A complete save system exists, it's source control.

[Capsized]

Hello guys, gals and sentient beings

In RTW we have by default only one save slot per game. This has its attractiveness: any action or decision will stay with your game forever. But sometimes we might want a bit more freedom. Here is how to get it, you should be done in 5 to 10 minutes.

I'll use Mercurial and tortoiseHg. Mercurial is a source control system: it will track over time any changes made to files or folder that it was instructed to track; and it will allow to jump back to any point in time when it was instructed to record the state of our files and folders. TortoiseHg is an interface on top of mercurial, and actually includes mercurial.

1) TortoiseHg setup
Download tortoisehg from there:
tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/download/index.html

You very probably want the version for 64bit windows.
Do the install as usual, all the default settings are fine.

2) Preparing the save folders
If you have any file explorer window open, close them. This will allow the new options that tortoisehg adds to be useable the next time you open a file explorer window.

Navigate to your saves folder. The easiest is by right-clicking on the shortcut to the game, and click "open file location", then open the "Save" folder.

In the Save folder, right click on the "Game1" folder (if you want to use it on your game1 save). You'll see some new options that you never saw before. Click on "Create repository here", under "TortoiseHg".



Yes, my system is in French. This has zero impact on anything.
On the next window just leave everything to default and click "Create".

Attachments:

[Capsized]

3) Record your saves forever and ever

In the next window, do the following:
- make sure your new "repository" (that's the name for a folder that Mercurial oversee) is selected. That's the "1" arrow in the following screenshot
- make sure the current state of your repo is selected. That's the 2.
- just to be sure, refresh the state of your repo with the blue arrows under 2.5 (yes I missed it the first time)
- A BIIIIG list of files names colored pink will be in the middle of the window. Click on the case pointed by the arrow "3" to select them all.

If you close the window, you can bring it back from the start menu: it's the "TortoiseHg Workbench"



Then input a message describing the state of the game under "4", and click on "Commit" under the arrow "5".



Confirm by clicking "add" in the next window that you want to add all the files you selected to the files overseen by mercurial.
Mercurial will work for a few seconds. From now on you will ALWAYS be able to revert your save to this point.

This is what you will be doing each time you want to keep the state of your save folder:
- make sure the current state of the folder is selected with "2"
- make sure it's up to date with "2.5"
- select all changes with the check under "3"
- add a commit message describing the state of your save under "4"
- commit your changes with the Commit button under "5"

Example after a few saves:

[Capsized]

4) The Magic: restoring an old state

You want to go back in time? make sure you committed your save folder, close RTW, and:
- right click on the state you want to go back to
- select update



And that's it! the save has been restored to its former status. Load it in RTW and all will be well.
Here is what tortoiseHg looks like after I reverted to the old state:



Every changes you commit after that will be linked to the "older" state and not the newer one, like this:



And if you just wanted to have a peek at your old save, instead of saving in RTW after reverting, just do an "update" to the game state you want.

Summary:
- create a repository in the save game folder

- commit the changes when you save in RTW

- if you want to go back to another game state, close RTW, update to the state you want, load your game in RTW.

[Capsized]

There are other ways to commit your changes, among them right-clicking on the save game folder in the file explorer and simply select "commit"
For more advanced users, there are also way to automatically commit the changes, but because I have never done it I am not going to explain how.

I wish you all some nice save-scumming!

EDIT: there are obvious "Yo Dawg" references to do here, but I have blown my meme allowance for the month (at least).