Achievements only in Ironman mode?!?!

[BS86]

Why are the achievements only unlocked in Ironman mode where one can not save the game?!?
Are the achievements only made for jobless freaks who can play all day and night?

Usually I can't play for longer than 2 hours, then I save the game and continue the next day. This is not possible in this game.

Don't get me wrong, I also play Civ, finishing a game there usually takes me some weeks and I can still get the achievments there.
Why is this not possible here?

[Zsrai]

The game auto saves in Ironman....

[Ruges]

Ironman disables the ability to save scum. (although for stellaris I like to call it live die repeat).

[BS86]

Oh thanks! Did not see any autosaves so far but one Ironman save is there when I try to load games. With that, I have no problems, Case solved!

[Zsrai]

Publicado originalmente por BlackSerpent86:

Oh thanks! Did not see any autosaves so far but one Ironman save is there when I try to load games. With that, I have no problems, Case solved!

The autosave for Ironman is on the 1st of every month in game, so it's pretty frequent.

[BS86]

Publicado originalmente por Zsrai:

The autosave for Ironman is on the 1st of every month in game, so it's pretty frequent.

I guess that is the downside of playing on a quite fast system on a SSD drive - I don't realize anything about saving during playing.

[WWDragon]

The ironman only achievements are still stupid.

Example: Destroy 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 ships.
Ther'es NO reason to lock most achievements behind ironman mode; it's just stupid and insulting.
I don't care how often it saves.

[Zsrai]

Publicado originalmente por WWDragon:

The ironman only achievements are still stupid.

Example: Destroy 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 ships.
Ther'es NO reason to lock most achievements behind ironman mode; it's just stupid and insulting.
I don't care how often it saves.

It's so you don't just mod files and get them all near instantly. Or use the console and do the same.

It's mostly an anti-save scumming mode from CK2 and EU4 that PDS have carried over to their other games though.

[Luck_inc]

It is honestly because you can so easily use console commands in a non ironman game. I have used console commands so that my starting planet produces near infinte research in all fields, minerals, and energy didn't bother with colonizing until I purged all other races and terraformed to my special system, that is why achievments are behind iron man.

[langxultisky]

it's saved automatically in Ironman.

[Scrapper-Lock]

It's not really 'save scumming' that should disable achievements. Lots of games that don't have ironman mode at all still have achievements. Saving and reloading doesn't really do much to make an achievement all that much easier, when you consider that replaying the same 12 months of the game over and over again takes a lot of time anyway.

No, what makes certain acheivements easier are mods, like the mod to allow larger cores and so on. Using *mods* should disable achievements, not whether you're in ironman or not.

You know it is interesting by Cities Skylines has achievements, and it is a Pdx game, but it does not have an ironman mode. The only thing that disables achievements in that game are mods (and there is a mod to disable the disablement, lol).

[Zsrai]

Publicado originalmente por steven.viscido:

You know it is interesting by Cities Skylines has achievements, and it is a Pdx game, but it does not have an ironman mode. The only thing that disables achievements in that game are mods (and there is a mod to disable the disablement, lol).

To be fair, Cities: Skylines is only published by Paradox, not developed in house by them.

Another part of the Ironman functionality is encrypted save games. Normal Paradox game saves are really easy to edit in notepad or what have you too. Without the encrypted saves, you could fire up a game, save, quit, edit your save to whatever you please, and then load it up.

The relative ease in which you can mod, edit saves, and use the console to give yourself the majority of achievements is why it's ironman only. Personally I'd rather play with mods, or at least for fun (vs hyperfocusing on a specific achievement) most of the time than worry about getting a gold star.

[Scrapper-Lock]

I know all the arguments for Paradox games about achievements. My point is, tons of other games allow multipel saves (i.e. non-ironman play) and have achievements, e.g., Skyrim, Planetbase, Farming Simulator, Euro Truck... Heck, Divinity Original Sin can not only have multiple save points but you can get achievements in multiplayer.

Paradox's "Ironman Only Achievements" is therefore entirely arbitrary. Every justification people make for why Pdx must *only* allow achievements in IM mode, could equally apply to other games but those games don't require and in many cases don't even have IM mode.

Now, I want to point out: I'm not saying IM-only achievements is objectively *wrong*... I'm just saying it's arbitrary, and that the justifications for it are just as arbitrary.

[nobody]

The thing is you really need to know what you are doing or at least think two times about a decision in ironman mode, while in savescum mode you can test and keep to the better outcome. And oh yea it enables cheating..
As a gift for your burden you get the Achievements you can show off.

And it should apply to other games too, thats why most Achievements in games are completely useless, because you get them for no effort.. In most games decisions aren't that important, so devs make it easy to get them to catch the average joe with candy.

As an example try to get some Path of Exile Hardcore Achievements. :)
Don't compare absolute cookie cutter mainstream games with niche hardmode titels, it won't work well.

[Ruges]

Publicado originalmente por steven.viscido:

It's not really 'save scumming' that should disable achievements. Lots of games that don't have ironman mode at all still have achievements. Saving and reloading doesn't really do much to make an achievement all that much easier, when you consider that replaying the same 12 months of the game over and over again takes a lot of time anyway.

I disagree. I used save scumming in my last two games to such a degree I call it my live die repeat mode. My autosaves are also set monthly not yearly. Dont like the outcome of a battle, reload and move your fleet into a better position.

An example. I went to war with an awakand accendant AI. All border scouts said there fleets where in the 50-100k range. I had a 300k fleet. They had stations that cause you to warp into them. First attempt I just jump into there homeworld and try to face F* there fleet. However by the time I arrive they merged there fleets into 1 220k and a couple smaller ones combined with the stations there, ontop of my fleets prefered max range theres prefered close up. Well they won that battle. So I reloaded. New strat was to land on the system next to there home take that bring them into me. Almost worked, I took that planet, they took there fleet away from there capital, I figured they where coming after me. but instead they disapeared. When they reapeared there fleet power was 600K!!!! where did all those ships come from?

This resulted in several failed cat and mouse fights to to win by ranged attacks and running away. Then I realized I needed to get that fleet before it merged into those other fleets. save scuming to get the perfect timing on warping into ther home system. when that 200k fleet was leaving the system. I jumped in, got sucked into all the starbases, destroyed them. and engaged the enemy fleet that was attempting to jump out and group with another larger fleet. timed it so perfectly, that I had a loss of less then 10 percent when they had a loss of 100 percent. Plus I had my scout science ships out looking for those other large fleets. Which I then hunted down and slaughtered.

Could I have done this without save scumming? Maybe now yes. I learned a couple new strats that work well, and larned a couple strats that work bad. I know that the accendant AI cheats by calling in ships from nowhere and dont give them time to merge that fleet. Maybe my next playthrew I will do it in ironmode.

[WWDragon]

Publicado originalmente por steven.viscido:

It's not really 'save scumming' that should disable achievements. Lots of games that don't have ironman mode at all still have achievements. Saving and reloading doesn't really do much to make an achievement all that much easier, when you consider that replaying the same 12 months of the game over and over again takes a lot of time anyway.

No, what makes certain acheivements easier are mods, like the mod to allow larger cores and so on. Using *mods* should disable achievements, not whether you're in ironman or not.

You know it is interesting by Cities Skylines has achievements, and it is a Pdx game, but it does not have an ironman mode. The only thing that disables achievements in that game are mods (and there is a mod to disable the disablement, lol).

Yeah, I agree that reloading shouldn't disable them, because you put a crapton of time into the game anyway.

However, mods should not disable ALL ahievements either.
One example of an achievement that should work no matter what, is say: X number of hours played.