How many of you play "Ironman"

[Echo35]

My guess is that an Ironman toggle would make it so that:
- All autosaves are saved as Ironman_(mapseed)_Autosave.sav .
- The retain autosaves toggle would be disregarded.
- When you use the quit-game or exit-to-OS options, it triggers an autosave first.
- When you lose, it triggers an autosave.  That way you can keep playing after the loss just like a normal game but you can't "un-lose".

Would that do it?  There would still be ways to save-scum (copying the save file, killing the process instead of quitting normally, etc), but to some extent the game's just a userland program and can't do anything about that.

You can always copy before and and save-scum, no matter what the system is, so I'm not concerned about that. As far as your suggestion goes though, I'm completely okay with it, other than maybe making it outright delete your save instead of letting you play on.

[Cyborg]

My guess is that an Ironman toggle would make it so that:
- All autosaves are saved as Ironman_(mapseed)_Autosave.sav .
- The retain autosaves toggle would be disregarded.
- When you use the quit-game or exit-to-OS options, it triggers an autosave first.
- When you lose, it triggers an autosave.  That way you can keep playing after the loss just like a normal game but you can't "un-lose".

Would that do it?  There would still be ways to save-scum (copying the save file, killing the process instead of quitting normally, etc), but to some extent the game's just a userland program and can't do anything about that.

Can you please add an achievement also? 

[Nalgas]

I usually save-scum the hell out of most other games I play, but not AI War.  I don't really have any interest in a specific "Ironman" mode, but that's usually how I play anyway, even in multiplayer.  Occasionally we'll go back and reload an earlier save, just to see if our analysis of why we lost the game was right or not, but the vast majority of the time, if we lose, we lose, and we try to learn not to do that again.

It's weird, because as much as I like reading other people's NetHack stories, I can barely stand to play it even cheating and save-scumming like crazy, but it doesn't really bother me losing 20 hours into a campaign in AI War and having to start over.  Figuring out where you screwed up and what you should've done instead is half the fun, sometimes.

[Shrugging Khan]

When I play a roguelike, I usually arc from "Let's play it like it's meant to be played" over "I got so far I can't die because of something like dies, let's cheat" to "hug it, now it's boring".

With AIW, it's more like going from "Alright, no mistakes made so far" for a while, before inevitably tripping into "Alright you artificial bastard couple, but I WILL TAKE YOU WITH MEEEEEEARGH....!"

[lanstro]

Our games tend to last about 10-18 hours, and on average we probably save-reload once every two games.  We only do it when someone's made a really really stupid mistake.  Most of the time that involves totally not spotting 3 raid starships slipping in and hammering our home planets.

[Nurgle84]

My guess is that an Ironman toggle would make it so that:
- All autosaves are saved as Ironman_(mapseed)_Autosave.sav .
- The retain autosaves toggle would be disregarded.
- When you use the quit-game or exit-to-OS options, it triggers an autosave first.
- When you lose, it triggers an autosave.  That way you can keep playing after the loss just like a normal game but you can't "un-lose".

Would that do it?  There would still be ways to save-scum (copying the save file, killing the process instead of quitting normally, etc), but to some extent the game's just a userland program and can't do anything about that.

That sounds excellent. Keeps me from the temptation of saving.

[Ozymandiaz]

I sometimes load up a save even if I loose just to see what I could have done differently and try and learn form that. I still consider the game "lost", but it is also an opportunity to test some new stuff (often very unusual tactics and such just ot give em a try) without fear of loosing again .

[Wingflier]

I wasn't actually aware that there was such a derogatory term for people who loaded a save after they lost.  It's like the sacrilege of the single-player gaming world, I love it.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well, it counts for Roguelikes especially, because character mortality is just part of the package.

Apart from that...savescumming just devalues the experience, because effectively, you "cheat" in order to have the magical power of seeing the future.

[zoutzakje]

I save my game very very often, just so I can reload in case I make a really stupid mistake (such as "crap, I didn't see that AI Eye" kind of mistake). Thankfully that doesn't happen (often) anymore. I rarely make mistakes nowadays and if I do I often can live with the consequenses. I never savescum for waves or CPA's and such. I often know a wave warning is gonna come soon, so I already prepare my forces for it a bit. And in cases of CPA's I just scatter my forces all around important locations. They usually come 3-4 hours in the game so I got a golem by then most of the times as well. The only annoying thing of a CPA is that killing off all the high threat takes so much time.

[BobTheJanitor]

True ironman mode should allow no saving, no pausing, and delete your game if you quit. And only allow you to play on 120 planet galaxies. And send a little man around to your house every hour to slap you soundly across the face. (By hour 20, you'll be glad about this, since it will help to keep you awake)

[Lancefighter]

Yeah.. uh..

I usually run my games on autosave per 10 minutes, save them all. I think i have a few hundred sitting around from my last campaign.


At some point, i found out that (spoiler building) was missing (spoiler building centerpeice), about an hour after it died, and 3 patches later.

So uh yeah, autosaves are pretty useful.
I couldnt really imagine playing such an rpg game without them.. At some point, in like a strategy guide somewhere, i read that 'the save/reload spell is the most powerful in the game'...
and ever since then I havent overwritten a save. Ever.

[Shrugging Khan]

'the save/reload spell is the most powerful in the game'

That sounds one step removed from "Just cheat already, you incompetent bastard!" 

[Nalgas]

So uh yeah, autosaves are pretty useful.
I couldnt really imagine playing such an rpg game without them.. At some point, in like a strategy guide somewhere, i read that 'the save/reload spell is the most powerful in the game'...
and ever since then I havent overwritten a save. Ever.

That's my normal approach to most games, so I really don't know why I'm the opposite with AI War.  I mean, I have 3GB of saves just from The Witcher still, even though I'll never, ever have any use for them, but I keep them anyway and back them up along with everything else, just in case.  I hang on to save files from 20-year-old games I never finished, probably will never go back to, and don't even still have a copy of, just in case.  I get antsy when I have a limited number of save slots like in console games or ports of console games.  I will reload and try again 800 times just to find some way that's possible to get through something if I'm determined enough.

And yet I almost never reload saves in AI War, for some reason.  I really can't explain it.  Heh.

[Lancefighter]

'the save/reload spell is the most powerful in the game'

That sounds one step removed from "Just cheat already, you incompetent bastard!" 

Well, when you put it like that. Youve never reloaded a save to pass a random skill check in random rpg? Never reloaded because you end up completely murdered and spent xyz amounts of consumables needlessly for absolutely no return?
Dont get me wrong, I definitely dont do this as much in aiwar, but thats just because of the way strategy games are.

So uh yeah, autosaves are pretty useful.
I couldnt really imagine playing such an rpg game without them.. At some point, in like a strategy guide somewhere, i read that 'the save/reload spell is the most powerful in the game'...
and ever since then I havent overwritten a save. Ever.

And yet I almost never reload saves in AI War, for some reason.  I really can't explain it.  Heh.

Yeah, I dont really reload them that often.. but now and again, I like to look back at the game and see what I couldve done differently.

In case youve read the link in my sig, ill reference that:
While doing the actual acquisition of the dyson gatlings, I never really reloaded once. It just kinda went along and worked. Mostly.
But the final push at the homeworld was slightly more difficult - it took about 3 tries to actually manage to do things right (a few times i turned off /everything/, including the cloaking starships.. boom goes fleet. Once I left the starships operational, starships break cloak and boom...). However, those were just kinda minor technical mistakes, that I almost feel bad for saying, but any amount of competence wouldve avoided that, and I didn't really like that.

As for actual strategy things that I cant influence, I dont save/reload. I wont reload a game after a wave hits and i lose to add turrets or defenses if it breaks through. I wont really load after any given attack if it failed miserably..

The only time I really got heavy on reloading was during playtesting the spire plot - i didn't really feel like restarting the game every time i did something stupid, and wait out hour+ long 'plot spacers' that someone thought would be a great idea........... Ok, not really, just they took forever to complete. So i got one game running where I didn't let die, and reloaded if stuff went drastically wrong.

Anyway, that concludes todays randomly large post.