Autosave on lost focus

this sounds dangerous.  Usually changing focus from a high-end PC game to anything causes enough processing as it stands, but then saving might make that pause be even worse.  It would be great if it could happen, but it sounds like asking for bugs to me.   Stardock is all about windows management though, so perhaps if anybody can do it, they can.

No two PCs or users are the same, but that big fact aside, I'll offer my personal experience to back up what landisaurus says about Stardock and game window management.

I'm not sure whether hardware changes or software changes were the dominant factor, but my GalCiv2 "lifetime" has spanned a sub-spec Windows XP system and an OEM Windows Vista box that shipped before SP1, and overall I've seen solid improvement in window-mode functionality. Things can still get a little tricky with Windows hibernation mode in the mix, but even there things seem to be steadily getting better even if they aren't perfect yet.

I ctrl+esc (common) or alt+tab (rare) fairly frequently, in order to flip to another app (usually a web browser).  Assuming this auto-save option is an option, I'd be ok with it - but I would certainly disable it.  Because I don't want hard disks thrashing while I try to switch over to the other app.

I think we should just make it so the game is window friendly so you don't NEED it to auto-save when you loose focus because its a smooth transition.

If you tend to crash when tabbing about of a game, I'm not sure autosaving would be such a great idea. Obviously, if they knew exactly what was wrong across all computers, they'd fix it. Adding an autosave feature on something you know is likely to crash poses the issue of possibly autosaving DURING a crash.

Everyone with extensive gaming experience knows what this usually results in. Corrupted autosaves.

That, and I very, very rarely crash when tabbing. Sometimes it takes a long time, but it rarely crashes. I've also found that running GalCiv2 in windowed mode, at full resolution, tends to fix any issues I've had. It's pretty indistinguishable(sp?) from running in fullscreen mode.

I recommend liberal usage of most game's quicksave function. Save yourself prior to trying to make a switch, and you can be sure that there'll be no issues.

In Gal civ 2 you can set the number of turns it takes before it autosaves already.

So i see no reason why Elemental wouldn't allow you to do this.

As for saving when players Alt-tab, I have a feeling that would put a much greater strain on your computer which could make the program slightly more unstable(?).

I did not know that. I immediatelly set this option in my GC2. The problem is not in Alt-Tab. If you know the application crashes, you would not do this  or at least you would save the game before the attempt manually.

However  loosing focus is unpredictalbe. An antivirus program reports it is being updated, a battery is low, an e-mail is recieved.....

After losing the focus the game data should be intact. The game runs in the background but it is unable to restore the graphics back to the working state. However you may be right and it might not be the right time as I suggested.

How about such scenario:

1) begin of the turn - the silent autosave is done. If there is old one, it is overwritten

2) if it is the end of turn, start another turn (= go to 1)

3) if the application is being closed by user, erase this silent autosave. The game is being terminated, but it is OK.

4) if the application starts and this autosave exists, the game crashed or something similar happened => user will likely want to have the last working state. In that case ask the user what to do:

4a) user wants to reenter the game => load the game

4b) use does not want to reenter the game => erase the autosave and start the game from the beginning

Such scenario has one great advantage, especially in the beta. If the player wants to send a bug report, he will be able to send very accurate data.

Note: Normal autosave (like those in GC2) should remain too. This special autosave should not be in the list of saves or at least it should have some special name, so user  can it easily distinguish the difference. It may have a name like "the last turn" or something like this.

Yeah, I'm usually happy with just having a per-turn auto-save rather than everytime I change focus.   I mean, honestly, if I loose a turn worth of work, I'm not going to cry about it.   Maybe also save after every battle, and then you'd be pretty much set.

Well losing one_turn of work during mid-game on a very large map of Dominions_3 could mean 2+ hours of lost work.  

A saving feature with a timer can be useful for the very very large maps which will become available in Elemental due to the use of the 64-bit OS.

An autosave per X turns sounds like an easy and solid solution, maybe to be sure switch between 2 autosave names (e.g. first save in slot A, then slot B, slot A again, etc.)

If in the worst case your last autosave has become corrupted you still have the previous one (of maximum 2*X turns ago) to return to.

Also I just want to comment that my experiences with GalCiv II have been very positive in the aspect of regaining focus (whether it was after alt+tab, another application such as virus scanner popping up, ...) compared to many other applications and games. So saying in general that Gal Civ II has such a problem seems a little harsh
Sometimes it just took half a minute before Gal Civ II would wake up, but I've very rarely had such crashes.

It is it lost focus = restart in my Lenovo R61. The game does not crash, the graphics nevers returns back. I don't blame the developers of GC2 however. I guess the problem is in the video driver. Playing in the Window mode may solve the problem with the lost focus however.

I think the autosave after every battle may is an overreaction. IMHO the worst case of the crash is after the reorganization of the empire.

Autosave driven by timer and perhaps more than one last autosave preserved is much better idea, because it solves more issues.

Quoting NTJedi, reply 9

Well losing one_turn of work during mid-game on a very large map of Dominions_3 could mean 2+ hours of lost work.

A saving feature with a timer can be useful for the very very large maps which will become available in Elemental due to the use of the 64-bit OS.

End of NTJedi's quote

I don't know about Dom3 and two-hour turns (that must be some insanely massive non-stock map you're playing on there) but with the scope we're "promised" in Elemental and my tendancy to take my time, I'm entirely with NTJedi on this one.

One turn may not sound much, but it could really, really, screw up my day. I'm damn close to amnesiac, forgetting what I'm doing from one minute to the next. If I did things one turn, game crashing, I'd forget to do half of the stuff I did the last time, on the re-do.

I want two auto-saves. One based on "saves every 10 minutes" and another slot for "save every turn-change". If something happens, you there's always a "latest save".

I think that's a great way to do it. However, I want the "save every turn-change" autosave to archive several saves (maybe a setting to choose how many).

Yes, there should be a limit to how many autosaves are kept. There's more than a few games out there that tend to fill up a huge amount of hard disk space with autosaved games due to the sheer number of saves generated.

the ones I like are the ones where there are like 5 autosaves, and it cycles through them.   maybe do that, and add "last focus" for the last time it lost focus if we go with that.

Well I would like to recommend this thread. The crash after Alt-Tab / lost focus is the confirmed issue. The autosave after some specified time and the possibility of having last X saves is IMHO the best option. The only drawback I see is the question: will it be possible to save during the combat? If yes, it is no problem. If not, programmers have to solve what to do if the battle is being fought (and the save should be made).