It does add to the gameplay. You are simply wrong. It might not add anything in particular for you, but it does add to the gameplay. I think TM put it quite nicely back on page 11:
It adds nothing that self control can't allow.
Preventing yourself from reloading has /exactly/ the same tensions as the game preventing you from doing so, assuming of course you can manage that amount of self control
Yes, there was a demand for GG. Saying people demand Ironman mode is ridiculous. It's a suggestion of a critical and community praised feature, that has at this point, very weird arguments floating in its disfavour from user in this thread.
If you're going to assume Ironman would leech substantial production resources and use that as a main argument, then we can't really suggest anything, since any suggestion could potentially leech substantial production resources...
Now that Johan has stated it would be easy, I withdraw that objection.
I'm still concerned that QA and testing spent on this would be better spent on QA and testing for the core game features, but that's a slightly different arguement - it becomes a matter of which features/options should get priority on testing.
...and this argument confuses me even more.
You are basically saying they should design the game Against people who cheat. How is that even possible? You'd have to rewrite the whole engine. People have done the same in Xcom, done the same for HC in Diablo. It's a feature meant for those who Wants to use it, and if you still wants to circumvent it by griefing yourself, alt+tab, copy save in mid session (which Divine Wind had the mechanics to spot, btw, so it's not alien technology for PI) or use a Trainer, w/e, that's not how you design the game.
As PI games default to keep several autosaves, savescumming is WAD, allowing you to pick the cake in a turd factory, and prevent that vicious war that backfired, or that Super Monarch that died in favour of his imbecile son. Ticking Ironman disables the cake, and let you think about how to duck away from the turds. If you still want to cheat and circumvent this system, then why tick Ironman?
It's a moot point. You can't make any feature with that kind of reasoning.
Errr. I'm not arguing they should design against people doing this, I'm just saying it's a possible way to circumvent the purpose of ironman mode.
To me the main purpose of multiple saves is to protect against corrupted games. The secondary option of reloading when you get "unfair" results is secondary, and one that I've only resorted to a couple of times, one of which was to /avoid/ a PU that broke my game.
The others were basically when I was trying out the game to start with, and wanted to see how some things worked.
I don´t see why, for instance, saving when large battles or significant events are triggered would be unpractical. The frequency is unlikely to cause harddrive failure, and it would cover almost all cases where the save-reload mechanic will have significant game impact.
Large battles or significant events for just the player, or for all 300 nations?
How do you define "significant" or "large" battles?
Do you really want the game to hang for even a few seconds everytime a large battle or major event triggers?
Please do note that curbing saving-reloading is not a binary proposition - it is a continuous variable, both when it comes to the scope (I.e. frequency) and impact (I.e. the effect on the game of said reloading). Almost any form of Ironman would move this variable in the "right" direction from the perspective of those of us who would enjoy said game mode. Hence, we don´t really care that the "Perfect Ironman (TM)" is impossible - we´ll settle for improvement if perfection is impossible.
And again, if you want to play Ironman, you already can - just refuse to reload, and when you eventually quit out, delete your autosaves.
Just do it manually, and with your own willpower.
Although, that might be a more practical option /if/ ironman were brought in. Let the game make the usual autosaves, but then on quitting, verify the main save is viable, and then have the game delete the autosaves. If the game does crash out then you could revive from the autosave.
It still wouldn't stop people crashing to avoid bad events, but it's a halfway house.
Its easy to add, and we already do a fair amount of this for achievements anyway.
Fair enough, it's obviously easier than I thought.
How much work would the extra QA and testing be?
Is this something that would be better having the time spent on "core" functions of the game?
this would be good, and wouldn't hurt those who're complaining as it has no impact on core gameplay elements.
Except potentially for time taken testing this being taken from other areas.
