No way to save game startup preferences?

[gunnergoz]

I play with mods almost exclusively, but whenever I start a game, I have to go through the tedium of selecting each and every variable: who to play, on what map, at what size, what level and which options. The game never remembers my preferences from the previous game that I played.

Can these preferences not be kept in some sort of file and carried over, game to game?

[whoward69]

The "what civ", "what map", "what size" and "what level" options are carried through from non-mod games - start a non-mod game, pick your options (if you do this from the advanced setup screen, select back and then start game) and play one turn.

Exit the non-mod game, now when you go into the mod game setup those options will be pre-set.

If you want to save things like "New Random Seed" that can only be done by "hacking" an XML file. Locate "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\sid meier's civilization v\assets\Gameplay\XML\GameInfo\CIV5GameOptions.xml " and edit it with a plain text editor (Notepad is good) and set Default to true for each option you want checked, eg

		<Row>
			<Type>GAMEOPTION_NEW_RANDOM_SEED</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_NEW_RANDOM_SEED</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_NEW_RANDOM_SEED_HELP</Help>
			<Default>true</Default>
		</Row>

If you want to change the default resource allocations you can only do that in the map scripts, or in the MapGenerator file

Locate "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\sid meier's civilization v\assets\Gameplay\Lua\MapGenerator.lua" and edit it with a plain text editor

Find the following block of code and change the DefaultValue to what you want - Abundant is 3

	local resources = {
		Name = "TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_RESOURCES",
		Values = {
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_SPARSE",
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_STANDARD",
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_ABUNDANT",
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_LEGENDARY_START",
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_STRATEGIC_BALANCE",
			"TXT_KEY_MAP_OPTION_RANDOM",
		},
		DefaultValue = 3,
		SortPriority = -95,
	};

The changes in the xml and lua files will be lost when Civ updates itself (or you revalidate the game), so make a note of what you change so you can put it back after an update!

Yes it's a PITA having to edit files, but better than setting them for every game.

(And there are good reasons why mod selections arn't saved from game to game to do with "what if I was playing Civ X but that mod is disabled in the next game I play")

HTH

W

[gunnergoz]

Thanks again, Whoward69, you come to the rescue once again!

[Gedemon]

I play with mods almost exclusively, but whenever I start a game, I have to go through the tedium of selecting each and every variable: who to play, on what map, at what size, what level and which options. The game never remembers my preferences from the previous game that I played.

Can these preferences not be kept in some sort of file and carried over, game to game?

You're going to like this

Now, as whoward69 have explained, this may lead to unexpected behavior when modifying your installed mods, if you get strange value after deactivating a mod, use the Reset button to set all values to default.