The game keeps erasing my custom empires

[venom2603]

I've run into an unusual problem, every time I close the game, my custom empires disappears from the menu, at first I thought it might have been the mods so I disabled them and tried again and it still erased them, I don't know what's going on but this will be a problem because I would prefer not to work from memory and make them again every time I want to start a new session.

[Meemai]

Suspecting this could be some issue tied to Steam Cloud messing up its syncing somehow, overwriting with a previous state where the races were not created.

Try disabling Steam Cloud sync temporally for Stellaris, to see if the issue persists with it turned off. (Just as a confirmation, not a permanent fix, turn it back on after you tested)

Right click the game on your Steam game list, click "Properties" and on the "General" tab, disable Steam Cloud feature.

Please let us know if it goes either way, this will help discard if the issue is due to Steam Cloud.

[Mennan]

Also just to make sure. You are hitting the Save button for each empire you try creating right? It'd be a real shame if you just created a empire and rolled straight into a match without saving it so it'd vanish forever moment you left the match.

[Mennan]

Also you can try this one from the Paradox forums
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-cant-save-new-or-edited-custom-empires-3-12-5-9a6f.1693463/

[Ryika]

Custom Empires are saved in:
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\user_empire_designs_v3.4.txt

Make sure that file isn't read only.

If it isn't, try adding the folder as an exception to your virus protection.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by venom2603:

I've run into an unusual problem, every time I close the game, my custom empires disappears from the menu, at first I thought it might have been the mods so I disabled them and tried again and it still erased them, I don't know what's going on but this will be a problem because I would prefer not to work from memory and make them again every time I want to start a new session.

This has been a pretty common problem since... I think two patches ago? Recently. Several people have reported success deleting their custom empire file, then letting the game generate a new one.

It can be found in the root directory of your saves folder (usually in you dcouments folder, then "Paradox Interactive/Stellaris". The .txt file is named "user_empires_design_v" then a version number.

If there's a backup copy of your original file, some folks have said they could copy and paste it back into the new file with a text editor.

[venom2603]

I think I solved the problem, deleting file user_empire_designs_v3.4 and trying again seems to work. It saved the test custom empire I built.

[Shenzhi_Lovecraft]

I can confirm to 100%, it worked for me too.

Originally posted by venom2603:

I think I solved the problem, deleting file user_empire_designs_v3.4 and trying again seems to work. It saved the test custom empire I built.