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[Slappy Moose]

How often and why do you do it?
Just curious.

I do it once every month, sometimes more sometimes less.

I usually only savescum when I REALLY want a project to work, or I lose a fort in a really lame and boring way (flood) or something.

Example: I recently lost 20 dwarves to a big gobbo ambush, but didn't savescum because it was a good fight, and I learned something from it (more soldiers bigger walls)

However, if my legendary miner drowns or something stupid happens and I accidentally collapse a big ceiling, I will probably just revert to a couple minutes ago.

I'm curious if some people savescum for every calamity or whether some people never savescum no matter what.

[slackingest]

Even if I lose a legendary dwarf, I don't bother trying to reload. It's just how forts go. You expect some losses along the way, be they peasants or nobles.

[BurnedToast]

I never savescum, I don't even have autosave turned on (DF never seems to crash for me thankfully). I did savescum a few times way back in the 2d version when I was first learning, but even then it was only when I was trying something risky that could say, permaflood the world.

[Agdune]

Yeah, I savescum more than I probably should. Mainly just when say my magma foundry's construction goes wrong or when a goblin ambush hits me unexpectantly and kills 2/3ds of my army because they're trying to collect shields... say that's pretty lame now that I think of it.

I also use DF companion alot, but really just for completely avoidable things, like preventing imprisoned or wounded dwarves from starving to death, or teleporting dwarves who've trapped themselves while building floodgates.

[Cavalcadeofcats]

I never savescum. I'm just amused when things go horribly wrong.

I do back up saves, though. Mostly so that I can adventure in a fortress that I'm still playing; backup, abandon, adventure, restore from backup.

[Sukasa]

I sometimes savescum, because that's the only way to explore a fortress as an adventurer without abandoning it.

Apart from that I don't scum.

[Hypcso]

I've done it a couple times... mostly for fortress crushing disasters ( if i'm trying to construct something and not actually " playing the game " because I need those workers ) like my latest fortress which was literally wiped out by ambushes twice while I was working on my giant castle. Perhaps building it before moving my dwarves within the walls wasn't such a great idea, but it was much easier to do. I also tend to get rather attatched to my military and greatly dislike losing one of them, but lately i've been getting better about that.

[bigmcstrongmuscle]

I never save scum, because I like dealing with problems like trapped dwarves as they arise. I've never yet had a really serious disaster befall my fortresses, but that's mostly because of an obsessive degree of caution (learned in Nethack) when I'm fiddling with defenses and dangerous projects.

[Hyperturtle]

I haven't gotten into adventurer mode much (I am still working on a fortress that looks nice enough to visit AND loot),but I have no problems with save scumming.

For my first fortress it was a matter of game enjoyment.  Having everything explode because I didn't understand how the game worked can be quite frustrating.

After I got the hang of things, I stopped playing that fortress and tried out my luck with a new one, and I actually haven't had to save scum in that one yet, although it's perhaps only five fortress years old.  Either I learned a lot or I was a lot luckier.

Now, sometimes I start new fortresses for the pure suicide factor "play now in a haunted ruin!" but there's no point in saving those.  I normally don't even get much of a hole dug before their souls are sucked out of their smiley faces.

[numerobis]

I mostly only save-scum when I do something that makes the fortress unbearable.  Losing half my best dwarves doesn't count, but creating a permanent link from the ocean to the aquifer that thereby takes my framerate down to 2 FPS does count.

[Quift]

I savescum to compensate my own lack of patience and planning when trying to execute some difficult engineering wich may lead to the death of several dwarfs due to me wanting to test if it works yet.

My automated drawbridge that would throw dwarfes into the newly built pool (with water drawn from the other side of the map, 10 z levels above) to fill a 16 square pool with 4/7 water).

This project had 2 savescums. one because I wanted to se some results thus pulled the lever before realizing that I hadnt finished the drain yet. water teleporting directly from the brook into the center of my fort was quite unpleasant.

The other savescum was for the idea that I should "fling" dwarfes into the pool once finished so that they would learn how to swim and get cleaner. this was intended to be an automated process so pressure plates etc where connected to the bridge in question in one of the main hallways and a meeting area desingated on the bridge. the idea being that the bridge would flip every once in a while and throw the dwarfes abour 4-5 tiles aways into the bath.

This device was aptly renamed the automated dwarfcrusher, and managed to killed 2 champions, my legendary carpenter, 4 children, about a dozen dogs and a legendary mason before I was able to disable it.

I obviously savescummed and I'm currently working on a new system to deliver the dwarfes into their bath. This time I will, on the level directly above the pool, build a nice chess pattern in sterling silver and black bronze grates. These grates should then open up with a regular interwall, and drop the dwarfes through the floor into the pool. If I also designate this the new party hall (which is the plan) I will have an automated service that will make sure noone parties for to long.

3 birds in one very complex device using 60 mechanisms, 6 floodgates, 26 grates in precious metal, a total of 500 tiles of water, and an adamantine artifact table to designate the meeting hall.

All to wash my dwarfes from several pages worth of dwarf blood, goblin blood, demon goo, vomit, dirt, mud etc in a 4x4 pond filled with 4/7 water.

Has it really been ascertained that the players didn't start out sane?

[Dasqoot]

I tend to savescum in most games I play, but I just realized I never do that in dwarf fortress. I've just never had a major catastrophe, for some reason. I think the most dwarves I've ever lost due to a siege or flood or megabeast is about 12 per year, which is less than an immigration wave and I hate having more than 50 or so dwarves anyways. So everyone above the 50 cap is highly expendable.

Now wardogs...don't you touch my 60+ wardogs or my chained kitten royal guard brigade or I'll probably revert.

[Puzzlemaker]

I savescum when I am learning...

Like, oh crap the goblin bowmen just ripped through my entire army in a second.  WTF?

Or, Oh crap water can go diagonal!?

Or, Oh Crap bridges can't support floors!?

Stuff like that...

[Greiger]

I never savescum(too lazy), but I do use companion once in awhile while testing mods.  Usually by transmogrifying the local tavern dwellers into whatever I want to test, saving then reloading to complete the transformation.

I have used the companion before to give adventurers a little boost and a couple 1UPs when I want to fill up the legends screen with adventurer exploits. But I never take those adventurers seriously.  It's annoying when you expect the dining room to be engraved with cool stuff but all you get is trades and noble elections because nothing interesting has happened in the world yet.

[Samyotix]

Hm. I make daily backups when I start playing and/or when I quit for the night; but very rarely revert to these. (These are basically just in case I ever get a corrupted save.)

I also backup at the start of seasons sometimes, and/or when traders show up, and/or before opening that floodgate (hmm, will it flood my cistern or the food storage?) -- typically once overy two to four hours. I won't reload if I just lose a handful of dwarves, but will if "it feels unfair" or if I made stupid, critical mistakes (such as removing the wrong floor tile, collapsing a half-built staircase straight down into my barracks. Ouch  

[ March 27, 2008: Message edited by: Samyotix ]