[HoneyBadger]

Newthought, I wasn't trying to accuse you of being a "biblical nut", quite the contrary, I was just accusing you of using the power of religion to your own purposes-done often enough by politicians who are more in tune with peoples' worst fears than they are with their best hopes.

If anyone's a "bible nut" it's me, I study-well, what I term "Christian occultism" as in the Nephilim and Antedeluvian/deluvian myths and I actually read the Bible a long time ago. I read Genesis several times through-it's quite good.

I equate the Bible with the Lord of the Rings-rather stupifyingly dull if you try to read the whole thing through in one sitting, and not concerning itself with "historical facts" but a logical mythos full of the most fascinating and tantalizing subjects and hints of subjects-and it's easy enough to want it to be real.

Both were also obviously written in the world we all share and both are full of rich and detailed history, as well as visions of other places, times, and people powerful enough to capture our deepest yearning.

Again, worst fears and best hopes, but then that's how to grab hold of people.

Anyway, let's forget about it and move on.

It is indeed quite a good idea. I think such a thing should let you see maybe 5 rounds of a given battle per astral path level of the mage in question. A 15th level mage could then view all 75 rounds of a large battle.

I think it would be difficult to program in though, but Space Empires IV is famous for it's battle-simulator tool, so such a thing is not beyond the reach of a small development team.

Along the saved game lines, perhaps certain games with "victory points" could allow a game to be saved whenever a certain amount of points are reached, and then increase the "cost" to save the game, to a higher amount of points.

In a 25 point game, you could save when you capture 5 points, when your opponent captures 8, when somebody else captures 13, when the first player captures 21, and victory at 25.

This would be a specific breed of game, which would appeal to certain groups of players that are perhaps large, but can only meet maybe once a week or so, and want to replay important turning points in the game.

I am not really against giving the Hosts of (especially, large) MP games the ability to save games. This could in the right hands be an important tool for role-playing, kind of like giving the Host DM/GM powers. It could also ease the upset that can be caused by real-world events-if someone dynamically involved in the game is forced to leave, why not restart the game at an earlier point before that person left suddenly in order to smooth things over?

Save games do have a place in computer games, that's why so many people are asking for them. I'm for keeping them in that place though, and rather than making it a choice whether to save or not save a given game, by making it so easy to do-instead making it a choice whether or not a given player wants to make that function available to themselves, and a part of their game.

I think there should be a way for someone to download that option, if they want it, but it's no more valid an option than a mod. Maybe the Devs could charge a few bucks for it, and make a little added money on the side? That way we who don't want it-or atleast don't want it casually-in our games, have a good solid excuse not to obtain it?