jackal: i'm not sure I see the problem. when you manually save, it'll overwrite region1. if you want to keep a copy of your initial embark, just copy the region1 folder and rename it as something else before you save over it.
the game does not make any distinction between a backup save and a regular save. they're just save files.
when you manually save or the game auto-saves, it saves as the same name as the folder you loaded.
when it auto-saves with backups turned on, it also makes a duplicate folder and adds the season/year onto the name.
it's very easy to avoid confusion as to what your current save is. never load from an backup folder. if you want to use one of your backups, open the save folder, delete region1, copy the autobackup, and rename it to region1. load up DF and play from there.
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Two points.
First, you'll notice that when working correctly, DF writes seasonal autosaves into the <region>-<season>-<year> folder, and in your load list in DF they're listed as <region>-<season>-<year>.
DF writes automatic -backups- into those folders. it automatically saves into the <folderyouloadedfrom> folder, same as manually saving. if backups are on, it then makes a copy of <folderyouloadedfrom> and adds the date.
Manual saves (i.e. by selecting Save from the ingame menu, saving, and returning to the main menu) save into the "current" folder, and are listed as <region>.
careful there, I know what you mean but watch how you phrase it since there's a
folder called current which has little to do with this.
So some part of DF, and (possibly) other roguelikes, must know to differentiate between manual and automatic saves and to append the -<season>-<year> strictly on automatic saves.
again, automatic saves and manual saves both save to the same folder that you loaded from. automatic -backups- create a new copy of this folder with the new name.
Somehow this gets screwed up. In my experience, upon loading a seasonal autosave, the game still believes I've loaded a manual save. It therefore appends <season>-<year> to what it thinks is just the region name - but instead I get saves in the <region>-<season_of_first_autosave>-<year_of_first_autosave>-<season_of_current_autosave>-<year_of_first_autosave>. For manual saves, it strips off the season and year from the end, writing into the <region>-<season_of_first_autosave>-<year_of_first_autosave> folder - the same name used originally for the seasonal autosave you loaded.
Interestingly, this can happen multiple times, and the game keeps appending seasons and years. I'm currently loading my (manual) save from the "region1-spr-202-sum--win-203" directory. Manual saves always save *somewhere,* at least in my opinion - but you need to guess and check the directories.
again, a misunderstanding on how autosaves work. if for example it just autosaved in spring, and then your computer crashed, to load that spring, you just load <region>. <region><spring><year> is a
backup of <region>.
"But Kethas," you say, "just see which folders were modified last - surely that's the most recent save. No need to check them all." Interestingly, at least for me, that's not always the case - sometimes I have an empty "current" folder showing as the most recently modified - but the game IS saving somewhere else, so DF is accessing at least two folders. This suggests that DF is doing something other than simply picking a directory name according to some (possibly flawed) algorithm and saving the current game in there. Another indicator a test I did:
-load a seasonal autosave
-delete all subfolders in the save folder, excluding "region1" and the seasonal autosave I loaded
-save
-load from the resulting save
When I do this I end up playing from one of the saves I deleted. How does DF access it? Does DF load multiple save files just to screw with me?
after you've loaded a save, it doesn't matter what you do with the files in the save folder. you could load region325532, delete everything in the save folder, and when you save it will create a region325532 folder. the game reads the save folder once when you load it, and writes it back down when you save.
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Topic: TOTALLY unable to (manually) save (Read 1199 times)