Preserving the integrity of Metaverse games

... preferably without the annoying production blip thingy

from GalCiv2 Forums
By now everyone knows about the one-turn production loss that comes with saving and loading a game. It's disruptive, but some consider it necessary to avoid the cheese of repeated saving/loading to obtain a desired result.

Question: what if all Metaverse games were played in Ironman mode? Would this be an effective solution? If so, how difficult would it be to implement it? The one wrinkle I can see is that players could crash the game (or hard-reset their computer) to avoid an undesired result, then reboot the game to try again. I guess the thing to do would be to allow the user to pick up where they left off, but turn the game into a non-metaverse game. If your computer crashes or the power goes out just before you were about to get the greatest score ever, tough luck, but at least you get to finish the game and see how you would have done.

Apologies if this has already been suggested elsewhere.
10,784 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not all of us can play ironman style. I have been trying to finish my first metaverse game for a week or so now - unfortunately work, sleep, and the need to visit my better half for at least a few minutes each night keep getting in the way.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would't even want to think about finishing a gigantic map ironman style.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would't even want to think about finishing a gigantic map ironman style.


Is that even biologically possible?
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, with a very limited star number, otehr wise... ::shudder::
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To avoid the reload hiatus, I've been playing in windowed mode and just using alt-tab to get back to desktop and hibernating my computer when I'm ready to call it quits. You have to have another application running tho, I can't get the game to switch to desktop otherwise. Only time I reload now is when game crashes (not often now for me at least) or when I do something *really* stoopid. I do save the game before alt-tabbing, because there have been a couple times where the game crashed when I restarted after hibernating.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Apparently I was unclear about what I meant by "Ironman". I don't mean it in the sense that the entire game must be played in one sitting. Wizardry 8 had an ironman mode, and I can't imagine anybody completing that in one go (it's even longer than an epic Galciv game).

Here's what I actually mean by ironman mode (those of you who have played W8 will find this pretty familiar). You start your metaverse game, but there is no "save game" option. The game saves automatically every time you quit the program or return to the main menu, but this is no other way to save. You can load an ironman game and continue from the exact moment where you left off, but you can't go back in time and try a different path.

Would this be viable then?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you can make sure its not abuseable then its reasonable then.