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Anybody playing ironman?


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I'm one of those masochists that believe ironman is the only way to really play a game.

However, with an unfinished product like this, I'm naturally hesitant. I had two crashes playing v20, but so far, happily, none on v21. This tempts me to stop my current playthrough and start a "real" game. Any of you guys risking ironman? I know there are no guarantees, but do you think there's a good chance I can try it, or is it still a gamble?

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I only play ironman, damn the consequences!

Biggest problem I ran into in the past version was psychics messing up the game. Haven't had problems with that this time, so I am 100% sure I can get further (past landingships and such). Not sure how much further though.

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I only play ironman, damn the consequences!

If by "consequences" you mean dealing with things like your team missing three 95% shots in a row, your guys throwing grenades at their own feet, and aliens you can't locate mind-controlling you, I can handle all that. Maybe scream in frustration, yes, but carry on somehow. What I CAN'T deal with is losing weeks of my spare time when a file is corrupted and freezes/disappears completely

So to be more specific, what I'm asking is not if the game is correctly balanced in x number of ways, but is it truly and totally STABLE

Edited by dpelectric
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I tried it, but there are enough bugs and balance things still that I'm not going to do that again. There is nothing worse than putting 8 plus hours into a game and then losing your whole team or something because of a bug or mispressed button.

Edited by StellarRat
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I tried it, but there are enough bugs and balance things still that I'm not going to that again. There is nothing worse than putting 8 plus hours into a game and then losing your whole team or something because of a bug or mispressed button.

Exactly. I've played ironman 3/4 of the way through games, had 40-50 hours invested, and then the file corrupts (happened to me on XCom:EW and UFO:ET). So I guess I won't risk that route, yet. I salute the people who posted above that they only play ironman, but I just can't deal with the incredible frustration when your only save file self-destructs

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I won't even play Ironman on a completely bug free game, well balanced game. I'll give you an example of why: Civ IV hasn't crashed on me in about four years. Yet, even CIV IV has some flaws that allow totally unrealistic things to happen to you. The worst one in my opinion is that it doesn't give you a warning of any kind when enemy moves into your territory. So, unless you scroll the map around every turn and look at every city you can completely miss an invasion. How does that make any sense? You'd think some advisor or even the TV would tell you "The Russians are landing by London!", but no, they (the game designers) didn't bother with that. When you are four hours into a game and doing well and that type of stuff happens it just drives me insane. Also, there is just the possibility you'll accidently click a wrong button. Really, you just ended your turn with a Reaper six feet away from your machinegunner and he forgot to fire at it??? I doubt HE'D forget that! LOL!

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You should wait till Psionics are tweaked.

First or second mission MC got in the game, i lost the whole squad in a freak sequence of events, i'd be furious if i didn't have that mission start save.

Till then only lost 1 soldier. Mind that, at that point of the game, its game over. Don't stand a chance with rookies against elites, unless you go back to spending hours with petty scout missions and ignore everything else.

Unnerved, berzerk and MC will all get your soldiers killing each other.

If you have a lot of free time and a high tolerance for frustration, go for it.

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I won't even play Ironman on a completely bug free game, well balanced game. I'll give you an example of why: Civ IV hasn't crashed on me in about four years. Yet, even CIV IV has some flaws that allow totally unrealistic things to happen to you. The worst one in my opinion is that it doesn't give you a warning of any kind when enemy moves into your territory. So, unless you scroll the map around every turn and look at every city you can completely miss an invasion. How does that make any sense? You'd think some advisor or even the TV would tell you "The Russians are landing by London!", but no, they (the game designers) didn't bother with that. When you are four hours into a game and doing well and that type of stuff happens it just drives me insane. Also, there is just the possibility you'll accidently click a wrong button. Really, you just ended your turn with a Reaper six feet away from your machinegunner and he forgot to fire at it??? I doubt HE'D forget that! LOL!

This is exactly why I don't play Ironman anymore. I can deal with my dudes dying, even if its from some bullshit sniper shot from outside of my LOS, into a soldier standing behind a shield user. But if I mis-click and send my best sniper running off into the middle of a field to be gunned down, then damn straight I'm going to reload that.

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Don't forget the cat.

My cat seems to have developed a knack for jumping on just the right part of the desk to force me into doing something in game that is downright suicidal for my squad.

I am starting to suspect he is a furry Reaper infiltrating my command centre...

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Don't forget the cat.

My cat seems to have developed a knack for jumping on just the right part of the desk to force me into doing something in game that is downright suicidal for my squad.

I am starting to suspect he is a furry Reaper infiltrating my command centre...

Ah, a cat problem? I have a German shepherd that LOVES to solve cat problems. Just say the word and I'll bring him right over :cool:

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Ah, a cat problem? I have a German shepherd that LOVES to solve cat problems. Just say the word and I'll bring him right over :cool:
PAH! Dogs are worse than cats! I love German Shepards, but they can just reach up and paw your keyboard! Plus they can knock your whole tower over if it's on the ground. My friend's dog once got overly excited when they came back from vacation and pee'd into a $2k stereo system ruining everything but the speakers and turntable.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Update: I'll never play ironman again. I tried it on XCom:EU and UFO:ET Gold and both times my save file corrupted. Now the SAME THING just happened on Xenonauts. GRRRRR!!! I was all the way to landing ships and plasma weapons and only had ONE death! All those hours of ultra-careful planning and execution, creeping through all those maps, setting everybody up in perfect positions, GONE. This is sooooooooo frustrating! I wholeheartedly agree that ironman is the only "real" way to play a game, but this is ridiculous! I friggin' give up- it's back to being a cheeser for me :(

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Umm, Xenonauts stores more that one autosave, at least last I checked, and it still isn't in "release ready" state yet. I played on Ironman without issue until I accidentally started a non-ironman game and realized that all the slowdowns I had been experiencing were due to the constant autosaving :rolleyes:

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Umm, Xenonauts stores more that one autosave

If that's true I'd sure like to know how to access it. I was playing ironman, and the game showed one save file and one file only, as I believe it should do when playing ironman. And now that file is corrupt, crashes immediately upon load, and AFAIK I'm screwed

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Well, you can play self-imposed iron man of course, that's what I've been doing. Keep 2 saves for the geoscape and alternate between them. 1 save for just before you land for a mission (I've had most crashes during the loading of ground missions) and one extra save for every time you leave the game. That way you'd have to be very unfortunate for both to corrupt, and you can always pick up after a crash. It just takes the self control not to reload when something bad happens, which isn't really a problem if you loathe yourself for doing that or think that it ruins the fun. :)

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I usually play on Ironman, the game is more interesting and you pay the consequence of your actions, thing that in real life is the only way to learn. Playing with unlimited saves lead the player to a lazy state when it refuse to lose... is a normal cycle of human neurology.

But this topic its not only about player behavior, is question of main pillars of game theory, "Balance", "Diversity" and "Player". IN other words, the game must be balanced and diverse enough to lead the player to understand and enjoy losing and winning. When this thing happens the player understand and enjoy don't abuse "saving" and assume lose like a part of the game.

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Well, you can play self-imposed iron man of course, that's what I've been doing. Keep 2 saves for the geoscape and alternate between them. 1 save for just before you land for a mission (I've had most crashes during the loading of ground missions) and one extra save for every time you leave the game. That way you'd have to be very unfortunate for both to corrupt, and you can always pick up after a crash. It just takes the self control not to reload when something bad happens, which isn't really a problem if you loathe yourself for doing that or think that it ruins the fun. :)

Yeah, that's what I guess I'll have to do. I would just prefer playing true ironman. I love never having to think about saving, and sometimes, to be honest, it's really really hard (for me) to avoid the reload temptation. Much easier if save-scumming isn't even an option. But I can't take any more game-ending file freezes, so I'll strap on my chastity belt and try "self-imposed" ironman

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What I find interesting is that I have now logged 272 hours on this game, per Steam. Two complete playthroughs, two others considerably more than halfway. Many saved games and numerous CTDs along the way.

When I'm playing non-ironman games and the program misfires, it crashes, but I can then readily reload that saved game. Never once have any of these crashes led to a save file being completely corrupted and inaccessible. Only on the ironman games I have attempted do save files become totally frozen (and then, of course, it's game over). I wonder why.

Why would conflicting/incomplete data on "regular" games cause "just" crashes, but on ironman lock the file up completely...?

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Why would conflicting/incomplete data on "regular" games cause "just" crashes, but on ironman lock the file up completely...?

Could be the point at which the game saves the file? The times an Ironman game will save, relative to other processes going on, aren't the same as the times you'd save manually.

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Could be the point at which the game saves the file? The times an Ironman game will save, relative to other processes going on, aren't the same as the times you'd save manually.

Ah, maybe that's it. If I'm happily playing a "regular" game and it CTDs, I can reload that file and it will let me proceed from a point PRIOR to the crash. The ironman games must save at the point of the crash, thus locking themselves into an inaccessible loop. Makes sense.

But that begs the question, can't ironman saves be instituted at the beginning of a turn? That way if a data conflict occurs during that turn, your save file won't be hopelessly corrupted. And I'd be able to play ironman again

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I started playing Ironman because it was recommended for RC build testing, but no more. With the bugs, UI issues, and occasionally just completely effed-up misses - guys dropping grenades at their own feet being a major one - it's not realistic to try to test the game in Ironman mode... nor is it all that fun. I play in regular mode and only save at the start of missions or when I'm shutting my machine down; this way I know I'll be able to recreate most bugs, and I don't get the urge to throw my laptop off the balcony when the game shits its pants.

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