[Gandalf Parker]

Actually alot of strategy games start out with no saves, or insanely limited ones. Most developers seem to not like saves and end up adding it only under pressure.

Another answer is that it started as a pbem (play by email) game and saves were automatic without having to be written into the game. They still are in a way. Your turn creates a file and if you save it then you have a game-save. The backups are still supported by the command switches. This version is the first one to do major things in support of solo playing.

You can create an automatic game-save option. The command-line switches support it.

To add it now would require adding file cleanup options also since anyone who cant do saves manually also cant clean up backups manually. But since other options have added needs for file cleanup, I wouldnt be surprised if we get it in the next version.