Game saving

[Rosstoid]

Just curious how other people play the game. The way I play it, I load and save frequently. For example, if I walk through a night forest and one of my men gets killed I load the last game. If one of my men needs to kill and alien or it will kill me, I shoot, if it misses, I load.

[The Demi-Godly One]

I used to play it that way, now I rarely reload.

[BladeFireLight]

Any one can beat the game by reloading every time somthing goes wrong...

 

I only reload if the game crashes....

 

-Blade FireLight

[Fox]

I used to save and reload all the time, but it's kind of a newbish thing to do. It takes no skill to play the game with save and reloads. You'll find that if you just accept your losses, you learn to play a lot better. Since beating a lot of UFO/TFTD games without reloads, now I never really need to. You learn new tactics, and the game also seems fun. I know it sucks when you lose your favorite guy, but there's more than one soldier out there.

 

I do, however, save frequently. That way, like how Blade said, if it crashes, I don't have to worry too much.

 

The one time I used to still reload, was when the aliens send a blaster bomb into the skyranger, nuking everyone. Funny that this topic comes up, it just happened yesterday. But this time I decided to accept the losses. All the guys were in personal armor, and only 2 out of 14 survived the initial blast. They were heavily wounded, and thier accuracy was just gone. I didn't want to risk walking to the front of the Skyranger to get the medikits, so I just withdrew. It set me back a bit, sure. But I figure crazy stuff like that would probably happen in real life, so I just dealt with it.

[Jman4117]

I save at the start of every mission, and when I get ready to enter the UFO.

I reload when game crashes, if an alien I forgot to mind control again throws a nade, or if I misclick (it really sucks when a guy turns around and walks back to the guy behind him that you were trying to click on).

[Squaddie01]

I try to limit my reloads. On crashes I have to reload, and I usually reload if I have someone selected, then move to select a different soldier, only to have the mouse slip or the screen scroll and thus cause a soldier to suddenly run out of position towards the accidental slip/scroll. If this action results in that soldiers casualty or another casualty as a result of that soldier not being where he should be, then I reload.

[NKF]

I used to save-reload quite a lot, but I do that for a lot of games until I get the hang of them.

 

These days, while I still save a lot to avoid the occasional crash, I try to not save during a tactical mission. Instead, I save before the tactical mission and then attempt to play the whole mission in one sitting without once saving or reloading. For TFTD's two-parters, since they take so long, I have to save during tactical before the first part ends.

 

If I make any serious accidental blunders, I can always retry the mission by resetting everything with a reload. Though I don't reload for losing my better troopers. Once you've seen one super-trooper, you've seen them all. In UFO, the whole is generally more important than the individual these days (unless it's a solo mission, which I only really do for fun and not for serious gameplay).

 

- NKF

[daishiva]

if a game counts how many times ive saved then i will limit myself to saving only when absolutely necessary

 

as for xcom, heh i probably save/loaded a lot when i played it, i havent played it in awhile tho =)

[Rosstoid]

Thanks for the advice and opinions. I'll try beginner mode and load save games as few times as possible. The first time I played X-Com my men kept getting killed by plasma bolts coming from aliens I couldn't see (now I know how to counter that problem) and my first kill was a snakeman using a rocket (X-Com casualties= 5 KIA). Maybe I sucked then, but previous experiences put me off not loading.

[Jman4117]

Snakeman? :dontgetit:

I usually see only sectiods and floaters for the first 3 months.

How far along were you when you killed the snakeman?

[Rosstoid]

Heh heh. I was a few months in the game. The first UFO I shot down good enough, but then the 4 of my men died within 3 turns so I retreated to the skyranger. The next UFO I raided sent plasma bolts, killing the first man. I left. Then I ignored the next UFOs. But the monthly report was a disgrace, and I was lucky as the second month was uneventful, so I shot done another UFO. When I got out, the snakemen attacked. The first man who saw them got hit by plasma, so I fired a rocket at them and killed one. I sent him to grab the corpse. I had to throw it back to the skyranger and pulled out without him. At least I had somehting to research. I must have sucked then.

 

Well, 2 months into the game with no loading tactics and already 6 X-Com men are dead. I must admit I was very tempted to load when the sergeant died.

[Araanor]

I stopped my re-loading waltz in my latest campaign, took some time and losses to get used to it. It's certainly more satisfying. Later in the game i got sloppy and re-loaded a few times, like the assault on a sectoid ship with a leader in the darkness... or a few blunders at the supply ships. I do so hate it when a 60 health trooper in flying armor gets killed by one plasma blast.

[The Demi-Godly One]

You may feel the need to re-load every once in a while but I find that after you finish the game it is much more satisfing to know you didn't save and reload. (Although I guess I do reload when I need to play the game again, I don't play the game for a couple hours straight.)