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Feb 12, 2005
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Hi everybdoy.
I've received the game from a friend who does no lonber use it. He has lost the manual so I'm not able to retrieve it in any way.

Can somebody tell me where I can find an electronic version in a quick way?
I was only able to find the manual of the first eidtion, so I don't know whether it's reliable and useful for this "II" edition or not.

Any hint?

PS: I already tried to get in contact with the producers but... they didn't even answer yet!!!
 
The answer is if you want a manual you need to purchase a retail copy.
 
If you lose your car does the automaker give you a new one? ;)
 
Castellon said:
The answer is if you want a manual you need to purchase a retail copy.
Click to expand...

First of all the copy is original.
I clearly expressed that the original purchaser has lost it!
And I also clearly expressed that I tried to get in touch with Paradox to receive a new manual... but since they didn't even answer me at all I don't think they're interested.
So... anybody willing to help will be welcome.

Thanks
 
Never said it was a pirate version you had. ;)
Why would you think that?

Using my car analogue does it matter if your lost car was stolden by you or purchased by you before you lost it? Don't think so.

Anyway I gave you your answer, which is NO you bought the game with no manual, that is not Paradox's fault, I suspect you did not pay full price because it did not have a manual, therefore my answer is the same if you want a manual you need to buy a retail copy, they do come with a manual.
 
what about for those of us that have the manual but cant read it for to long as it gives them a headache (print font painfully small).

Is it ok to expect Paradox to send me a free magnifying glass, or a pdf manual?

Or can I sue Paradox if my eyesight deteriorates for putting up with the small font text on a grey background?

If this isnt the right thread for this, which is (new to both Paradox games and to this forum)?
 
No faster way to go blind then reading from a computer screen. ;)

If you have vision problems, you probably already have a much better magnifying glass then any cheap one you would get included with a game. ;)
 
Thanks for the reply, not the reply I was exactly after though lol

But seriously, my eyesight is presently fine. But the hardcopy manual in its current form is difficult to read, and is subtracting from the game.

If a pdf manual was released I would print it off at a more legible scale (an A4 page would presumably help significantly).

I can prove that I own a copy of the game as I ordered direct from Paradox (2 in fact, one for me and one for a friend). So could easily quote my order number etc.

If release of a full pdf has not been done due to piracy concerns, then Paradox could release pdf files to those that can prove that they have a legitimate copy of the game.

I dont know the stats for software piracy, but I would have thought that loss of income for strategy games would be pretty low. Most pirating would be I expect done on more mainstream titles.

If piracy is still though a concern. The pdf files could be of the type that only allow you to access the pdf on one PC. Cant recall what this pdf technology is, but a friend bought an online RPG game, that was released in pdf form. Once he had authenticated it, it was then locked to his machine. Therefore if he had hosted this pdf file on the web, anyone that downloaded it wouldnt be able to open it.

If Paradox are planning on doing something to help those that are concerned about the manual, then it would be nice to hear this. If they dont think the manual is a problem, then I would like them to catagorically say so.

From what I have managed to read so far of the manual (only up to page 9), the content seems good, its mainly the small font that is killing it.
 
NO!
Is that catagorical enough. :)
 
Ok... your analogy about the car is a crapy analogy. (sorry to be so blunt, but I figured that I'd follow suit).

It would be more fitting to say:

If I lost the user manual to my car, would the car company send me a new one?

I bet they would. And they might not even make you pay for it! And they might even send it to you in pdf!

And getting the manual has nothing to do with piracy. The day HOI2 came out was the day I could log on to some site and download the thing. Why? Cause paradox doesn't do any copyright protection. The same could be said about, say, Half Life 2. The day it came out, I could grab a copy of it from some web site. Why? cause they used some kind of copyright protection that a 12 year old in minnisota broke before the game even hit the shelves. One of the things I love about paradox is that they don't needlessly spend their money on some dumb copyright thing. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT PARADOX!!! YOU SEEM TO BE THE ONLY GAME COMPANY ON THE PLANET LIVING IN REALITY!!!

I'd guess that getting a manual has more to do with manufacturing then anything else. They don't press the cd's and print the manuals as separate entities... It's produced as a whole package.

regardless, it would be nice to have the manual in electronic form. I'd prefer just switching context between game and manual on screen... *shrug*

anyway, if HOI2 matches HOI in it's level of change, the manual will be obsolete in 6 months anyway. :)

2c
 
I knew someone would say exactly just what you did. ;) :D

THe reason your analogue does not hold is that the print cost of the manual is prob. more than the cost of the manufactoriing the CD itself. Since both contain copyrighted material, the manual is physically worth more than the CD itself. So you would have to say if you continue the analogue that the manual is the car and the cd is the owners manual. ;)

It is not that paradox does not sell a seperate manual it is just that the manual is not discounted from the package price of the manual and the CD. I therefore instructed him to purchase a new game, he can do that direct from Pdox e-butik. If he does not want another copy of the CD I am sure Flori will take the manual out of a box and ship that by itself.
Maybe at sometime in the future Pdox will look at selling replacement manuals at a discounted price but it is not set up to do that at the moment.

I never mentioned Piracy as the reason why the manual is not distributed on PDF. In fact in my analogue I implied it did not matter.

That could be a minor reason another could be the licencing issue, being able to distribute a physical copy of the manual is not the same rights as being able to distribute the text as a whole using electronic media. This runs into rights negotiated with the original author, and distribution agreements with various producers, publishers, and distrubuters.
 
Yal lets Comment about the Manual

Its the manual that says there are pdf but there are not any and then the print is real small with the excuse of printing costs in the event a larger printed manual was provided but all that aside they Didnt have to put black print on a gray background that makes it even worse .. more hard to read. But maybe they did that to make copying it more difficult. They could at least provide a LARGE PRINT Easily readable manual that one could purchase from them but then providing this may not be cost effective. But the solution they have of a small manual with tiny print on a grey background is unacceptable. You know who had a good manual was The Civilization Game which one was it Civilization 2 it had a large print thorough manual but I guess HOI2 doesnt want to be in the same league as the Civilization series they want to copy all the poor companies out there that continually produce mediocure manuals. Build a good manual and the customers will come and the pirates will sink. Who wants to print out a good readable online manual and pirate it when you can buy the game with an excellant manual .. but then .. ya can't buy the game with an excellant manual.
 
Timberwolf1959 said:
Its the manual that says there are pdf but there are not any and then the print is real small with the excuse of printing costs in the event a larger printed manual was provided but all that aside they Didnt have to put black print on a gray background that makes it even worse .. more hard to read. But maybe they did that to make copying it more difficult. They could at least provide a LARGE PRINT Easily readable manual that one could purchase from them but then providing this may not be cost effective. But the solution they have of a small manual with tiny print on a grey background is unacceptable. You know who had a good manual was The Civilization Game which one was it Civilization 2 it had a large print thorough manual but I guess HOI2 doesnt want to be in the same league as the Civilization series they want to copy all the poor companies out there that continually produce mediocure manuals. Build a good manual and the customers will come and the pirates will sink. Who wants to print out a good readable online manual and pirate it when you can buy the game with an excellant manual .. but then .. ya can't buy the game with an excellant manual.
Click to expand...

Speaking of hard-to-read text... please consider using punctuation and paragraphs in your posts.

I don't want to excuse Paradox, but the manual is not as simple an issue as that.
First off, the size was fixed at 100 pages, because that is what fits in a DVD-style cover (and at least in Europe, thats what games are sold in, wit the exception of "special editions"). So simply enlarging the fontsize wouldn't work.
They could have chosen to edit out portions of the manual, but for their earlier games a lot of people complained that the manuals were not detailed enough.

The grey background is IMO the only really bad choice they made, though I undestand why. Imagine how boring the manual would have looked with plain black-on-white text... instead of the relatively inviting WW2 themed manual. Problem is, of course, that it makes it even harder to read.

The PDFs mentioned in the manual are not of the manual itself. They are various charts with unitstats etc. - things that will most likely change with patches, so they wanted an easily updateable format. But you are right that they seem to have been forgotten.
If you want a large-print version of the manual, there is an invention called the xerox machine ;) (or the photocopier if you like) - most of those do enlargement at the push of a button (or three), and increasing contrast which could reduce the problem of the grey background. Try your local library, 7-11, photodealer or printshop. It shouldn't be more than 10€/$ or so.


To the original question:
I agree it would be nice if they'd just mail you a new manual, but it is not a very realistic idea. The profit margin on each game is pretty low, and as has been mentioned, the manuals are the bulk of the production costs (besides actual software development of course). So a "manual for free" policy would be a pure moneydrain, especially since they have no way of validating that you actualy own the game.
If you are willing to pay for the manual, just buy a new copy of the game, and give/sell the old one to a wanabe general ;)
 
What he said!. ;)
 
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