This... Is... Sparta!

[kalin]

Hi,

I have decided to give the last epic a try as it looked quite appealing. Unfortunately a miscount caused a very early loss. I don't want to post any other detail as I don't want to give any spoiling info by mistake.

Now a loss is a loss, but I wanted to ask what happens if I continue from a save making the same moves with one exception.

Thanks,
K

[timmy827]

From the standard rules (full version here ):

7. No restarts, and no reloads, except if you suffer one of the following misfortunes:

* A misclick, causing the game to do something significantly harmful that you did not intend, may be cause for reload. Examples include hitting "Declare War" in a diplomatic discussion when you meant to hit "Exit", or clicking the wrong destination square for a unit and this mistake will cost you a worker, a settler, or an entire city. What constitutes "significant" harm is at your own discretion, but please use common sense.

* If you make note that you need to change the build orders on something vital or address a military threat, but then forget to do deal with it anyway because the game has become involved, it would be OK to go back and correct it. Again, we're not running a memory or attention test, we're playing a strategy game.

Reloading to recover from strategic error is not permitted. If something occurs between turns that you did not anticipate, you should eat the mistake, including deals expiring or AI surprise attacks. We trust you not to reload to get do-overs. These very limited conditions for reload are intended to free you from perfectionism in having to triple-check every minute detail and click all the right buttons all the time to carry out your intended orders. Your results should be based on your decisions, and we trust you not to abuse this reasonable reload policy.

[dsplaisted]

OK but he's certainly free to play the game on his own however he wants, and wouldn't it be OK to report that as a shadow? I know I've seen reports before that included a summary of a second playthrough trying a different strategy. I think the first playthrough was usually a win in those cases.

I lost on adventure 37, and then played it again and won. If I had written up a report wouldn't it have been OK to include information about the second playthrough?

[timmy827]

Yes, of course he/she can do a shadow if they want, and I'd much rather people contribute reports than not. I was trying to quickly point our newcomer to the standard info, apologies if it sounded harsh or brusque.

I sort of suspect from kalin's description that an early AI explorer unit came wandering around and an unintentional misclick moved a defender out of the capital, letting the AI capture when they shouldn't have. That's the sort of thing that can be reloaded.

Playing to a loss at (say) 1AD, then backing up to an earlier save, puts the game in the shadow category.

[kalin]

Thanks timmy827 and dsplaisted for your replies, in particular for the clarification (timmy). I am afraid I will count this as a loss.

edited (spoiler info sorry)

K

[Kodii]

Yes, that would definitely be a spoiler. Please remove it.

[Dreylin]

Let's wait 48 hours to see if anything game-breaking is discovered on the forums. If no one can find anything, we'll let everyone use either version (or patch in-game) for Epic 25.

Since there hasn't been a follow-up, can I assume that either version is acceptable?

(I'm currently playing in 3.17, but would rather use the latest patch if allowed)

[kalin]

Yes, that would definitely be a spoiler. Please remove it.

Removed. To be honest, I didn't think it was a spoiler, but I defer to you on this.

K

[Sullla]

kalin - you are of course always welcome to replay our events a second time, whether it was to improve upon a loss, try a different strategy, or whatever. Only your first attempt can count for scoring purposes, of course. Any subsequent playthroughs get classified as "shadow games", and we have had many of them submitted over the years. Certainly in the case of Always War, a lengthy shadow game is much more interesting to read than a short exit.

Welcome to the community.

Dreylin (and all) - I haven't heard of any major gamebreaking issues with 3.19. Yes, there are some minor bug fixes, the most important of which is a correction to the ship invasion bug. I'm aware that this certainly could affect our Epic, but in the interests of preserving everyone's sanity, we're going to open up the current game to users of either patch. You may use either 3.17 or 3.19 as you desire, and patching mid-game is OK too. This is supposed to be the last patch, so let's hope we never have to go through this confusion again.

[kalin]

Thanks Sullla. I have been wanting for a long time to participate in an event, so too bad it started this way. I should have paid more attention to the map options. I'll try to report a shadow game. Also, I played with 3.19 for what is worth, too little time to mess up with dual install etc.

K