Help Help Help Help Help » Forum Post by petrone2

Email support@stardock.com and let them know the issues you are having. They may require proof of purchase to assist you with your serial no. but the guys at support have not let us down yet.

Good luck!

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In truth, even though you bought the game at Walmart, you're actually buying the serial code. It's actually better to buy a game at totalgaming.net than it is in store because that way you can just download using SD central instead of the serial number for updates. What I've noticed is happened recently is somebody came up with a keygen for GalCiv II and for some reason many of my friends who play this game notice that their serial numbers have been used more than 49 times for different machines.

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Its me again. petrone2. I want to revise my story. I DID email support@stardock.com. That IS one of the problems. I received an automated reply. In my life I sometimes have this kind of problem. It is the simple things that trip me. I can not start my car because I did not put the key in the ignition. I am not a PHD in Computer Science (CS). Until now, my naively singular experience with games is to 1. install them 2. play them 3. update them. Updates are to add something "new," not fix problems that should NEVER have been sold in the first place. The game is incomplete. The [page 36 paragraph 3] book in the box for example says there is a “destabilization” slider under the espionage slider. Where is it? The game was sold to me advertising in the documentation that it could use mods. That is a wholly inaccurate. It turns out you need an upgrade. No provision was made before sale to support this feature. Is it too much to ask, for me with no CS knowledge, to just simply update the game and play? Why is the "ONUS OF SUSPICION" on the consumer? Whatever happened to "USER FRIENDLY" computer games? Why all the "top level" "cloak and dagger security" for a fourth generation VGA game? Seriously. Windows Operating System is a real program which everyone would agree I am sure. I have NO problems updating it. I have many other games and programs that I can get upgrades for easily. THIS is the only program that has cause me grief. I have not ruled out that I am omitting something but after 15 reinstallation attempts, I am ready to “throw in the towel.”

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Hold on to that towel Petrope, even though every game has its problems, galciv 2 is according to me and many others an example of how a computer game should be made and sold. I actually did install it, play it and update it (and then played it more and bought the expansion as soon as it was available

).
This game doesn't have 'top level cloak and dagger type security'. You probably need assistance from stardock to get things going, and even though you have problems with the (non)help they provided so far, I hear (almost) nothing but good things about their support. Hang in there, the game's worth the effort!

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DID email support@stardock.com. That IS one of the problems. I received an automated reply.

Everyone gets an automated reply covering common problems as soon as their mail is received. A support representative will address the ticket as soon as possible though, so don't think that the autoreply is all you're going to get.

The game is incomplete. The (page 36 paragraph 3) book in the box for example says there is a “destabilization” slider under the espionage slider. Where is it?

Destabilization was removed from the game after the manual went to print. It's a fact of game development and publishing that manuals generally have to go off to print before the beta testing is complete so that they're ready in time for release, so these sorts of things can sometimes happen. Same goes for the playlist feature mentioned in the manual.

The game was sold to me advertising in the documentation that it could use mods. That is a wholly inaccurate. It turns out you need an upgrade.

The game in its 1.0 state is just as moddable as it is with patches; the only difference is that one must modify the game's base files directly. In 1.2 an additional folder was added to make it easier to add and switch between mods (without touching the base files), due to their popularity.

As to your original complaint, which I replied to on another thread

Did you try looking at the "Can't Activate or Register the game? See here first!" thread at the top of the forum? The most likely case is that your game came only with a Collector's Edition serial (which only unlocks some extra content) and not an actual game serial. The Collector's Edition serials all start with GC2-, while a game serial is 28 characters long with no dashes, and contains only 0-9 and A-F. If this is the case (you got only a CE serial), hop over to this page (ignore what it says about being for Europe only) and fill in your CE serial and the email address you used for your forum account. You should receive a usable game serial; if the form will not give you one, contact support@stardock.com.

If you do have a game serial in the format mentioned above, and when you try to register or activate it says something to the effect of "the email does not match the one in our records", contact support@stardock.com.:

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petrone2 again. Thank-You. I will call or write Stardock for the serial codes. You all have been have most helpful. I am sure I will enjoy the game. I apologize if and when I errored. I had to learn what was going on. I know what's going on now. I like the game as a matter of fact I own the first one. I retract whatever I may have said through frank ignorance because I did not know what was going on and I learned I was wrong. I like Stardock. I have always liked Stardock. I will continue to like Stardock in the future. I will try to read better next time. Great having you all around. Bye now.

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Here is the joke. When I click the link it does not work.

The paradox page loads fine for me.

So I bought a defective or incomplete program without my knowlege and had to research on my own to find out what I needed to ask Stardock for who ALREADY knows what the problem is because it was they that shipped the CD'sout to Walmart without the proper serial numbers on them.

We do not manufacture and ship the boxes ourselves (Take 2 handles that here in the US), so unfortunately we don't find out something like this has happened until the boxes are already in stores, and someone buys one and comes to us asking what the heck is going on. This particular issue is known and the solution has been posted at the top of the forum where it can be found with little effort by anyone encountering it. For those who don't see it there, they just need to ask as you did and I'll give the answer with the precise solution as I did (in both of the threads you posted it in).

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