckande' to make it work, and there are other features and bugs that will need a fix, so don't count on a change in the first patch.

Still, it is nice to hear what people think, so keep up the discussion.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I would say don't add the save feature because I have some nephews which sometimes play the game and if the save feature is added they will cheat not only in SP, but MP games against each other causing arguments, accusations and other messes.
The nephews know nothing about editing game files or even just browsing with windows explorer so this game provides great fun and peace when they visit.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

You could release a patch like addition. If people want to use Save they could download it, if they dont then they are not being tempted by Save in the game. That should satisfy most objectors.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Not supporting save/load punishes non-expert players and stretches the game's learning curve. The Wish situation I described happened in my first Dom3 game; it left me dissatisfied because I felt that I could not have avoided that situation unless forewarned. I also think that this is not a terribly rare occurrance in a vast vast game like dominions that gives you so many opportunities to make catastrophic mistakes. What exactly is ruined by having the option to go back and learn from those mistakes without spending several hours to restart a new game?

And as other posters have pointed out, saving and loading is an opt-in feature. Several people have objected on the grounds that they wouldn't be able to resist the siren song of "abusing" the save. I think that, in games, people do what they find most entertaining. If you find that you have more fun saving each turn and loading whenever anything goes wrong, I think maybe you should do that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif. And I don't look down on you if that's what you want to do. You're playing SP, you should be able to do what you want.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

You are able to do what you want to do (save games at will), you just don't want to learn to shuffle the files around yourself.

The programmers apparently don't want a quick save feature in their game. Should they be forced to do something they don't want to do?

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

IW balanced the game with the idea that people would play it without frequently restoring to a saved position whenever their favorite wood elf died, even though they sent her into a situation where she had a 90% chance of dying.

Players coming from extensive experience with the craptastic ocean of games where players are expected to do things that should get them killed 90% of the time, and are expected to restore to a saved position tons of times as part of the gameplay, would tend to use that in Dominions too if it were an option easily at hand. The result is they might not even realize they weren't really supposed to do that, and would cheat themselves out of having a much better experience, and might even whine about how "easy" the game is, etc.

PvK

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Yeah, personally I don't see why the stats of units are shown when clicking on units in the game either. Players should learn the strengths and weaknesses of each unit by observing them in battle, but they just don't want to, the lazy bastards, and fall back on complete knowledge easily available at their fingertips.

Now in MY day we had to deduct, BY HAND (heads weren't invented yet), the properties of the soldiers we sent into battle, and as each of them were unique, we had to make generalised assumptions about their capabilities and send them off, by jingo, to show the enemy the taste of cold steel - or rather, we would have done, had steel been invented. As I grew older, sinister forces began introducing such information directly in the manual!!! This led to people actually KNOWING STUFF when they took the time to leave the game and read the manual.

But these days!? Pfah, everybody is too lazy, and the information is right in the game instead of being where it belongs, comfortably outside the game requiring players to divert their attention from what they are actually doing. That sucks. Why, I've heard that some people even - yes, I know it leaves a bad taste in the mouth even to discuss it - click on a stat to get EVEN MORE INFORMATION because they are not "satisfied" with the wealth of information provided to them gratis!

They claim it makes the game "funnier" and "more user friendly", but we all know what it is an excuse for, don't we? Communism, that's right, and the worshipping of idols, and they don't even had to look up the stats of THOSE in obscure places to be able to build them in the first place.

Players just don't want to learn to shuffle the brain cells around themselves, these days, lazy bastards that they are.




Forced to? Ultimately, none of us have the ability to force them to do anything. We do have the ability to urge them to introduce something that is a common feature across most games across most platforms and which is, widely, considered a boon to players - the ability to save at any time and later recall that save.

As for the tools talking about "the time spent on coding GUI to load/save in windows/mac/linux"... FWIW, it is already there. You can already save/load games, it just happens at specific times with specific names.

If you REALLY don't want to have the complexity of an "enter filename here", it isn't a major reshuffle to take a game named FOO and save games by hitting CTRL+S (to make it hard enough to mistype for the hardcore oldtimers who despise anything that might, inadvertently, make them play differently from they've always done, heck, make it CTRL+X CTRL+S if you really want to cater to the crowd) as

FOO/turn%05d/<files>

And use the exact same nomenclature when saving at end of a session/uploading to host. Heck, you could have an "autosave every nth turn" that would save as
FOO/turn%05d_auto/<files>

[Anyone playing a game for more than 99999 turns need to be hospitalized anyway]

And, when loading (and it is quite OK if the only place to load a game is from the main menu so you don't have to code the major GUI changes in the game screen), you get a menu with
FOO1
FOO2
FOO3
...exactly as now, then, when selected,
you get a menu with the contents of the directory you selected in alphabetical order (and don't any of you dare claim that this is difficult, as it is already done with FOO1, FOO2...), with the bottom item selected as default (== highest numbered save)


Am I annoyed by this at the moment? Yes, I am. My current agitation is not just because it is simple to implement and something that has, over time, shown itself to be a great boon to players, it is also because a recent game played of Dominions 3 suffered from corruption and with the save game corrupted too, I had to abandon it on the spot. If I had had prior saves, I could have reverted to the last save that worked losing some time but not having to start all over. Had it happened in MP, that game would have eliminated me as a player with NOBODY of the participants or the host having anything they could possible to do about it. I'd hate that - and I'd hate it happening to others.

And yes, I could write a script to take care of copying saves outside the game, but I really, really, shouldn't have to - nor should other players, especially the less computer literate.

And for those who STILL think that "I learn more by not having the ability to save*/I would be tempted, I prefer to avoid temptation rather than confront it/I am oldschool and did a naked ascension in Nethack**, who would ever need a save" - that's why most games that provide 1-save-per-game provide it as an ironman**** mode you can CHOOSE to set at game creation (so you are bound by your choice throughout the game and cannot get "tempted" once you've made your choice).


* Note that the "YOU learn more by not having the ability to save" people are not worth listening to since they are acting against others, not for anybody.
** I actually did that many years ago.***
*** Do you believe me on that? I sure hope not, that would be masochistic beyond belief even for me, way too many random death factors to be fun - for me. Your sense of fun might rightfully differ.
**** Yes, it could be named "Classic Dominions: Only Wusses Don't Enable This Option" if that would make you feel better.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I can completely understand people not wantint to use savegames and the like - and I've played a lot of roguelikes, probably even before some of the people in here were born (that was starting 1989 or 1990, for the record). Ironman can be fun, no problem with that.

But then, what I cannot understand is why anybody would actually argue against having the feature. Are they so weak-willed that the existence of a save button would keep them from playing, and enjoying, the game as if it were not present? (I'm not discussing the devs who would have to code the UI and actual file swapping - they may not want to do it, and prefer to code interesting stuff, and that's their total right as they're not exactly professional game developers)

Nobody is talking about forcing you to use a save/reload feature. Having it as an easy-to-use option would simply make life simpler for anyone who's not an expert PC/Mac user with whatever their OS is, and would help anyone who cannot (or doesn't want to) spend the time and effort to become an expert Dom3 player - and would remove exactly ZERO options from anybody else.

About 12-13 years ago, I started playing Angband (roguelike, derived from Moria). IIRC, Angband didn't have save games, and used tricks to prevent the player from simply copying saved characters, and I didn't have a hack for that - so I played Ironman Angband, and lost tens of characters to silly mistakes and bad luck. And I enjoyed it. But then, at the time I was 24 and had lots of free time on my hands (OK, I had a PhD to do at the time, but I wasn't exactly the hardest working PhD student in the world at the time). Now I still like to play games, mostly solo, but I simply don't have the amount of time that I had back then.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Eh, remember that Angband's Ironman mode wasn't a lack of save capability. It was originally a self-imposed style of play that usually said "No going back to town, no buying stuff, no going back up stairs and (often) taking every stair down ASAP." Later variants actually provided a programmed in Ironman mode that couldn't force you down the stairs, but locked all the stores (so you couldn't buy / sell) and removed stairs up.

Side note : We _have_ the ability to save at any time. Ain't yall noticed that if you hit "Esc", there's a "Save game and quit" command in the menu, so you _can_ go away and come back to your turn.

What some people seem to want is a "backup save file (and other critical files" ability, which as Peter notes would be very nice for hosted games, but actually isn't as simple as he makes it out to be. (Error checking for file permissions, directory paths, etc, all not just for Windoze but Linux and Macs as well.)

Frankly, I'd think that if some of the people who have created their own scripts (or even just pre/post exec command lines) would share them, that should suffice for 99% of the players who aren't too lazy to cut and paste. (Could be really simple - for example, pre-exec command to copy/zip files to one directory/zip file name, post-exec that does the same to a different file/directory.)

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

My view on this is that it's kind of like nethack and other roguelikes, where in those games when you die, you die, and have to start over. If I could have saved in those games, I would have finished them long ago and they wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

That said, while I would never use a save feature, in a game like this I think it should be included for those who would. The only downside to it being in that I can think of is getting used to relying on it, then going into an MP game and getting destroyed because of that reliance.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Kristoffer register me as a vote for a save game feature. Perhaps you could also have an ironman mode for those that don't want it and don't have the willpower to not use it if it is available. However, for newbie's and for trying different strategies at key points, it would make the game much more accessible. I vote for accessibility and fun over hardcore.

In the meantime, for those looking for something easier than doing it all manually, here is the batch file I use to keep three backup files:

copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak2\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak3\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak1\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak2\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savedgames\Yomi\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak1\"

I have this batch file in my Dom3 directory with a quicklink to it. I play in windows and then just have to click on the quicklink to backup to bak1 and simultaneously move the backup to bak2 and bak2 to bak3. Any of these three can be restored manually by copying the files back to your save file or by creating another batch program to do this for you. You of course will have to change the directory locations to where you have Dom3 saved and this will backup a game called Yomi. Each time I start a new game, I change that line to reflect the name of the new game. So to backup the tutorial, that line would have been:

copy "c:\games\dominions3\savedgames\Tutorial\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\bak1\"

Hope some of you find this helpful. Would like to see better methods by others that may have spent more time on this than I did.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

You'd probably be better off copying *.2h and ftherlnd, because currently you'd also be copying the game's random map, which could get quite big, and you'd be wasting lots of space.
EDIT: and *.trn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Excellent.
If that batch file is named something like DomSave.bat then you could add
--preexec DomSave.bat
to the icon that runs dom for you. That way it would shell out and run that batch file before each hosting.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Is there anyway to make it more generic?

Postexec doesn't pass any arguments does it?

I was really hoping for turn number and game name.

That would allow a much more generic and useful script.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Good idea Gandalf. That way you wouldn't have to do anything to keep saves from the last three turns (or more if you wanted to set up more directories and add additional lines to the batch file). Another idea would be to do that to save the last few turns and then set up a separate directory and a quicklink to another batch file to do a special save to that directory that could be used to capture some point of particular interest.

By the way, I run in windowed mode so I can easily use the quicklink. I would also be interested in thejeff's question about accessing turn # and game name. I had thought about inputting those manually, but besides taking longer, the command I used to use for keyboard input for batch files doesn't seem to work under XP. Anyone know how to do keyboard input to a batch file under XP?

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I guess I'm gonna have to put out the effort to do something like this. Manually saving every turn or two is a pain. I gave up trying to play without saving often when in 10 hours of play I progressed zero. I can not seem to get more than 5-10 turns without a major screw-up. Most common is not sending the army along with the mages (I swear I did, but after the third time, I guess not), forgetting to load units into commanders, forgetting to cast spells, etc. There is simply too blasted much going on to expect to get everything done correctly every turn. And yeah, I have now lost 5 out of 5 games, but I did not lose because of some silly UI mistake - i.e. the AI kicked my rear. Who wants to play if perfect UI management can determine success?


And even our ham-handed DOS bat files are still a pain. The lack of a renaming save-and-reload is a major drag on this otherwise enjoyable game.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Even though I "grew up" in DOS Im afraid that my answers now tend to be Linux.

Game choice could be doing a directory view by access date and select the last one?

There are ways to get the turn number. One way is if you have it set to do scores.html on each turn then the turn number is in there. Another way is to run dom3 with a --verify switch on the game and the .chk files it creates has the turn in it.

I wonder if it would prove useful to have a preexec and post exec display the environmental variables? Or for windows probably have it save them to a txt file for viewing. Maybe Dom3 sets variables that get passed?

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Here's another batch file option:

copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak4\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak5\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak3\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak4\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak2\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak3\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak1\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak2\"
copy "c:\games\dominions3\savedgames\Machaka\*.*" "c:\games\dominions3\savebak\turnbak1\"

Based on Gandalf's suggestion, my Dominions 3 desktop shortcut includes the command line switch --preexec D3TrnSav. D3TrnSav is the name of the batch file above and I keep it in my Dominions 3 directory. Then all of the saving is done automatically. All I have to do is edit the last line of D3TrnSav.bat each time I start a new game to reflect the new game name.

The above batch file saves the last 5 turns of the game Machaka into the five turnbak directories in their state just before I pressed end turn. This is all done automatically. If I ever want to restore any of those turns (which I rarely do), I can do so by copying their contents back to the savedgames folder, in this case Machaka.

I also run a batch file from a quicklink that allows me to choose whether I wish to save or restore and then which of three saves I wish to use bak1, bak2 or bak3. I use those folders to save points of special interest. However, this approach requires your system to have choice.exe to input keystrokes (s, r, 1, 2, 3). That is no longer included with Windows XP, but is available if you have access to to the Windows NT 4 Resource Kit. Wish Microsoft would provide better and more available ways to get keyboard input to batch files.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

So where are we on this front? Has a proper save/load feature been implemented? I received the game last week, started reading the manual, and then this. I don't even feel like installing the game anymore. There is absolutely no way I am going to learn a game that looks as complex as this one without a safety net, or writing my own savegame feature.

Last time I fiddled with turnarounds for a missing proper savegame feature was in the first Matrixgames' megacampaign for SPWAW. I didn't even consider buying anything else from that team after that. I wouldn't have bought Dom3 if I could have even imagined that a 4x game could come without a proper save-anywhere feature.

So, has it been patched in, or planned maybe?

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I vote for savegame (or backup savegame) functionality, built in, without the need to copy and paste in Windows Explorer.

Because I play SP, and perfectionist I am, nothing annoys me like forgetting one little, but somewhat important, thing (such as rehiring a mercenary band).

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Dominions way is the roguelike or multiplayer way: you prepare for whatever bad may happen to you.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Pros and Cons.
Game saves might grant a slight increase in game sales. But we would all be inflicted with the players who require game saves. Next we will have the same conversation about cheat codes.

It would be a heck of a patch. If a person isnt able to do their own game save the way the game allows it, then any game save put into the game will tend to fill their machine up. There would have to also be menu options to delete old saves and do other file cleanups. The game already creates quite a few files which are going to be a problem for those people since this is a game which tends to live for YEARS on our machines.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I think that "save anywhere" would not be very practical in Dom3. Just consider how save mechanism from more conventional strategy game worked in Dominions: Niefel Jarl attacks your militiamen and misses - save - both your militiamen attack Niefel Jarl and miss - reload - one militiaman misses, another hit for 12 of damage - ok, save - Niefel Jarl attacks and kills one of militiamen - reload - etc http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Considering number of battles and number of combatants this doesn't look like something practical to do. I believe that the current way of "save at the start of the planning stage and anywhere during the planning stage" is the right choice. With simple script one can also add auto save at the end of the planning stage. You can't make multiple saves in the middle of planning stage, but it's not very limiting, because unlike other games you can change your orders, so it's not like you can't get back to some previous point.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

That's nice. If you're such a perfectionist that you can't be bothered to cut and paste once to set up a batch file / script, as has been posted just a few messages back, I gotta say I pity you - you probably will never cook, because something might come out imperfect, and because sheesh, all that repetitive folding, stirring, turning?!? Not to mention that some divine being was so _stupid_ and lazy as to not provide a save mechanism for cooking. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Slight increase... I'm not sure it hurt sales that much, since people don't expect a game of this kind not to support the generally available save features. When doing my research about a potential purchase it is the first thing I check before buying a console port, for action games like RPGs and shooters, not for 4x/strategy games. I will from now on.
Now those who have already made the purchase (and if I understand the second sentence correctly then we are a burden) and cannot play because of the lack of a basic feature should just shut up and forget about their money? Can I have a refund? Do you have stats about how many people quit silently? And those who are still playing regardless, despite the frustration, don't they deserve a bit of consideration?

You already have the basic code to dump the state of the game onto the disk and to load it back. Just wrap a simple interface around it. And don't treat everyone as dummies who cannot delete a few files from their machine. You'd be hard pressed to find an HD with less than 80GB nowadays anyway. You want people to play with batch files, backing up stuff into rotating directories, possibly making mistakes, ruining their fun, and now these people cannot delete a few files nor can figure out how their HD space is being used?

Nowadays games make an unlimited number of saves of quite a few megs each and I've never heard anyone complain about it. Just limit the number of save slots to like 10, with the ability to give them some meaningful names) and everyone will be happy.

@alexti:
I am not talking about saving the game during a combat sequence. Just a proper save/load menu in the orders phase - a friendly wrapper around the unforgiving save system we have now.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I guess Arralen is really the resident forum jack ***, and I am not the only new poster who has been greeted with a rude message.

Getting back on topic, I agree with the thread starter fully: It really is inexcusable that a turn-based strategy game at this day and age would not have such a feature.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Epaminondas, you are the one that completely twisted Arralen's words.
Arralen said "CHEATER !!!" as a joke, and promptly explaing exactly how to "cheat". (and you can tell its a joke because of the explaining directly after it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif)
I think you are the one being a jack ***, trying to make Arralen look bad.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

What, are you his sidekick or something?

Arralen edited his original post. More important, the response of the original thread starter, proceeding immediately after Arralen's original post, clearly indicates that he too thought Arralen was being a jack ***.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

What are you? A Journalist? Constantly twisting people's words to your way of things...

Let me quote a nice little snippet from Arralen's post now, I'll even bold it:

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

LOL, a pretty funny and uncanny stab in the dark!

Yes, I am a journalist--at least part-time, given that I've published numerous op-eds for newspapers and short pieces for magazines.

Of course, you can accuse me of being a liar too, and we'd then have an impasse, because there's no way I am going to try to muster the effort to "prove myself" in an online forum--esp. in an online forum where not all participants are oh so "mature."

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

*sigh*
If you would've gone a few posts below you would have also seen solops's post, quoting Arralen's post with the added text, showing it was added at that time and not right now to cover his tracks, as you seem to be implying.
Personally, I also doubt the sincerity of your mistake. After all, you did pull a post from 6 pages (and more than a month) ago, just to make a point against Arralen.
If you are going to accuse me of immaturity you might as well leave now, unless you want me to use my super-powers as Arralen's sidekick against you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
Finally, if you really think this forum is so hostile, why are you even here?

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Err...

Sorry, I seem to have missed something, but when arguing someone, I'd suggest not proving his points. You are giving him a reason to think this forum is hostile.

I think your comment here is a bit too harsh. I also think Arralen's comment was too harsh. And I also think the way Epaminondas has been handling this issue is too harsh.

That said...

1) Remember the pot and the kettle.
2) Turn the other cheek.
3) Wait a week. If you still are angry, request that the "Forum etiquette" post is updated. A neutral, polite PM to a moderator makes them consider it, and if needed, do something about it. I suspect few regulars would like to have it mention something about proper punctuation and grammar as well.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

The thread was a "current" thread, not from "more than a month ago." Someone had replied to it 13 minutes before I replied to it.

As for why I am here, because I was an avid fan of Dom II, and I would like to learn more about Dom III--in particular because I don't have a copy of Dom III yet? And it appears that there are some posters here who are indeed courteous and have not accused me of being a Dom III "pirate" recklessly.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Now look in my post at what I put in italic - "Post" not "thread". The post you quoted is over a month old, and is from six pages ago, no two ways about it.


Obviously I meant "why are you here despite so much percieved hostility?".
I'm assuming you just mean that such hostility as you seem to complain about is negligible compared to how you value the information you hope to obtain by hanging around the forum.
Again, no one accused you of anything, despite what you may think.
Furthermore, having spent quite some time hanging around this forum I can tell you most of the regular members in here are courteous, and all of them will treat you well (as long as you don't try to upset them.)

I'm just interested, not really trying to pass any criticism (though I can see why it can be understood that way).
I've seen countless of posts on different forums from people who think that everyone is against them, yet they keep "coming back" for some more "abuse". If you feel the place is that bad - just leave, there is no point in starting an arguement about how everyone else is just a jack ***, especially since that just tends to make people more of an *** than they usually are.
Apparently, Epaminondas answer is (if you will allow me to paraphrase a bit) "Its more important to me to get the information I want about dom3 than the bad treatment troubles me" - a good enough answer. Even though I don't think he is being treated badly in any way.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

Then I think you're very much exaggerating the issue. Currently you can automatically save at the beginning of every planning stage, you can automatically save at the end of every planning stage. Also you can have one save in the current planning stage. So what missing is the ability to have saveral saves in the middle of the same planning stage and ability to keep saves from the middle of past planning stages. I'm not sure what is your planning pattern, but those missing options look very marginally useful. Personally, I can see only one scenario where I'd miss them: you're late in the single player game and want to make 'precaution' during the planning stage in case you accidentally press 'e'. Of course, I could reload from the beginning of that stage, but redoing the order is not fun.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

What I am referring to is page 10 of the manual:
Why do I have to quit the game then launch a .bat file in order to make a proper save? Reading this thread, customers are apparently not even sure what files should be saved. It's not like we are asking for something revolutionary that has never been done before, we are asking for an option that is present in 99.99% of the games on the PC.
I've already done the "quit to save, launch self-made .bat file to really save" routine with an SPWAW megacampaign. I know it very soon becomes like work, more work than the game is worth. And if it's so easy to circumvent this "no-save" policy, why not let customers do it officially, from within the game?
Why? I don't see any point to this whatsoever, besides the "weee we're uber hardcore" factor that may be popular with some people. As has been said many times before, people are playing at home, a single-player game, their way of playing the game - with frequent saves or not, with the ability to replay from one point with a different strategy - not only does not hurt anybody but provides extra gameplay. And when starting out a game as complex as this one, it is very important to be able to try and retry different approaches, to get a feel for the way things work and all.

Frankly I don't see why some devs are getting a woody every time they frustrate a customer with their "gotcha, you can't retry" attitude. It's even more frustrating when you're a noob and are not even allowed to try various things. Looks more like weak excuses for not willing to code a couple of simple menus.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I think it was said before - just run the batch file --prexec so it will autosave upon turn hosting.
Besides that there really is no good reason to save during the middle of the turn unless you are quiting, in which case the game saves anyway.

Re: Problem Saving Games
 

I think you're totally misunderstanding how things work. You need to install save game system once (similar to how you'd install a patch for example) and you have all save games without any extra actions from you (except the multiple mid-startegy-phase ones). Your use pattern is perfectly covered by those automatic saves.

I think you're also wrong about "no-save" policy. That's likely just that it's deemed pointless writing something in-game that is already done (and likely much better) with existing tools. Saving the game is not really Dominions-specific task, so amount of effort to implement such feature would be disproportionate to amount of added value.