Quick Savegame Resume

[Error404]

I've found something really usefull (for me lazy man :P ) so here's how to resume your savegame quickly when loading cIV, without selecting every time the right one from the menus:

Just create a shortcut of your quick savegame and put it on your desktop. Easy enough? Double-click and cIV will be loaded and immidiatly the savegame too! (The quicksave is in the folder documents/my games/sid meier's civilization 4/saves/single/quick/)

Error404

P.S.
Very useful if your games are on epic level and you cannot play 20/25 hours continuously or if you experience a lot of crashes to the desktop and have to restart...

[Lucilla]

Very useful indeed! Thanks!

[Datajack Franit]

I tould you italians were useful after all

[Slartibartfast]

Nice feature.

On a related topic - how do you make a quicksave? Couldn't find it in the manual, but there's a folder called 'quick' under the savegames, so it should be possible. (Yes, I know about the ctrl-S to make a regular save, but that's not it).

[alva]

Shift-F5

Note that is only one, so it will be overwritten every time you press Shift-F5.

[Slartibartfast]

Thanx!

[Dis]

I don't mind overwriting since autosave is always on it seems. I used to not use autosave. But that's okay. It reduced the amount of real save games I need.

[alva]

I'm just mentioning it, so that people don't think a new save is created each time.

If you want that, "Ctrl+S" is the thing to do.

[Rommel2D]

Anyone know if this is this the case with autosave? I just went to resume my game, and it looks like I didn't save last time before exit. (And the program didn't prompt for it either. )

Ok, so i had just been mucking around in the config file and changed the autosaveinterval setting to every '1' turns. No need to replay the last 4 hour game session, just the last turn.

Now my autosave folder only has one file in it, for 4000BC. I'm guessing this is from the game that accidentally started because I was seeing what the 'quick start' option would do. Now there's another good question- it seems to not skip any intro stuff, but actually is the only way to view a little intro slide show narrated by Nimoy. Nice show- why don't I see it unless I select 'quickstart'?

Anyway did this aborted game (who considers 30 seconds going through a few setup screens such a pain it deserves a config setting to skip? ) erase the one and only auto save for my game, or are there more autosaves somewhere else? I normally like to have the last 4 or 5 autosaves to help trace down bugs or other oddities. Can it be there's only one kept?

Every other bug/problem with the game has seemed minor and somewhat expected to me, this is the first thing that has my blood pressure actually rising.

[Lucilla]

I have AutoSaveInterval = 2 and in my autosave folder I have 6 files:
The initial one from 4000BC and the last 5 autosaves.
Don't know what happened to yours

[Rommel2D]

Aargh, then it seems the file manager has an obsessive-compulsive cleaning disorder and erases any autosave not associated with the most recently started game. Great- it can play Felix Unger to the leaderhead process's Oscar Madison.

If that's the case at least this is just a series of small design flaws and idiocy on my part, not a major interface omission...

[Lucilla]

Yes, I just noticed, that when you start a new game, all previous auto saves get deleted. This is unexpected and should therefore not happen.
On the other hand, why would you need old auto saves if you start a new game? If you want to keep previous game saves you can just use ctrl-s. Sooner or later all autosaves will get overwritten anyway.

[alva]

I find this annoying too, just loading up a save someone posted here, will delete all the autosaves from the game you were playing before.

[Lucilla]

Originally posted by alva
I find this annoying too, just loading up a save someone posted here, will delete all the autosaves from the game you were playing before.

This is valid reason to keep old autosaves. So ignore my previous question why you would want to keep them.

[Dis]

but still. I always hardsave (my term for regular save) my game upon exiting civ4. I only use autosaves in an emergency.