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[Foxite]

Even though they were compatible. I tried to load a save that was made in 40.14, and has been loaded in 40.18, and it was no longer recognized in 40.14.

Is this a bug, or intentional?

[Astrid]

Thats pretty normal because every update adds more stuff to the code itself.
The new version can work with the new save becuase it knows the old and new code.
The old version cannot work with the new save because it doesnt know the new code pieces.
Easy.

[Foxite]

Thats pretty normal because every update adds more stuff to the code itself.
The new version can work with the new save becuase it knows the old and new code.
The old version cannot work with the new save because it doesnt know the new code pieces.
Easy.

Okay, but if only bugs were fixed and nothing new was added between these versions, I guess they should be two-way compatible, right?

[Quietust]

Thats pretty normal because every update adds more stuff to the code itself.
The new version can work with the new save becuase it knows the old and new code.
The old version cannot work with the new save because it doesnt know the new code pieces.
Easy.

Okay, but if only bugs were fixed and nothing new was added between these versions, I guess they should be two-way compatible, right?

Only if the save format didn't change and Toady left the savegame version ID unchanged - generally, this doesn't happen, so loading a new save in an old version is almost universally impossible.

[Metalax]

It's also almost certainly entirely intentional by Toady. Jumping a save forward and back in versions is extremely likely to cause unreplicable bugs, and it is pretty much guaranteed that those reporting them wouldn't even think to mention that they had done such jumping around in versions.

[Garath]

since most people forget to mention any modding done to their copy as well, that is very likely

[Reelya]

Backward compatibility doesn't imply forward compatibility, 40.18 saves games in "40.18 format", it can read older versions save files, but they're converted into 40.18 games when they're loaded. The save feature therefore doesn't have a clue about different game formats and just saves things to the current standard.

Which is all quite justifiable, because if you were trying to make a system that correctly loaded, ran AND saved every different version of the game that ever existed, Toady's time would be about 80% writing and testing compatibility code for every change against every version.