I've always been of the opinion that you can't really cheat in a single player game.  But, that being said, you also can't complain about the game being too easy if you do a lot of reloading.  If you are reloading, it's not easy.

There is a difference in saving to avoid bugs and child mishaps and continually reloading to win. 

Guilty as charged!

I dont in vanilla FE. Its generally pretty open and honest about what is going to happen. (ie you know roughly what chance you have)

In the Masters Affliction mod I get steamrolled so very often by hidden mobs or quests that have a dark wizard (yes! a flaming dark wizard in tact combat) that I make a number of saves and may reload 20 or 30 turns in the past to redo an entire strategy.

when I save scum ... its usually only in the beginning stages of my understanding of a strategy, so that I can try out different angles, etc. (I'd probably say I'd save scum maximum of once for each strategy + race combination ... as far as playing one game to relative completion.)

Since these types of games take a long time to play, I'd rather a bad event (assuming it occurs) didn't ruin the whole game, or well, at least my current strategy.

I mean, what good is testing out a strategy if some random event requires me to shift my strategy in order to cope with it? Of course I'd prefer to win with any means possible, but if I ALREADY know that strategy A will work, then I don't wish to default to A just cause I don't know how to continue with strategy B assuming the event would prevent me from doing so.

That said, I haven't save scummed at all lately. In the early game (when little things matter more) I will tend to save scum if its a matter of wanting my soverign on the field, or wanting to avoid a bad injury for a champ with good potential ... So in the early game I tend to reload if either My champion gets a particularly bad trait (for instance, if a dodge focused champ gets a -25% dodge injury) then I may wish to reload.

But yea, I haven't save scummed for quite a while in my current game. Just did it about 2-3 times during the early (vs wild) part.

I don't reload when a battle goes wrong, or an event has an undesired outcome, but I don't mind if other people play the game differently. It's single-player, after all, so it doesn't affect me.  It's just years of playing roguelikes that have instilled the preference.

Might be nice to have a checkbox during the game creation. "Hardcore" mode, or something, perhaps with a bunch of achievements.

I reload while I'm learning the game, trying different tactics in tactical battles, test out some spells and stuff like that after I know the game I don't reload though I save every so often to avoid losing data due to crashes or small fingers pushing the wrong buttons (my 4 year old son sometimes wants to help out).  The only times I reload in FE now is when I'm autocalcin and something weird happens then I reload and play it manually.  I usually autocalc battles I know I'm going to win and I can't be bothered fighting.

I have no problem loading if the game does something outside the realm of reasonable. Examples include losing an auto-battle that I SHOULD have easily won, coming across bugs or imbalances that alter the events of the game, having a monster randomly attack you through unreasonable circumstances, etc.

If that makes me a 'save scummer', than I'll be the best save scummer I can be.

I don't see that happening a lot.   Am I missing something?  I haven't seen anyone say both that they use saves and that the game is too easy.  Is this something really prevalent or mostly a pet peeve?

Hm this post is odd at best, I have not understand the people who "hate" "Savescummers" or whatever you call people that actually uses a feature implemented in a game.

I don't think saving and reloading is cheating, I am not deceiving anyone, and I am not breaking the rules of the game.

THAT SAID. I only load a game in FE when the game is bugged, that is fairly rare that I ever do that and the Autosave feature is enough of a cushion to help against crashes and whatnot.

I understand both worlds, when you play IRONMAN mode, you do it because you like the challenge, you don't mind losing your units when things go bonkers, and generally have to play more cautiously.

When you Save/Reload, you are trying to really optimise what has  happened, you want every single step of the game to be perfect and flawless. It also is a way to prevent random dice hating you, but that is up to the people who use it.

How Ironic after that post...

That all.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

You never said hate, but the way you presented your post, and the way most players are presenting this idea, like the word you use "Save Scumming" is very very negative, so while I say you "hate" (ok I might be putting words in your mouth to be exact) I base it from something rooted in your arguments, you are very negative about saving and reloading.

I know it might be hard to put oneself in others position, I only know about saving/reloading because I used to do that with FE for my first few runs, and I did with one playthrough of Xcom, you can always argue its more fair not to save or reload, but I will argue, how is saving and reloading a cheat, if it is implemented as a feature in the game? Thats is like saying using the cloth map is cheating, because you get a clearer view of the map.

I am sorry for my own negativity though, I just have a slight annoyance at the term save-scumming .

Thank you for understanding, hope I could at least help it make slightly more sense to you.
Just understand the people who play like this come from a different point of view, I think both approaches can be interesting, although I personally prefer iron-maning games, unless the game is having fairly too random outcomes
I am having a hard time appreciating X-com on Iron-Man, meaby because I suck at it , or because sometimes the starting positions are randomly screwing you over with incredibly difficult positions almost UN-winable... And I do play Xcom in a rather different way that I do Elemental for some reason

please do tell me if I am being stupid though

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Generally, I'll reload in 2 these 2 situations. 

   1.  an auto-resolved battle didn't go the way I wanted (total loss or just too many units lost).  I will try again and fight the battle myself, but then I take what I get.  If I'm in command and I lose, it's either my fault or it was un-winnable to begin with.  Side note: maybe If i start to feel a game is going well for me or if i'm on Normal mode, I'll auto-resolve any battle in which my sovereign is not taking part.

   2.  when I accidentally choose the wrong specialization for a city because the level-up window doesn't show me enough information.   City location factors into this decision and it's difficult to tell which city is leveling if I have more than 3 because i pioneer-spammed effectively.

I generally load when... I start up the game. I feel ashamed. I'm sorry everyone, I'm just not cool enough.