saved game syndrome

[vee4473]

Does anyone suffer from the "saved game syndrome"?

I mean, does anyone get into a game deeply for a few days, only to have to stay away from the game for days due to work or other more pressing issues. And then load a saved game...only to find out that you can't remember exactly what you were thinking or what your strategy was when you last saved the game?

And you have to go from city to city to see what they are building and try to remember what you wanted to build next in each city...

and sometimes even forget who you were at war with??

maybe i am simple minded, but i constantly find myself starting new games because i load a saved game and find that i cant get back into it because it has been a little while since i played that particular game and i dont know exactly the strategy i had in mind for the game when i saved it...which ruins the whole game

I guess i could take notes, but that seems ridiculous

am i alone on this?

[DarkCloud]

Well you're not alone but to check who you are at war with then just go to the commlink tab.

I always forget my strategies when I go away for a while after a save and do something else. Oh well when you play on the first or second level it really doesn't matter anyway, you are going to win anyhow.

[vee4473]

thanks darkcloud,

but I check the commlink, but my point i guess is that i forget why i was at war with certain factions, so the game seems weird when you are fighting someone and you dont remember why...

In my eyes, you CAN'T let too much time elapse between game sessions or else the entire "feel" of the game you are in is lost.

that's my point.

Yes, this is a problem I have. When playing SMAC you have a lot of short term specific tasks and strategies that will disappear out of your mind very quickly...

[joer]

That's a big problem for on on MP pbem. I promise myself to do something the next turn, or see that something happens at the end of the turn and make a mental mark to take care of it the next turn...and the next turn arrives 2-4 days later, and I haven't got the faintest clue what's going on.

Currently, I've had this stuff happen with a spore launcher, destroying my terraforming in the early game at the end of each round. It took me three rounds to remember to active one miserable scout and kill him. Lots of time lost. Hate that.
-joer.

[Simpson II]

I actually have more trouble between turns than between weeks. When I concentrate my memory is virtually perfect. I can remember my strategy, military operations and the general shape of the map from my first four Smac games about 2 years ago quite easily, and given a glance at the overview of any reasonably advanced game I can do the same. I would remember pacts, and anthing else is irrelevant since I normally regard both treaty and vendetta as permanent (barring submissive pacts, of course.) PBEM is fine.

However I am also extremely absent minded, and I frequently forget things which I resolved to do last turn, or at the beginning of this one. Usually during the upkeep phase I start thinking of new things to do, and unless I make a conscious effort to remember them, my original mental notes tend to get misplaced. My speciality is to forget the MWs or AI troops which just appeared next to a base .

[Simpson II]

AAArgh! My first double post. Still, I've made every other possible mistake first, so I needed to complete the set
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited August 02, 2000).]

[Googlie]

S2:

But jotting things down twice helps you remember, eh?



(Just teasing)

Googlie

[Fitz]

I never have this problem. I even had one game which I didn't play for 3 weeks, but when i came back, I was in the groove in about 5 minutes. I just need to glance very briefly at the research, base & comlink screens and it all comes back.

I have had the spore launcher problem thingy, so now I take care of that kind of thing as soon as actually possible in the game.

Notes don't seem to help me, as I usually play Zen style. I just look at the overall sitch anyway to make my strat, so a quick glance at it will trigger the same strat in my mind anyway, provided the situation hasn't changed.

[DilithiumDad]

Forgetting your strategy is a real problem in PBEM for me. Many times there are multiple components to something, or there is a complex deal worked out with a pactmate. When moves are a week apart, I makes lots of mistakes.

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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Didymus]

quote: Originally posted by joer on 08-01-2000 07:17 AM Currently, I've had this stuff happen with a spore launcher, destroying my terraforming in the early game at the end of each round. It took me three rounds to remember to active one miserable scout and kill him. Lots of time lost. Hate that. -joer.

Oh, I HATE that! Happens too often. I wish the designers had given you a "pause" at the beginning of the turn before you have to respond to all the alarms set of by your builds/riots/whatever. Bad enough the default is to end your turn without warning. (First setting I changed.)

Could it be that for some of us it's just more fun to start a new game than figure out what's happening with your existing game?

I must have 27 unfinished saved games. I certainly never go back beyond the most recent one and often (obviously) I just bag it and start a new one. I think that for me the most fun is always firing up a new game and then seeing how it develops for the first hundred years or so. By then you can pretty much see where it's headed, and it starts to get stale (or hopeless in a few cases) and this sometimes is much more apparent after I've been away from it for a while...

Makes we wonder if SMAC could be improved in the late game to give it more "freshness"...

[MariOne]

Same for me, and since the old Civ times...

I can tho remember or reconstruct pretty well the details and the strategies, but nevertheless an old save loses all his appeal, because it loses its... "feel", its freshness, its crispness (sp?).
Also, when I have to interrupt a long well-developed SP game, I know it's because I'm not really thrilled anymore to see it to its easily foreseeable conclusion.

PBEM is quite a different matter.
Of course waiting more than 10 days between turns can make you lose a little passion in it, but as I usually put lot more thinking and passion in PBEMs, and to only play one turn at the time, then you really strive to see the outcomes.
I played about 30 pbems, and I can recall pretty well a lot of details about all of them, even those which ended about a year ago.
I started innumerable SP games, I ended a few, and they all confuse into one purple haze.
I only extrapolated from them the prominent patterns, useful for game knowledge, and no more related to the identity of a particular game.

[Adm.Naismith]

Forgetting overview about old save is my main reason to suggest a good "replay" to let any player go back and watch some briefing of his/her Civ main "facts and figures".

The same replay could be used midgame as at the endgame, of course having the former only showing what you know of the world, where the latter will let you see the whole picture.

Ehi, thinking twice, better if the "replay at the end" will "seal" the save files, just to avoid lazy people to spy and restart from an old save

Hint: the Replay thread is somewhere on the Civ III general forum. Look around Apolyton forum, if you like to remember

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant