Sharing a savegame file is safe?

[fito]

What happens when someone else plays using my (singleplayer) savegame file?

What data does the game collect in the file to distinguish players? Are steam and DLC data secure?

[Mikey]

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no safety concerns with sharing a savegame. They contain no private information, CD/game keys, passwords or other sensitive data.

However, another player will not be able to just take your savegame and “play as you” using their Steam Account. They will instead be asked to generate a new character, which will then play in a world where your old buildings, thralls etc still exist.

[fito]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge Mikey. Probably you are right.

But that the other player is forced to create a new character - this means that the game knows that someone else is playing with my savegame. That is exactly what disturbed me at first. How much more does the game know about players? - rhetorical question has become a concern.

It’s just an interesting conversation topic.

[Gnadolin]

It identifies players via Steam ID regardless of offline singleplayer or online server.

Matter of fact singleplayer technicall is just a locally hosted mini server.

So all character related data (buildings, clans, the character itself) is associated with the players steam ID.

Another player joining the server has an other steam ID and as such starts fresh.

[Mikey]

It knows that your character was created by your Steam ID (which is akin to a username and not considered sensitive - I believe you can get the steam ID off of any player on the steam forums for example).

I believe that is the sum total of “outside” knowledge the savegame contains. The rest all pertains to that specific savegame (buildings, inventories, thralls etc).