When do you think is it okay to reload in campaign?

[slyeyes]

This always has bugged me. I always reload to the last turn wherever i end up exposing a leader on an improtant unit and understimate the enemy - this happens to me a lot when it could have been avoided, but i wondered if that makes me a horrible player.
Now, i need your help to figure this out, please take your time to reply and answer all following questions:
Do you think it is okay to reload wherever you do a wrong move but only discover that after ending the turn?
Do you think it is okay to reload when you discover that you exposed an unit and 12 out of all 12 strikes enemy had connected, leading to the death of your unit?
Do you think it is okay to reload when two your units fail to kill an unit that would be killed with a single hit and you need that one to be dead?
Do you think it is okay to reload after a stroke of bad luck?
Do you think it is okay to reload after a stroke of terrible, VERY terrible luck?
Do you think it is okay to reload wherever you walked into a horde of enemies with an improtant unit without knowing they were there? (Like mission 7 in HttT)

[Crushmaster]

Whenever you want to, depending on exactly what your own "save-load" rules for yourself are (and, they could be different depending on if you've played it before, difficulty of campaign, what mood you're in...et cetera). I believe some, if they lose, go back to the beginning of the scenario; others, bad move, reload to turn before; still others, I'm sure, if they "die", they restart the campaign entirely.

It's entirely up to you as the player. Not really objective at all.
God bless,
Crushmaster.

[Dixie]

I would return the questions to you, but instead of asking "Do you think it is ok to...", ask yourself "Do I still enjoy myself if I...". I personnally find that the game becomes pretty tiring if I reload to much (like after bad luck), but have difficulty restraining myself in single player (as if I couldn't bear losing to the AI, even if I played horribly), that's why I play much more multiplayer (that is to say, not a lot these days :S)

[Maiklas3000]

I switched to playing without reloading and I've almost completed all the mainline campaigns on the hardest difficulty this way. (Just 1 1/2 campaigns to go.) That includes all the situations in the original post. If I win via reload, it bothers me, and I have to keep replaying the scenario until I get an "honest" win. That said, I'm looking for an even better way. I enjoy the challenge of trying to get through a campaign despite losses of loyals and leveled units. So, I'll try disallowing restarting scenarios, but it will be very tough on the hardest difficulty and I figure I'll have to drop back to medium.

See also the thread "Ok, this may be stupid but what if you want to keep units".

[Wendek]

I'm trying to restrain myself to reloads only after important and very probable stuff didn't happen. E.g., my unit has 7 hps and needs one kill to level up, the enemy deals 3-3 and has 2 hps, my unit deals like 4-3. If my unit misses all its attacks and the enemy hits all his, then I will reload if it's in a campaign. I also tend to reload often when three or more magical attacks all missed.
Before, I was a very compulsive saveloader, but it does make the game boring and it, truth be told, doesn't feel satisfying to win this way, so now I try to play most scenarios without saveloading. But the longer a scenario is, the more prone I am to do it because absurd stuff *will* happen and it bugs me to lose veterans in a [censored] way.

Obviously this only applies to campaigns, because I don't want to spend countless hours on a scenario and, more importantly, I don't know what can be considered as "acceptable losses" since I don't know how hard will the next scenarios be. I'd hate having to go back four scenarios because I underestimated the forces I'd need for the last one or something.
When playing maps whose only point is the tactical aspect (such as a survival map), I'd obviously never consider saveloading, even if an Ancient Lich misses all its attacks. :p

[Gambit]

It's okay up until the point I'm not entertained by the game anymore. This might explain why I'm so bad.

[Caphriel]

As everyone else said, it's okay to reload a campaign when you think it's okay to reload a campaign. If you think you'd enjoy the campaign more with less loading of saves, try it and see. I can guarantee that getting into the habit of playing recklessly and loading your saved games whenever you find you've made a mistake will impair your skill growth, but since the skills used for campaigns are generally not the skills used for multiplayer, I don't think this matters much.

To answer your questions, when I campaigned, my personal guidelines were approximately as follows:
Do you think it is okay to reload wherever you do a wrong move but only discover that after ending the turn? Depends on what you mean by a wrong move. If you mean a misclick or in some other way making a move you didn't intend, then yes.
Do you think it is okay to reload when you discover that you exposed an unit and 12 out of all 12 strikes enemy had connected, leading to the death of your unit? No, unless loss of that unit is a loss condition.
Do you think it is okay to reload when two your units fail to kill an unit that would be killed with a single hit and you need that one to be dead? No.
Do you think it is okay to reload after a stroke of bad luck? No.
Do you think it is okay to reload after a stroke of terrible, VERY terrible luck? No.
Do you think it is okay to reload wherever you walked into a horde of enemies with an improtant unit without knowing they were there? (Like mission 7 in HttT) Yes, especially if this leads to game over. It might be better not to lead/scout with important units. However, my personal distaste for tomato surprises is such that I'd reload from scenario start if I walked into any significant ambush without any warning. However, you are warned about the ambushes in mission 7 of HttT. The surprises that occur in some later scenarios and other campaigns, on the other hand...

[Velensk]

I think it's always okay to reload in a campaign.

I do think however, that the more you limit yourself the more you will learn. I think that it is more rewarding to keep a strict limit.

My guideline is that you only ever restart from the beginning of a scenario regardless of reason.