It's an old debate that reloading the game because you didn't like a consequence or that random rolls that occurs wasn't the best you wanted. For example a tactic that some use is to save the game, go over a goodie hut look at the treasure... didn't like it, reload and repeat till you get the best item you want. Similar with battling say a dragon and you get a bum roll or the dragon got a good roll and you just reload and do the battle over again. It removes the fact that random choices and events are part of the game. The reload is a way of removing that part of the game.

Thus, if you change the mechanics of the game or parts of the rules of the game, then in essence one is cheating.

The other side of the argument is that it is a single player game and I'm allowed to save and reload therefore I should be able to reload as much as I would like to always get the best items and win each battle I think I should win. Because it is my game and not anyone elses.

This got extremely bad when people were playing insane and reloading the game so much that they claimed the game was easy and wanted changes to reflect that the game should be designed to be difficult around the save and reload method. Let us not resort back to these arguments again.

Reloading when you get a bad outcome like a lil bear razing your city iz though.

It's not about who's business it's about CHEATING. Remember a cheater will never admit they cheat.

I think it also goes without saying a little poem I recall from my youth,

If you cheat you will steal

and if you steal you will kill

and if you kill you can't feel

and if you can't feel you can't love

and if you can't love you will cheat.

sort of a round robin circle of despair.

Just because it is a single player game doesn't mean that makes all the rules breakable. Rules are rules to be adhered to. The AI REPRESENTS a PLAYER whether you want too accept that or not. Thus all you have to do is ask yourself this question would you do what you were doing if you were playing another human player? For it to be a SINGLE Player game you would not load up ANY AI opponents. Also cheaters are mostly the only ones against this belief that if you reload because you got a bad outcome that you AREn't a cheater. it's your game you can do what you want to. But, politically correct you ARE playing against other OPPONENTS be they artificial or not you are suppose to adhere to any rules you would with a human opponent or YOU ARE CHEATING.

Once again, changing the parameters of the game in the options menu does not equate to cheating. If reloading and starting again is something that the devs wish to prohibit, they can add an IronMan OPTION, so that people can feel a sense of accomplishment about beating the game in IM mode if they wish.

The AI is NOT a person; it is a collection of code. It represents a CHALLENGE, not a player, whether you wish to accept it or not. If the challenge is too hard on normal, you go to easy; if it is not challenging enough, choose hard. Games provide OPTIONS so that the player can play the way they enjoy. It is the SOLE reason for buying and playing a game-fun.

It is no one's business how I choose to have fun in my single player game.

In edit-I forgot .

If the AI is not a PLAYER then why do the manual/rules call them OPPONENTS and other AI PLAYERS? eh? It's in black in white and there's not one thread that says the ai just represents a CHALLENGE. lmao You're a CHEATER just accept it and enjoy YOUR game as you CHEAT.

I see; if you are incapable of figuring that out for yourself, then there is no reason to discuss this any further...unless of course, you would also consider a plastic blow-up doll a girlfriend because the box says 'Just like the real thing', then your example makes perfect sense.

You are judgmental. I suppose you are the Sheriff of the board, stomping out 'cheating' where ever you find it. Not that I would EVER care what you think of me, but let's say I am a 'cheat'. So what are you gonna do? Arrest me? Fine me? What? What will Officer Willie do?

In edit-Once again, I forgot to add .

Ahhh I see when you have LOST a debate you resort to childish mudslinging. Very well since you have conceded I will accept your surrender and defeat. CHEAT away CHEATER you have been marked, quartered and sized.

Please can we stay on subject? there is no point debating if reloading a save is cheating or not. Each one play the game as he want. And the ability to reload change nothing to the problem of cities destroyed by mobs.

Actualy, I find the game is more a rogue-like than a civilization. Like said Phystarstk, the game sometime send an event with strong mobs that even you're best army can't defeat (even with the help of the militia). After played a bunch of games, if you don't reload, each game can be over pretty fast (in challenging difficulty) if your army get destroyed at the beginning and then you can't defend your cities. I've no problem with the randomness, but loosing a whole city because an event spawned too strong monsters... feel too much.

In game like civilization, barbarians kill some pop/buildings, and raze a city only if it's too low in population.

I do love the wicked hard environment to fight!

I would really love a coop map where some players are all allied and are fighting against daemon/dragon hordes in a kind of survival mode!

Let's see if he's DONE lol Now that he's admitted the TRUTH about himself of course he's done he has nothing left to defend himself with. lol

Now onto the subject before HE jumped in and so RUDELY interupted the conversation. I think it's perfectly fine that a lil ole bear can waltz in and destroy a city in a fantasy world. Things left out are that the bear has super human powers and mere pitchforks and stones won't hurt it a bit, it also has a disease that if one gets within 10ft of they will contract it and will die (all kinds of reasons one can makeup when playing a FANTASY game). Personally those Cave Bears are a lot more powerful than players give credit to. I run around with an army of them.

Can we stop talking about cheating now? it's steril and have nothing to do with OP.

I'm not agree Willie that be in a Fantasy setting mean anything can happen. Seriously, beasts raiding a city during one seasons and a well etablished city vanishing? A level 1 city, ok, but other feel weird.

Now, fantasy or not, loosing a city like that affect the balance of the game. People defending the system say, it's your fault to over expanding/ not defending, but actualy the event system can let spawn some monsters that are too strong for you. So imagine you have only 3 well etablished cities because you choosed to expand slowy and BAM the game spawn a monster you can't defeat and it destroy to ash one of your city... you lost your armies + 1 city, you just left to look the monsters/players finishing you.

In fact, I find the system encourage to create many cities, so when shit happen and loosing one isn't big deal.

Monsters raiding cities need to have an impact, but it's need to be moderated. Loosing a low level city isn't a big deal. Loosing a level 3 or more can just destroy your empire if your too small. I love to have some randomness because it's flesh out the game and give it some live, but when it put you on ground without any way to counter it, it's bad and not fun. Raided cities should be a threat that force you to act, to be creative for get over the difficulties, not an event that say!"Sorry, you loose your city and all your hard work, try again!".

So much animosity in this thread. For the record the correct term for abusing ingame mechanics for an outcome that benefits the player is called exploiting. One could also call it metagaming, but the line between metagaming and full on exploiting is very thin. Of course you can cheat in a singleplayer game. Most cheat code websites are for cheating in singleplayer. Rolling back a save to get the AI to reset is a known and reported bug https://forums.elementalgame.com/442133 

But even without the use of Autosave/Save to avoid a monster attack on cities, monsters rarely attack cities even on challenging. I had a city within 3 tiles of an ogre lair with a bone ogre army for over 60 turns before they even started messing with my improvements, and another 40 turns before they decided to attack the city. Wandering monsters almost never attack my cities, they just walk on by.

I have to agree with willie on this one, if you can't defend your cities you don't deserve to keep them. Especially with such docile monster AI. If I couldn't of slapped together a defense against those ogres in 100 turns I would ask to be thrown against a wall and shot.

Barbarians are a staple of Civilization games, they can sack your improvements and cities just as easily as wandering monsters can. I am a big fan of Barbarians, I play with the special mode checked Rampaging Barbarians I believe it is? So this is one feature of FE that I also enjoy.