Stop the World! I Want to Get Off! (Or, I need the most basic help possible.)

[Amazin69]

So, once upon a time, I bought a pack of games from Paradox (CK, Hearts of Iron, Victoria) for $20 and they shipped me a disc and I installed the games on my Mac, and started playing. (Loved CK, and even started an AAR. Struggled a bit with the commerce aspect of Victoria, but did okay with it. Could never master the combat engine on HoI and eventually abandoned it.)

Time passed and computers wore out and I think I lost the disk. But no big deal, I just transferred the installed game files to my new machine and kept playing. Didn't keep up with newer games, because I use Macs and besides, I'm not made of money. But I was happy.

But then…my comp wore out again (I'd had that MacBook Pro for so long the "e" key came off) and although I ordered a pre-owned version of the EXACT SAME model (with more memory to increase speed). some clever person had actually snuck Catalina onto it. Meaning that my 32-bit games were now dead, dead, and very dead. (And not just the Paradox games; my baseball simulator is no more, either.)

This made me grumpy as anything. (I mean, I'm still mourning when Mac moved to High Sierra and I couldn't play Civilization IV any longer, because I loved hearing Leonard Nimoy read the tech-discovery announcements.). But I eventually un-grumped and decided that this gave me the impetus to modernize. Went to the store and discovered that not only was there finally a Mac version of CK2, but now there was even CK3! Bought that, and grabbed an EU IV as well (because, hey, only $10).

One problem: I'm now completely lost. Can't figure out how to download my games and have no understanding (or any desire, tbh) of how to play on Steam. I just want my games on my computer (Mac OS 10.15, Catalina) so I can play.

Help??

 

[AndrewT]

So, once upon a time, I bought a pack of games from Paradox (CK, Hearts of Iron, Victoria) for $20 and they shipped me a disc and I installed the games on my Mac, and started playing.

We never made Mac versions of those older games, CK2 was the first one we did. Most likely they were from our licensee Virtual Programming www.vpltd.com . So far as I know they never ported them to 64bit.


When you buy from our store we send you Steam Activation keys. They are delivered in two ways, by email and to your Paradox Games menu. So please check your email spam quarantine, and also here:

Paradox Accounts

accounts.paradoxplaza.com

Click on Manage for the relevant game, the key should be visible in there.


THEN you must have, or create, a Steam account and install the Steam Client application from their website.

Steam, The Ultimate Online Game Platform

Steam is the ultimate destination for playing, discussing, and creating games.

store.steampowered.com

"Install Steam Now"

Just paste your Steam Activation codes into the +Add a Game area of the Steam client application, and the games will be available in your Steam Library in that Client to download and install. You can also do this directly on the Steam website

Sign In

store.steampowered.com

 

[Amazin69]

Thank you. It was a Virtual Programming disk; I recognize their logo. (And, as mentioned, you didn't make Mac versions back then.)

So, I go to "Games" under my account, and whenever I click "manage" under a game, I get a black background, and then a thin white box reading "Details" with what looks to be the start of a green button below that. But clicking on "Details" does nothing, and I can't make the green button visible.

Perhaps this is all irrelevant (I do see the mentioned Steam key codes) but I hate to move past these screens without knowing which details I'm not seeing.

Again, thanks.

 

[AndrewT]

Just ignore the My Games page then, it's pretty broken at present. Just redeem those keys directly into Steam as I described and you'll be fine.