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[D.J. Pizzazz]

I saved my game for a compy restart and now my save wont load. I get a infalte error: -3 and have no backup save. Can I fix this or am I boned?  

[Turgid Bolk]

Short answer: sorry, you're boned.

Long answer: The game's pretty stable, but still in alpha. It's a good idea to backup your saves every time, either just before or just after you play. Also, back up every hour or so if you play for a long time. Usually the dreaded inflate error happens after forcing the program to quit, but who knows what caused it for you. Maybe you saved but didn't quit before restarting? Anyway, better luck next time.

[Lightning4]

Yes, and even if you only do the save scum once without restoring from a backup, it can eventually lead to a save crash at some point, and hand you a -3.
I learned this when one of my fortresses lost two years since that was my most recent backup of it.
In rare cases it doesn't even have to be from a save scum, it has been known to happen without any real known cause, but it's very infrequent. Dwarf mode is pretty stable, I think this is more common in Adventure mode than anything. (which is still very rare)

So in short, just back up often just in case the unexpected happens. Plus it gives you a side benifit should you pull a floodgate lever and notice something propping the door open when it's too late

[ October 16, 2007: Message edited by: Lightning4 ]

[Toady One]

Yeah, there's a rare or not-so-rare problem related to wrestling I think that can cause it to come in the current version, but a lot of them are also caused by breaking out of the game or moving save folders around improperly.  All of these causes (well, except moving half the files around manually or something) should be handled for the next version.

[AlanL]

I discovered that if you have an old save that works but -3's at a certain point predictably, then saving over and over at different spots could filter out the bad bits and leave you with a clean file again.