CK II - 3.0.1.1 (NNDO) Ironman saves becoming un-ironman after a reload

[neogamingo10]

One line summary of your issue
3.0.1.1 (NNDO) Ironman saves becoming un-ironman after a reload

Game Version
3.0.1.1 (NNDO)

What expansions do you have installed?
Jade Dragon,
Monks & Mystics,
The Reapers Due,
Conclave,
Horse Lords,
Way of Life,
Charlemagne,
Rajas of India,
Sons of Abraham,
The Old Gods,
The Republic,
Legacy of Rome,
Sword of Islam,
Holy Fury, All of the above

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
To start off I don't play with mods at all. I haven't played multiplayer recently and from what I know there are issues with the way CK2 saves its files at least in the version I play.

This is what I'm going to explain first, my feelings of why I am upset about how this bug is still a thing and why its a problem, second I'm going to explain the best I can how this bug killed my last save, while showing proof that indeed it was a ironman save and the third I recreated what happened with a new save and loaded it to show how it becomes unironman, lets begin.

1) Okay so my feeling about this is I am mad posting this exact bug twice on the bug reports and I have gotten no response from anyone on staff and others that also have this problem haven't been noticed from what I have seen.

This keeps happening and this is the bug that not only myself wants fixed. I know others do as well very much since we have to make a new game every time we want to get a new achievement which frankly is bullshit because we can't reload a save to finish a save game so Paradox's 769-1453 achievement or Persistent Survivor and others that are end game will never be achieved by these players if this bug continues.

2) So on to my recent game, the images below is what I refer too when I am putting a number in a sentence:

In 45 is what I had before it became un-ironman, again this is very upsetting and you can see it is ironman in the bottom right hand corner, check 47 if you don't believe me.

In 46 is there to prove the save is un-ironman which it was ironman before I just got the Zoroastrian achievement that shows in 61. If you still don't believe this, click this link its my profile on steam that shows I earned the achievement: https://steamcommunity.com/id/caringisdaring/stats/appid/203770/achievements

In 62 this error showed up and I still don't know what it means but has happened before.

In 46 it shows that I have rules turned off that is bullshit, if you look through 48-59 you can see how I set up my rules and it is ironman compatible.

3) If you looked over my rules that I have with my game it shows that it is once again on ck2_7 which this game is a new save, brand new 1 January, 769.

I reload the game and check the rules and I see this with that save I show in ck2_7, but look at ck2_9 if you still think this isn't a problem. ck2_8 is there to show I did it.

So I explained this all before and its that when you reload a ironman save game it becomes un-ironman. Thats it. Oh and the version is 3.0.1.1 (NNDO) by the way.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
Step 1:
Make a new ironman game with the version of 3.0.1.1 (NNDO) and use all of the same rules shown in images 48-59 while choosing any nation in a 769 start;

Step 2:
Quit out of the game;

Step 3:
Reload the same ironman save and check the rules to see if they changed differently from the images provided below.

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[Snjoulfr]

@neogamingo10 Are you by chance using a saved rule set? I did some of my own testing after @witzen linked some other forum posts to me.

I've had the same problem; upon reloading a save, Mongol Invasion, Sunset Invasion, Turkic Conquerers are changed to Disabled in the game rules, where they were set to Enabled in the beginning (and they have the same smaller block of rules in their save files rather than the larger one from a fresh save).

In my non-ironman game I was able to "fix" this by removing the line 'alternate_start="yes"' in the save file before reloading a second time, but obviously I can't do this for Ironman games.

This particular comment is what I did and upon further investigation based on some of what witzen suggested I found that under the documents/ParadoxInteractive/Crusader Kings II/interface/game_rules.txt. that my saved rule sets looked like this

game_rules=
{
    alternate_start=no
    alternate_start='yes'
    epidemics="historical"
    mongol_invasion="historical"
    aztec_invasion="historical"
    generate_families="on"
    exclave_purge="harsh"
    chinese_invasions="default"
    turkic_invasions="historical"
    shattered_retreat="on"
    gender="default"
    dejure_drift="restricted"
    dejure_drift_duration="default"
    nomad_stability="unstable"
    culture_conversion="faster_melting_pots_and_slower_normal"
    religious_conversion="slower"
    raiding="historical"
    adventurers="normal"
    charlemagne_story="on"
    vassal_republics="restricted"
    interfaith_marriages="restricted"
    invitation="default"
    diplo_assassination="off"
    dueling="default"
    dynasty_title_names="on"
    cultural_title_names="on"
    grant_independence="restricted"
    dynamic_crusader_states="default"
    conclave_education_focuses="close_relatives"
    northern_crusade="on"
    non_aggression_pacts_block_factions="off"
    de_jure_requirement="required"
    diplo_range="restricted"
    provincial_revolt_strength="powerful"
    provincial_revolts="normal"
    pagan_reformation="allowed"
    ai_seduction="on"
    ai_intrigue="on"
    punishment_release_prisoner="on"
    demesne_size="default"
    vassal_limit="half"
    shepherds_crusade="on"
    fourth_crusade="on"
    defensive_pacts="off"
}
game_rules=
{
    alternate_start=no
    alternate_start='yes'
    epidemics="historical"
    mongol_invasion="historical"
    aztec_invasion="off"
    generate_families="on"
    exclave_purge="harsh"
    chinese_invasions="default"
    turkic_invasions="historical"
    shattered_retreat="on"
    gender="default"
    dejure_drift="restricted"
    dejure_drift_duration="default"
    nomad_stability="unstable"
    culture_conversion="faster_melting_pots_and_slower_normal"
    religious_conversion="slower"
    raiding="historical"
    adventurers="normal"
    charlemagne_story="on"
    vassal_republics="restricted"
    interfaith_marriages="restricted"
    invitation="default"
    diplo_assassination="off"
    dueling="default"
    dynasty_title_names="on"
    cultural_title_names="on"
    grant_independence="restricted"
    dynamic_crusader_states="default"
    conclave_education_focuses="close_relatives"
    northern_crusade="on"
    non_aggression_pacts_block_factions="off"
    de_jure_requirement="required"
    diplo_range="restricted"
    provincial_revolt_strength="powerful"
    provincial_revolts="normal"
    pagan_reformation="allowed"
    ai_seduction="on"
    ai_intrigue="on"
    punishment_release_prisoner="on"
    demesne_size="default"
    vassal_limit="half"
    shepherds_crusade="on"
    fourth_crusade="on"
    defensive_pacts="off"
}
game_rules=
{
    alternate_start=no
    alternate_start="no"
}
game_rules=
{
    alternate_start=no
    alternate_start="no"
}

After deleting the alternate_start='yes' lines in the first two rule sets, I tried two new games and neither of them had their rules changed upon reloading. I sent witzen a reply mentioning this, but seeing as it is a weekend I am not sure how soon he will get back to me. Just figured I'd let you know what I found with a little help from him to see if you could try this and see if it helps you at all

 

[witzen]

As @Corvexi_IX pointed out removing the line alternate_start='yes' from the rules in documents/ParadoxInteractive/Crusader Kings II/interface/game_rules.txt seems to work as a workaround. I think removing it from the first set (there are four sets in the file corresponding to the four rule presets in the game) should be enough to stop this bug from occurring but removing it from the other sets is probably a good idea too. It's also possible that removing the file entirely will also work as a workaround.

With this information we also have a little better understanding of the cause so hopefully we will be able to provide a proper fix sometime soon.