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Heroes Community > Heroes 3.5 - WoG and Beyond > Thread: Save game during battle
Thread: Save game during battle
Daetal
Daetal

Tavern Dweller
posted November 03, 2014 05:28 PM

Save game during battle

Has anyone ever created a fix for HOMM 3 to allow saving the game during a battle? Or even just at the start of a battle?

It is very frustrating to be in the midst of a PBEM game that has been running for weeks only to have it screwed up by the computer attacking two different players on its turn.

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ryu
ryu

Tavern Dweller
posted November 03, 2014 09:26 PM

I hope a solution for this has been found.

By the way how do you play PBEM games? I guess you play in Hot Seat mode and send save file of the game at the end of each turn to other player by e-mail, is this correct? Is there a better way?

How can you be sure that other players do not load the game whenever they make a mistake or just for exploration? Is the game based on mutual trust?

If you are not tired of questions, here is the last one: Is there a place where you arrange PBEM games?

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Draker
Draker


Known Hero
Building the Dragon City
posted November 04, 2014 11:39 PM

Daetal said:
Has anyone ever created a fix for HOMM 3 to allow saving the game during a battle? Or even just at the start of a battle?

It is very frustrating to be in the midst of a PBEM game that has been running for weeks only to have it screwed up by the computer attacking two different players on its turn.



I wouldn't call it a fix, I would call it a cheating. There is a way to "save in middle of battle" but bear on mind that will ruin HoMM playing experience. Run HoMM III in virtual machine and use VirtualBOX/VMware Workstation snapshots feature.

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Daetal
Daetal

Tavern Dweller
posted November 05, 2014 12:00 AM

ryu said:
I hope a solution for this has been found.

By the way how do you play PBEM games? I guess you play in Hot Seat mode and send save file of the game at the end of each turn to other player by e-mail, is this correct? Is there a better way?


Correct. It's not as elegant as games which have a PBEM system built into them, but with some patience and coordination, it works. At least, it works until the AI attacks more than one opponent on its turn and it's impossible to hand the game over to the next player.
Quote:

How can you be sure that other players do not load the game whenever they make a mistake or just for exploration? Is the game based on mutual trust?


We always play with humans allied because there's no way in HOMM 3 to fight a battle through PBEM saved games. We also all know each other IRL. We play through e-mail because we otherwise wouldn't have time to play together.
Quote:

If you are not tired of questions, here is the last one: Is there a place where you arrange PBEM games?

I have a seen a few forum posts here asking for PBEM players.

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Daetal
Daetal

Tavern Dweller
posted November 05, 2014 12:21 AM

Draker said:

I wouldn't call it a fix, I would call it a cheating. There is a way to "save in middle of battle" but bear on mind that will ruin HoMM playing experience. Run HoMM III in virtual machine and use VirtualBOX/VMware Workstation snapshots feature.

I'm unsure of why you think being able to save a game is cheating or will somehow "ruin the experience".

Sure; a person could play a battle over and over until they win. When playing against the computer, who cares? If that's a person's play style, let them have it. A person can already do this by saving before entering a battle and it might have even helped new players learn to play through trial-and-error instead of having their game crushed by one lost battle. I don't know why 3DO thought it would be ruinous to allow a save mid-battle.

In my case, this missing feature does ruin PBEM games - a play method we have to hack together with hotseat matches because 3DO didn't include it. Thank goodness they had the foresight to include modem and serial port play options, though!

Virtual machine snapshots obviously are not going to work for PBEM. But the thought is good. Surely there's a way to dump the game memory to a file and restore it.

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted November 05, 2014 08:51 AM

Draker said:
I wouldn't call it a fix, I would call it a cheating. There is a way to "save in middle of battle" but bear on mind that will ruin HoMM playing experience. Run HoMM III in virtual machine and use VirtualBOX/VMware Workstation snapshots feature.


The problem being described is that players are at physically different locations, with one or more computer AI's ingame. The issue occurs when two or more human players get attacked in the course of the AI's turn. Only the active player can play his battle(s), but what of the other player, when battles against him come up? There's no savegame in between, but the player in question can't come to the first player's location to play through the battle at hand.

A snapshot won't work, as the other player would still need the original virtual machine - and transmitting that one by e-mail is probably impossible due to size restrictions.

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ryu
ryu

Tavern Dweller
posted November 05, 2014 10:20 AM

So without a workaround, PBEM players must accept in the beginning of the game that in case an AI attacks two or more human players at the same turn, the human player who is in control at that time should play on behalf of his human allies. There seems no other way, without a workaround.

VCMI project aims to recreate HoMM 3 engine as an open source software. This feature may be included in that project. I have already made [url=http://forum.vcmi.eu/viewtopic.php?p=13410#13410]a post[/url]. It may help to motivate programmers if PBEM players show their request about PBEM on their forum.

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Daetal
Daetal

Tavern Dweller
posted November 05, 2014 03:10 PM

ryu said:
So without a workaround, PBEM players must accept in the beginning of the game that in case an AI attacks two or more human players at the same turn, the human player who is in control at that time should play on behalf of his human allies. There seems no other way, without a workaround.

The only work-around that we have come up with is switching to a live game when two players are attacked. It is very disruptive, however. Usually it is a surprise when the AI attacks the second player after the first. Switching to a live game from the last save file means that the first attacked player has to re-do their fight. It also requires co-ordinating the schedules of all players to connect online, even those not involved in the battles.

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Macron1
Macron1


Supreme Hero
posted November 05, 2014 03:19 PM

I think it's non-needed feature, too hard to implement.
There was a ERM script, that autosaved game before attacking monster of enemy hero. Why need more?
Remember Baldurs Gate, for example. There player could save game, only if there are no attacking monsters near.

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