1.1.4 Autosave feature

[xtifr]

Hmm, I'd actually be a tiny bit unhappy with saving at the beginning of the turn. I have an unfortunate habit of getting so interested in moving my units around and fighting that I completely forget to recruit a new set of units. Going back and fixing that is my number one use of autosave. (Number two is when I forget to move my scouts off in the corners of the map, which would also be affected; number three is crash recovery which wouldn't. None of them actually come up very often)

Pushing the End Turn button is one of those irrevocable steps in the game. Saving right after you do that just seems wrong, somehow. I do realize that this is something about which reasonable people can disagree, though.

[rusty]

Hi all!

Because of the crash reporting problem, I've reinstalled Auto-Save (with no number) at the beginning of every turn where there's no Auto-Savenumber. So you will see this in next version.

Someone suggested I should not show it in the "load" list, but I think that's just being a PITA for no good reason.

Personally, I get fairly immersed in the game and hate to have to remember to save every once in a while, and if I have to go all the way back to the start I know all the surprises: the menu shortcuts for previous turns makes it more honest, not less.

BTW xtifr: n and space are vital for ensuring no units are missed!

Thanks for the feedback!
Rusty.

[irrevenant]

The idea behind this (AFAIK) is that the game is not meant to be played with frequent saving/loading. You can of course still save as often as you want anyway.

Exactly .

I'm sorry, but that seems insane. Auto-saving serves as a backup in case of crash or other mishap. Disabling that functionality for everybody just to discourage people from 'cheating' by playing the game differently to the officially sanctioned way seems a really bad call.

I get that you want to encourage people not to S/R, but honestly; isn't it their copy of the game to play however they want? It seems a bad idea to bend over backwards to address 'cheaters' in a single-player gaime: especially at the price of crippling useful functionality.

I'm in total agreement about moving the save to the start of the turn though.

[EDIT] Oops: Just read that it's been changed back; yay team!

[kiet]

I think there should be a way to turn it on or shut it off.
Well,the new versions can actually crash a lot
EDIT:Wow,it happened just after I wrote this.
Now I have to go 2 turns earlier,just great!

[energyman76c]

Hi,

I usually forget one unit - and that did not matter with earlier versions, because there were always the autosave from the end of the last turn. 'oops, forgot the scout AGAIN, no deal, load game and everything is fine'.

This is gone, and this really sucks...

I prefer the old method. If some point of the game is important for me, I am doing a savegame. But not be able to go back to the end of the last turn really hurts me.

[rusty]

Hi,

I usually forget one unit - and that did not matter with earlier versions, because there were always the autosave from the end of the last turn. 'oops, forgot the scout AGAIN, no deal, load game and everything is fine'.

This is gone, and this really sucks...

I prefer the old method. If some point of the game is important for me, I am doing a savegame. But not be able to go back to the end of the last turn really hurts me.

There's actually an undocumented preference to control this: put "confirm_end_turn=yellow" in your preferences file (on Linux, ~/.wesnoth/preferences). This will ask you if you end your turn with any units still having movement (pressing <SPACE> will mark a unit finished, BTW).

You can also set "confirm_end_turn=green" which will only ask you if you have some units which haven't moved at all that turn.

Does that help?
Rusty.

[energyman76c]

Hi,

well it helps yes, but in the same time, not really

I am not a good player - so I don't want to finish a unit with has lots of movements and or its battle left, because maybe I forgot something or just did not forsee a possible problem.

A lot of times I even choose to not finish them, because I want to see, what the AI does first.

That is another point, why I loved autoamic save at the end of the turn. 'oops, did not see that the orc could go there, luckily avenger has movement left - just reload and move him'.

That possibility is gone now.

A config option to turn on/off autosave at the end of a tun would be very helpfull. The autosave every 3 rounds could still be there.

Hm, something else I 'discovered' today and did not like:
it is turn 9 and see that the last moves were pure crap. I can go back to 7 or 4. If I go back to 4, 7 is lost.

[Wintermute]

That is another point, why I loved autoamic save at the end of the turn. 'oops, did not see that the orc could go there, luckily avenger has movement left - just reload and move him'.

That possibility is gone now.

These three commands are IMO a quicker way to address your issue:

Ctrl-V shows how many enemy units can reach any given hex.
Ctrl-B shows the same, but without taking your units ZoC into account.
Mouse-over any unit to see where it can move.

The other advantage of using these commands rather than save/loading is that it prepares you for multiplayer gaming, where you can't reload on a whim.

[xtifr]

BTW xtifr: n and space are vital for ensuring no units are missed!

I know about 'n' and space, but they're not always convenient when I'm moving units to the right places (rather than moving them to the full extent that they can). Sometimes I indeed go through with 'n' and space to make sure I've gotten everybody, but sometimes, it's simply more work than it's worth. With autosave at the end of the turn, I could actually get away with not stepping through every unit wth 'n'. With autosave at the beginning of the turn, I'm afraid I'll have to 'n' through all my units every single freakin' turn, which is likely to make the game at least a little more tedious and less fun.

What might solve that problem is a key to move through every unmoved unit, rather than every unit that can still move. That still won't help when I forget to recruit in my hurry to see what happens next, though.

The "confirm_end_turn=green" option actually sounds very useful. I'm to give that a try, and if it solves my problems, I'm going to strongly recommend that it be changed from an UNdocumented preference to a DOCUMENTED one!

It's going to take some adustment of my playing habits, though.

I still think autosave at the end of the turn makes more sense. It seems liek the only people who really benefit from autosave at the beginning are, well, saveloaders. But, in the interest of fairness and openmindedness, I'm going to shut up now and try it for a while, till I get used to it, and see what I think of it then. And if I still hate it, then I'll come back and [censored] some more.

[energyman76c]

These three commands are IMO a quicker way to address your issue:

Ctrl-V shows how many enemy units can reach any given hex.
Ctrl-B shows the same, but without taking your units ZoC into account.
Mouse-over any unit to see where it can move.

no, that way I have a lot more work, that the normal 'guesswork'. 'I think, this position might be save - oops wrong, well load autosave'. Less clicks and I see, what is really going on, instead of checking douzends of units....

[Sly]

Just to say, I really don't think that changing the autosave will change anything for poeple who play with saveloading : if you use saveloading, the autosave is not useless but nearly (I know, I used to saveload at first).

So I think you shouldn't take saveloading into account to change autosave, you should just think about wich type of autosave would help players without annoying them (always the same name is better : you don't have 20 Autosaved games in your load menu )

[energyman76c]

Hi,

the new 'save every 3 rounds' is a good thing.

But the old 'save at the end of the turn' was also 'a good thing'

The two methods combined, would be perfect....

[Tux2B]

Hi,

the new 'save every 3 rounds' is a good thing.

But the old 'save at the end of the turn' was also 'a good thing'

The two methods combined, would be perfect....

Do you mean having it like an option?

[Soliton]

Hi,

the new 'save every 3 rounds' is a good thing.

But the old 'save at the end of the turn' was also 'a good thing'

The two methods combined, would be perfect....

That's most likely what we will do.
It'll be discussed on the mailing list.

[energyman76c]

Hi,

the new 'save every 3 rounds' is a good thing.

But the old 'save at the end of the turn' was also 'a good thing'

The two methods combined, would be perfect....

Do you mean having it like an option?

not really - have it 'on' always. But I am not against an option, if it becomes one, I'd be happy to turn it one and would be a satisfied 'costumer'

The two methods combined, would be perfect....

That's most likely what we will do.
It'll be discussed on the mailing list.

wow, speak about 'wish comes true' ...
great news!