Recycled Saves

[Johnus]

Accessed my recycle bin today and found about 15 saves of the scenario of WIA I have been playing recently. Anyone know what gives here ?? I did not delete any saves. Would files automatically deleted by the game go to the recycle bin ?? No big deal; but wierd.

[MarkShot]

Last I recall, the general mechanism for AGE saves:

(1) Uses a collection of specific files saved in a subdirectory representing the scenario root. The specific files represent things like orders for each side ... this is the client/server model implementation. Yes, confusing, but there is a sort of logic behind this.

(2) The saves are treated as a cyclic buffer (computer science speak) for they wrap around and recycle. This may well account for saves found in the Windows Recycle Bin. Most of this is speculation on my part, since I have not looked at your specific issue. But it would be consistent with what I have seen with the series.

Hope that helps.

[Johnus]

MarkShot:


Thanks for your response, I think. Frankly, I could not follow. As long as my computer is not going to blow up, I suppose I'm safe.

[MarkShot]

You are very safe. There is zero risk to your PC.

Imagine that there are like 7 (I forget latest number used) boxes to place save game files in. When you get to Box #7, then you return to Box #1 (instead of creating a Box #8). Thus, you delete the contents of of Box #1 and place the 8th save set of files there. You delete the contents of Box #2 and place the 9th save set of files there. In computer science, we call this a "cyclic buffer" or "ring". The whole intended purpose is simply to keep more than single save for "undo" purposes for the player and it may also sometimes be an aid for investigating and debugging problems.

I hope my last explanation proves more "plain English" to follow ... if not, you'll have to give up on me ... since I just simply talk like an engineer ... which is what I am besides a manager of technology development. Best regards.

[Johnus]

MarkShot:

Understood. Thanks again.

[GShock]

I discovered this issue, which is typical of Vista, with BOA2 and which doesn't affect AACW (about 2 weeks ago).

The gamesaves were being displayed as being written in the default folder while being written instead in the appdata folder in a totally different location.

The game can see the saves if you intend to load them but you cannot physically find the files (in case u need to send them to the DEVs or if you need to send them to your PBEM opponent) even with the vista search feature.
I had to use salamander and, excuse me for the punctualization (which some of you will understand) is a trial limited freeware, in order to find the files, identify the problem and report it to the team who had at that point in time no idea of where the gamesaves were going.

Luckily another user has recently reported the same issue and so the WiA coordinator installed Vista and ultimately realized that i wasn't lying (as I usually do) or that it is not always a good idea to minimize reports.

[dunnsa]

Actually, no one was ignoring these 'VISTA missing saves'.
Solutions are readily available to this type of issue, and many more in the AGEOD forums.

As for VISTA, I have just obtained a brand new PC with VISTA, and am discovering many features with it.

For one: if you install your games in a folder other than "Program Files", VISTA doesn't move the saves...

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: lodilefty

<snip>

For one: if you install your games in a folder other than "Program Files", VISTA doesn't move the saves...

What a nice piece of information ! I never ever allow my games to install into Program Files. Cool.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie

Accessed my recycle bin today and found about 15 saves of the scenario of WIA I have been playing recently. Anyone know what gives here ?? I did not delete any saves. Would files automatically deleted by the game go to the recycle bin ?? No big deal; but wierd.

I'm assuming WiA "saves" the way AACW saves games; it's done automatically every time you hit "End Turn". I'll also assume that you can restore any of these saves, probably back to 24 or so turns as in AACW, and perhaps turns in excess of this number are sent to the delete bin as per MarkShots cyclic buffer.

[MarkShot]

Lodi,

Is this with all new games that run on Vista? What about XP? I have lots of games like: SH3, SH4, SMR, CIV4 ... that like to write to the C: "Documents and Settings". So, under XP if I install to Program Files would they then write saves to the game's root directory?

Personally, I always install my games to a separate partition and never to "C:\Program Files\". I like to maintain the integrity of a concept of what I call the "System Partition" (just the OS and application programs). Games due their size and non-essential (non boot) nature live in their own partition.

Thanks.

[dunnsa]

I haven't loaded too many other games yet, but so far [2 games in folder c:\Games]. it appears to work same way. No saves going to 'Documents'

AGEOD forums: appears to be adding a 'UserPath' definition capability so you can define SaveGames locations [:D]

[MarkShot]

Okay, so it's not "Program Files" thing, but an installing to C: thing, or more likely to a location matching the variable HOMEDRIVE or SYSTEMDRIVE.

That "documents" thing is a pain and kind of defeats my partitioning with games that checkpoint and create large save files!

Oh, well ...

[dunnsa]

Mark, I think you read me backwards.[8|]

AGEOD folder and Games folder do NOT relocate files, as Program Files appears to...[:)]

[GShock]

In my case the saves went into the localapps folder, a folder that according to Vista doesn't exist and i could only locate using a third party tool (Salamander). It's Vista, surely not AgeOD that moved the files there, but WiA can find them, u only have probs if you need to manually handle these files bc the game can load them all right even though it's saying it saves them in a folder it's vista moving them not WiA.

Odd enough ... This doesn't happen with AACW but i think in order to help pbem play, this should be solved with a patch and this patch should come from MS. Since it won't i hope AgeOD will. [8D]

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: GShock

In my case the saves went into the localapps folder, a folder that according to Vista doesn't exist and i could only locate using a third party tool (Salamander). It's Vista, surely not AgeOD that moved the files there, but WiA can find them, u only have probs if you need to manually handle these files bc the game can load them all right even though it's saying it saves them in a folder it's vista moving them not WiA.

Odd enough ... This doesn't happen with AACW but i think in order to help pbem play, this should be solved with a patch and this patch should come from MS. Since it won't i hope AgeOD will. [8D]

MS Vista has a problem with relocating files belonging to software installed into the default installation path if it contains "Program Files". To get around this, just edit the default path to remove the "Program Files" part of the path installation.

see post #9 at this link: http://www.ageod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10912.
there is a link in that post that also points to an example of where to change the "Program Files" entry in the installation process.