Let me get this out of the way: This is one of my all-time favorite games ever. Easily top 5, maybe top 3. So, when you read these issues I'm having, please know that if this were just about any other game, it would never get played by me. I love this game.

I posted some of this on the Steam discussions page, but learned about this location and decided to try here as well, before I make a problem ticket.

Firstly, I don't know if this matters, but I launch the game through the Steam interface and not an external icon.
Secondly, I have rubbish internet connectivity. It took about 6 minutes to load this page.
Thirdly, I have screenshots that I can upload if I get somewhere with better connection and reference images are needed.

On to the issues:
1) Constantly retrying to save causes serious issues to the CPU and RAM:
Without a solid connection the game will constantly retry connecting to the internet to save the game. I should not HAVE to connect to play this at all, but I'm sure you have your reasons. Perhaps you could add an option for saving intervals or connection attempts. Here's why it's a problem. That little box that pops up saying the game failed to connect AND the one saying it's going to retry stack on top of each other until they are individually clicked. These little boxes prevent interaction with any other part of the game, as well. I've had to train myself to place Crusaders between errors. I did not know this when I went to work. I came back to this game using 94% of my processor (I'd give a screenshot but that was apparently too taxing for my Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.00GHz with 8.00 GB RAM and Windows 7 64-bit. I have a fairly beefy computer. And my internet connection is only rubbish while your game is operating. I can watch movies online, play World of Warcraft, play multiplayer Minecraft or Borderlands, but the moment your game launches, my connection tanks. And I am not going to just close my game during your limited-time events just because other activities are impaired. Yes, that means I am playing your game at the expense of any other internet activity. Also, dealing with that Your-Connection-Sucks alert while doing a timed event should have earned me an achievement, because...

2) When defeating a level it fails to progress to the next one:
While going through the game and instant killing all the mobs due to good DPS configurations, I have no issue meeting the goal of the level at all. But, because of some check that your game needs to do on beating a boss (every time) or some other objective (seldom), internet connection is required to either proceed to the next level or roll for loot. I devised a workaround to proceed to the next level, but it prevents getting chests from bosses. I have to click on the previous zone and then hit 'g' to re-enable automatic progression. It skips the levels it knows I've beaten, and then starts on the first available undefeated zone. This made it so I did not get credit for beating zone 150 during [Get Me Out of Here!] until zone 154. I did this while spending about 2-3 clicks per second closing the poor connection notices that appeared. I beat it finally with very little time on the clock. I did this to get some quick rubies and just a few more Idols to get some of the new content for Hermit's Premature Party. If finally got the two new characters, but was reminded that...

3) Invisible characters are not able to be pulled from bench:
Every once in a while, I'll get a burst of good connection while I'm playing your game. It's rare, but it happens. When it does, I get all the pretty pictures to go with your new characters. But apparently, even though I now own Larry the Leprechaun and Kyle the Party Bro, I cannot use them until the stars align and I have another burst of internet. You see, I have them and can level them and even upgrade them. But, their pictures in the little bench icon boxes are missing. Relaunching the game does not fix this (I learned that on Pilot Pam and the queen) so I'm not even going to chance it. If I have them saved in a formation already, I can use them in that formation. But if I want to add them to a formation, I have to not recruit them until the spot I want them to occupy is the only vacant spot left in the formation. The reason for that is their animated sprite is also missing and is unable to be clicked and moved. Dropping a core game character already in the formation to the ghost location simply overwrites the location and they do not swap, thereby losing the specialty character. This only happens on the specialty characters. I have had no problems at all with core game content except...

4) Launching the game is impossible without being online
My connection will be going just fine. I'll have just finished downloading Steam updates, playing some WoW, and even watching some YouTube, and then I'll decide to click the "Play" button for this game, and suddenly Steam says I have "NO CONNECTION" AND the Google search page won't even connect. Any and all internet activity halts completely as I even lose connection to Skype. Then, if the moon is in the right phase and all the appropriate sacrifices have been made, a brief glimmer of connection will happen and the game will launch. Otherwise, it will sit on the loading screen until I close it (7 hours on one try). I have the game. It is clearly installed and occupying disk space. Any updates happen through Steam itself (I've watched them happen). So why, I ask, do I have to be connected to the internet at all to play this game? Yes, there's a chat window. But that does not mean I am running the game to chat. I'm spending all my time clicking on game stuff for the less-than-a-second interval between error messages. I have no time to chat... Nor do I want to in the first place. I just want to play the game. While I'm sure these issues are a problem at my end only and do not apply to virtually any other user, I should not be having these issues in the first place. This is a single-player game. I should not be forced to even have a connection at all.

Once again, I absolutely love this game, and would not be tolerating all this nonsense if it were any other game. But having to stay on top of the error messages on the occasions when I get the game to actually launch... It's starting to interfere with my sleep.

Hi Eric,

Glad you're enjoying Crusaders.

Sorry to hear that you're having issues with it being a server-saved game. However, that is how it's designed.

Your computer meets the minimum requirements as far as CPU and RAM go. Flash does have a memory leak, so closing and reopening the game every so often is recommended.

I'm curious as to what your internet speed actually is and if you're on a wireless router.

Erika