Stellaris - UI displays Ironman (and achievements) as enabled when they are not.

[Fictional Skill]

Description
UI displays Ironman (and achievements) as enabled when they are not.

Game Version
Circinus v3.14.15296 (68ca)

What version do you use?
Steam

What expansions do you have installed?
Plantoids, Humanoids, Synthetic Dawn, Utopia, Leviathans Story Pack, Apocalypse, Megacorp, Distant Stars, Ancient Relics, Lithoids, Federations, Necroids, Nemesis, Aquatics, Overlord, Toxoids, First Contact, Galactic Paragons, Astral Planes, Season 8 Expansion Pass, The Machine Age, Cosmic Storms, Grand Archive

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
When creating a new game, placing a check in the box next to Ironman changes the text from 'Ironman disabled' to 'Ironman enabled', and the red text down the button saying the game isn't eligible for achievements becomes green and says the game *is* eligible.

However open clicking play and getting into the game, it becomes apparent that ironman mode isn't actually enabled. The user can save and load as much as they like, and achievements cannot actually be earned.

Some old posts I found while googling suggest that the intended behaviour is that ironman is disabled if cloud saves are disabled, and I do have my steam cloud saves disabled. So the issue is that the game set up screen doesn't give any indication that ironman cannot be enabled, or why and in fact makes it appear as though it has been. (IE, I assume the bug is that the UI shows ironman as enabled when it shouldn't rather than the bug being that ironman isn't actually enabled when selected)

Setting aside my thoughts on how ridiculous it is to police the 'legitimacy' of pointless gold stars that only matter to the person earning them, especially when playing on easiest difficulty with custom empires can trivialise said legitimacy anyway, players should at least know how and why they are being arbitrarily gatekept.

...woops, guess I didn't completely set aside my thoughts on that after all.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
Disable Steam Cloud Saves in the Steam client settings. Open Stellaris. Select 'New Game'. Select an empire. Click to enable ironman mode. Click 'Play'. Once in-game, open the menu and see that saving and loading are both still completely functional. Pick the easiest achievement you don't already have and meet the requirements (I picked the one to complete an archaeological dig site) and see that the achievement isn't earned.

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[llamaTic]

Steam Cloud must be enabled to allow the game to track your achievements.

 

[Fictional Skill]

Steam Cloud must be enabled to allow the game to track your achievements.

This reply both completely misses the point of the bug (that the game shows achievements as enabled and ironman as enabled while Steam Cloud is disabled, which by your own words shouldn't be possible, and indeed they don't actually work despite saying they were enabled) and also is just factually incorrect.

There are workarounds to be able to play ironman while the steam cloud is disabled. And wouldn't you know, so long as you're actually in ironman mode achievements pop regardless of steam cloud being enabled or not. I literally tested this out last night and earned my first Stellaris achievement since 2018.

While it might seem like I'm just arguing semantics, your statement implies that the limitation to achievements has nothing to do with ironman mode and everything to do with achievement tracking requiring steam cloud, which is just demonstratably not true (for Steam games in general, and Stellaris in particular.)

Achievements require ironman mode to work. That's it. That's all. It's ironman mode that desperately wants the steam cloud is enabled; I can only assume to try and prevent people manually backing up save files etc.

But again, all this is besides the point, because the bug is a UI bug. I understand that the devs intend for ironman mode to only work with steam cloud saves enabled, even if my personal thoughts on that are that it's completely ridiculous.

If it needs reiteration: The bug is that the UI displays ironman mode as enabled when it actually isn't. With steam cloud disabled and thus ironman mode unable (or more accurately unwilling) to function, the game still erroneously shows ironman mode as having been enabled. I am not saying the bug is that ironman isn't actually enabled. I am saying the bug is that ironman mode should show as disabled and explain why it cannot be enabled in situations where steam cloud is disabled.

 

[EDAP]

I can confirm replication, an thank you for figuring out the issue and posting about it. I came back to the game recently, and was really confused why I wasn't getting any achievements, and then even more confused why my ironman save was in fact not ironman.

This is an awful UI decision, but also frankly an awful design decision by Paradox. EU4 doesn't require it for instance. Steam Cloud Saves are buggy, have limited space, and are just awful in general. Not happy with this one bit.

 

[Chaosx]

Thanks for posting this, I too was wondering why I was able to use the debug console in my "Ironman" games and why I wasn't getting achievements.

 

[Pufu13]

Thank you for this, I too recently came back to the game after a 6 month break and having to spend 30 mins to figure why such a basic interaction was "broken" before even starting my game was unpleasant.

With the risk of getting back into the discussion about the new approach PDX has regarding achievements and ironman, it's at least concerning to see such difference in a core mechanic between the branching studios. The newer games don't even require ironman to get achievements, so any casual can save / load without even feeling the pain of having to manually save / replace the files if they really felt like cheating themselves, but for Stellaris I have to look into and activate a feature (steam cloud) that I couldn't care less about, just to enable ironman and thus get achievements..