Auto Save - Help

Hi there, last night my computer crashed while I was trying to save the game. So inevitabley the save file became corrupt. I was hoping to have a backup somewhere created by the game, but alas I did not. (Does it save to the SI folder in My Documents or somewhere else?) Luckily I made a backup myself and it's put me 20 games behind, which is annoying in itself, but better than having nothing.

So my question is, where in the settings/preferences etc. do I find, and correctly set, the auto-saving feature so I don't have to go through this turmoil again.

I see in preferences there is 'Auto Save Interval' and 'Auto Save Mode' ... My interval is currently set to every month (is this game time?? May be where I went wrong). And the mode is set to 3 file rolling auto save... Whatever that means.

So if someone can shed some light about this and what the best settings are (and even what they mean), I would be very greatful!

The interval is "in" gametime so if set to monthly it will autosave on the same date every month.

With the crash problems a lot of people seem to be using weekly saves and with 1/2 games a week you only usually lose one at most.

The mode is how many copies it keeps. With a three file rolling save you will always have your last three saves kept, combined with a weekly interval this gives you a save from one week ago, two weeks ago & three weeks ago (gametime).

Thanks for clearing that up, very helpful I did find a (V2) in my SI folder but it took me back 3/4 seasons. Can't really understand why. Surely it should have saved a month prior to where I was, rather than 3 seasons ago?

Thanks again though.

The Interval actually works from the last time you saved IIRC. So if it auto-saves on the 1st but you save over that on the 20th, it won't save again until the 20th of the following month. You're best off using the auto-save and not saving manually. If you do have to, then rotate over several saves.

As for backups, just check the folder where your save games are. If FM fails to save it usually keeps a game called 'gamename(backup)' or something along those lines.