To Iron Man, or not to Iron Man?

[livid imp]

That is my cliched question.....

I noticed a difference in reload behavor between myself and what others are stating and I am guessing it might by due to the Iron Man setting. So vote your typical preference, then answer whether or not content (pod pops, battles, MW captures, etc.) is random or constant when you reload the same round.

[livid imp]

I play Iron Man and my reloaded rounds are static.

[Ancyrean]

I usually play without the Iron Man, but every now and then to increase the challenge (and the score as well) I play it too.

IIRC, there's still an autosave for the turn you are playing (but not the ones before), which sometimes helps out if something really nasty happens during the turn. Although it won't help much about retrospective mistakes, some may consider even resorting to that current-turn-autosave may be against the spirit of the Iron Man, but it's still there just in case.

As for the results of actions after reloading an Iron Man save, if my memory serves me correctly, I guess it's still random, not fixed in favour of a given result.

[Whoha]

I dont play Iron man, and have autosave in case of a crash, but tend to not reload.

[DilithiumDad]

Iron man saves a few seconds when quitting. I loke for that reason.

[BlackCat]

No iron man and random events are different after a reload. That includes pod pop, capture and MW battle.

Reloading is though an action sparesly used. In the first 10 years i might reload if a pod pops a fungus tower or if i (typically) gets Industrial base as a free research package. I usually plays on Huge so it's not needed and it **** up the reseach tree. Another reason to reload is if i ends up on a small island with Marr - playing my favorite Aki, that is not fun.

Later reloads will go 50-100 steps or more back to try other strategies.

[Net Warrior]

Ever since I started playing PBEM, I can't get serious about SP any more. It's just too easy on a huge map, which is the only one I'll play.

[Alex]

I don't play with Iron Man on, but I don't reload the game too. So I think I'm playing my own Iron Man style of game.

[Commy]

I haven't read this thread, so if I repeat something...oh well...

The point of being a leader is to have a situation and react to it. Leaders don't get to select or choose the situation, they just deal with it.

So, if say, you open a pod, and 8 mindworms come out, and you lose two bases and some units, reloading the game isn't going to make you any better, just the current game you are playing. Believe me, you will have much more fun when you have to work and actually think in the game rather than reloading and getting exactly the results you want.

I'm not saying that reloading makes you a bad person, I just believe that it ruins the game. But that's me. Some people enjoy playing that way.

So, assuming that I won't be reloading in a game, I am essentially playing by Iron Man rules. In which case, there is no reason why I shouldn't officially play by Iron Man rules. Besides, it doubles your score...

[Chaos Theory]

Iron Man wipes my autosaves past the one from the last turn, and makes it cumbersome to save an interesting situation. The AI doesn't challenge me unless I slap on heavy restrictions, so if I'm playing against it, I want the freedom to poke at old turns, see just how the AI beat me to a particular SP, see why one AI is strong and another is weak, etc.

[livid imp]

This is not a post about whether or not you are a weak player without Iron Man!

I am trying to figure out if there is a difference in the way the game saves with Iron Man on or off. When ever I reload a game (for what ever reason), everything stays the same. The outcome of battles, MW caputre, pod pops, etc. All stays the exact same. Others have claimed that when they reload they get differing results. I guessed it might be related to the Iron Man setting, so I put up this poll.

[Chaos Theory]

Well, the poll is on Iron Man preference. I didn't closely read the first post, but I've never noticed correlation between different loads of a game.

[livid imp]

I sorry to blow my top (and it wasn't at you specifically CT). I was just irritated to no end to see that almost no one read the post before assuming its contents. BlackCat was the only person that answered in the manor requested. I may have been vague about what it was I was looking for, but then someone should have asked me to clarify.

It is a stupid thing to be upset about i know, but this isn't the first time it has happened either. I would really hate to get discouraged and walk away from these forums the way others have. I have said it once and I'll say it again, SMAC players are a breed apart. There are no other game forums I can stand to lurk in for more than a day or two. I just don't like seeing peoples apathy in what is one of the best forums on the net.

Excuse me for my emotional blubbering. It is unecessary. I don't mean to cause any problems. Please just read the post before answering.

Edit: I should probably add I have the flu and am at work right now, and we are really short staffed. I am a little on edge right now.

[Livid_Imp]

Did some testing last night, and confirmed that the seed is saved if you are playing in Iron Man. So the outcome of random events will be the same every round no matter how many times a round is reloaded.
Conversely, if you play with Iron Man off, all events are re-randomized everytime you reload

[Commy]

But does that really matter? I mean, come on, even if the events on Iron Man were random, who's going to reload? That would take a long time to do. Reloading a game to get results you want can sometimes for some people make the game more enjoyable, but with Iron man on, you'll be reloading more than you will be playing, how fun is that?

By the way livid_imp, I did read the first post. I always read the first post. I always read the last one to just in case the topic change (as is so common on apolyton). I guess I just didn't read it right. Sorry...