Confusion about game saving

Raen · #1 November 27th, 2003, 05:20 PM

I have both the full game and the demo. The full game was installed after the demo was.

I've been trying to sell a friend on how good the game is and he got the demo and we played a demo game together. But this morning I'm surprised to discover that our demo game was saved in my main (full) dominions directory. Are you consulting the registry to determine where to save games?

Does this mean there will be a problem with multiple installations of Dom? Suppose I want to host a game and don't want submitted pretenders to overwrite mine?

Or did I accidentally start the full Version when I played him and not the demo?

Confused....

Raen · #2 November 27th, 2003, 07:29 PM

Ok, I just tested this and I'm a bit concerned. Both saved games and gods created with the demo are getting saved in my main dominions directory.

I also don't see any way to specify directories in the command line switches, but hopefully I'm missing something.

As I say, losing all my gods because I'm hosting a PBEM is a rather unpleasant concept.

Saber Cherry · #3 November 27th, 2003, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Raen:
Ok, I just tested this and I'm a bit concerned. Both saved games and gods created with the demo are getting saved in my main dominions directory.

I also don't see any way to specify directories in the command line switches, but hopefully I'm missing something.

As I say, losing all my gods because I'm hosting a PBEM is a rather unpleasant concept.

Very interesting. There needs to be an "Other People's Gods" directory, and ideally, support for multiple gods per nation. I didn't know other peoples gods overwrote your own.

[ November 27, 2003, 17:51: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Johan K · #4 November 28th, 2003, 02:13 AM

Quote:

I also don't see any way to specify directories in the command line switches, but hopefully I'm missing something.

The save directory can be specified by setting the DOM2_SAVE enivornment variable. It is possible to set data and temp directory too if you really want to.

Catquiet · #5 November 28th, 2003, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Very interesting. There needs to be an "Other People's Gods" directory, and ideally, support for multiple gods per nation.

Definitely.

I have been reduced to manually making a copy of my god file whenever I manage to get a decent set of titles.

Raen · #6 November 29th, 2003, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:
I also don't see any way to specify directories in the command line switches, but hopefully I'm missing something.

The save directory can be specified by setting the DOM2_SAVE enivornment variable. It is possible to set data and temp directory too if you really want to.

But not \newlords, which is really where the problem lies?

Is there some reason that the registry entry was chosen over curdir? Multiple copies of Dom seems to me the most logical way to go....

Johan K · #7 November 29th, 2003, 02:44 AM

The newlords directory is always located inside the saved games directory.

The registry is not used that I know of. The installer creates an entry for installater and unistaller use, but that's it.

So why should it be better with two games than setting this variable before you start the game. It can be done in a .bat file if you don't want to type it every time. This way you also save yourself a lot of disk space.

Raen · #8 November 29th, 2003, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Johan K:
The newlords directory is always located inside the saved games directory.

Not on my computer, Johan. The newlords directory is on the same level as all of my saved games, i.e., directly underneath the Dom2 directory. I run Win98SE, if that's pertinent.

Quote:

The registry is not used that I know of. The installer creates an entry for installater and unistaller use, but that's it.

So why should it be better with two games than setting this variable before you start the game. It can be done in a .bat file if you don't want to type it every time. This way you also save yourself a lot of disk space.

If the registry isn't being used, why then does a game I saved running the dom2demo.exe not being saved in the dom2demo directory, but rather in my main dom2 directory?

I've double-checked this, I assure you it happens.

Gandalf Parker · #9 November 29th, 2003, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:
I also don't see any way to specify directories in the command line switches, but hopefully I'm missing something.

The save directory can be specified by setting the DOM2_SAVE enivornment variable. It is possible to set data and temp directory too if you really want to.

Very nice. By "data" do you mean the home directory? That seems to be where Dom2 keeps its data. That way newlords and maps can both be off of that. Does this work with Linux also? This would be very handy in setting up multiple games off of a server.

Johan K · #10 November 29th, 2003, 12:14 PM

To clear some confusion, here are the env variables, their default value and what they are used for.

DOM2_SAVE default="." Save directories and the newlords directory are created here. You need write permissions here.

DOM2_DATA default="." Data files, the maps folder and the rawsound folder must be found here. You only need read permissions here.

And Raen your problem with two game using the same save directory seems strange. Maybe one of your shortcuts doesn't set the current directory and thus the old one is still used.