A few GUI gripes

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Duthos

Nope, why would I have?

I meant when you created an account to buy the game. You had to give them that information to complete the order right?

[Duthos]

... it was in a box. At a local video game store. Paid 20$ for it, and saw absolutely nothing suspicious.

Edit - I think I might have been taken. I just looked around the internet a little bit, and I have the distinct impression a manual is standard issue, whereas mine is a pdf on the install disc, the cd key was stuck to the cd case, and there was nothng else in the box. Absolutuley nothing suspicious indeed. I feel foolish upon reflection.

[Edi]

Yep, that's a pirate copy someone dressed up, no question. The digital download version of Dominions 3 has a PDF manual and the hardcopy version comes with a ring-bound manual and CD, no box.

You should order one or the other from Shrapnel. Dom3 isn't available from other distribution channels. When it came out it was in a couple of specific brick and mortar stores somewhere, but not for years now.

[Duthos]

This is pretty ironic. I am a habitual pirate in the sense that I pretty near always try a game before I buy it, and only if a game is good enough do I buy it after. Dominions 3 was an uncharacteristic impulse buy of what looked like a neat game from a small company on a bargain shelf. Last time I bought a game before trying was majesty 2, and it left quite a sour taste.

Considering I already have the software, that I refuse to use credit cards, and that this game is of a quality I would have bought after playing even at three times the price I thought it was, perhaps illwinter will e-mail me a key if I mail them a cheque. No sense sending software I have or a book I already read. Still, I feel pretty stupid, I am generally more aware.

It is funny; the first game in a year I buy before I pirate was pirated before I bought it.

[Gandalf Parker]

It would make corporate support for that copy questionable in the future if something else went wrong with it. But you can always ask.

[Foodstamp]

Let's quit pussy footing around. It's fairly obvious this guy pirated the game and he came here looking for advice on how to circumvent the protection. Everyone has to be so damn politically correct.

[Gandalf Parker]

Of course.
Its a corporate support forum. Its done the way any corporate forum is whether its an ISP, or a Fortune 500 company, or just a small game company. The same answers can be given without name calling just in case they MIGHT be wrong even if it seems obvious..

On the other hand there are other forums. Some were even specifically started by people who did not like corporate formats just so that they COULD be sarcastic or abrupt or even rude if they felt it was deserved. Im not sure that such a path has caused many people to flock to them but on the internet everyone gets a chance to try the better-way they have in mind.

Sorry for couching this reply in such corporate formal format.

[Duthos]

Meh, politically correct (corporate speak) only means people aren't saying what they mean. I respect foodstamps accusation (false though it is in this case) more than 'pussy footing' around anything. Although I do certainly agree with his implied stance, pirating software and going to thier forums for tips is stupid.

Anyway, regardless of intention, I am in possession of a (likely) pirated copy. And whatever my personal justifications for my own piracy to demo games are (or even the validity of the same), I do not in any which way shape or form condone profiting from it. When I make it into the city next I will see if I can find the place again. It may not have been a 'one-off' copy.

[JonBrave]

This convo is getting more interesting ethically then the "News International" rubbish filling the ether waves at present Seems a shame to interrupt the flow......

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

And as far as seeing who you have where, the F1 menu is helpful.
You can use the TAB button in the F1 menu to see just provinces, the TAB again to see commanders.

Didn't know TAB, thanks.
Now all I wish is that you could click on the column headers, surely that would have taken 10 seconds to code, fgs!

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Also a tip:
turn Renaming ON when you create a game to play. People find it helpful to rename their mages to something that tells them the capabilities. Or at least rename the unit you are prophetizing so you can more easily find your prophet on the F1 screen

The "tip" for renaming states you cannot rename Prophet? (It occurs to me: do you mean you have to rename him before you designate him?)

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes. Or you can actually rename him in the same turn as you prophet him iirc.
But once someone is a pretender, or a prophet, or in the Hall of Fame (anyone the game has to track) you dont get to change the name