Watch a saved game?

[krullapa]

Hi,

I bought C&C RC from Steam.
So I start it and pick Red Alert.
I choose Skirmish and a map: me against two AI.

I save the game now and then during the match.
Now, I would like to rewatch it.

But how?

I click Replay/Observer and then Local, but it is not there.
I click Load Game, and there it is! I can read that it took me 90 minutes to complete the game, but when I load it, it starts from the last save, basically when there was only one not destroyed building left.

I want to look at it from the beginning...

Is that possible?

Anyone? I am lost.

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@krullapa Uhh. That's a weird way of putting it. A "replay" is a recording of actions in the game that can be "replayed". But yes, it only works for one continuously played game.

To the game engine, loading a game is identical to starting a new game; the only difference is that the starting situation is loaded from a savegame rather than from a mission file or from a map with a set of multiplayer spawn settings. The replay function only records the last played "game". It's that simple.

Honestly I'm surprised this feature works for skirmish games at all.

[Nyerguds]

@krullapa Savegames aren't replays. They simply don't contain all that information. They're just a snapshot of the moment at which you saved, not a whole history of all actions performed in the game before.

[krullapa]

Thanks.

So you can't save a game and rewatch it?

If so, what then is a replay?

[Nyerguds]

@krullapa As I said, it's an actual recording of all actions performed during a game; constructions started / stopped / cancelled, units commanded to move or attack or whatever else, buildings placed and sold, all that stuff. From this data and the map it can replay the game in the game engine exactly like it was at the time these actions were recorded.

But the game only keeps that recording from the last played skirmish, and since this is actually a feature meant for multiplayer games, it can't deal with saving and loading, and is unable to automatically knit together pieces of your gameplay to one whole if you start saving and reloading stuff. It'll simply delete the last one and start over at the moment you load a game, counting it as a new game.

[krullapa]

@Nyerguds Ok, so "replay" really means "continue play"?

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@krullapa Uhh. That's a weird way of putting it. A "replay" is a recording of actions in the game that can be "replayed". But yes, it only works for one continuously played game.

To the game engine, loading a game is identical to starting a new game; the only difference is that the starting situation is loaded from a savegame rather than from a mission file or from a map with a set of multiplayer spawn settings. The replay function only records the last played "game". It's that simple.

Honestly I'm surprised this feature works for skirmish games at all.