Superpower 2 help

Hi, my friend recently lent me his copy of superpower2. After installing and playing around with the game for a bit, I purchased my own copy. The only problem is i dont know how to switch my cd key. I was using his when I had his copy, but now that I have my own copy i want to use this cd key. I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it, but it had saved the cd key somewhere and didnt ask for it again. Any help that could be provided would be greatly appreciated.

If you actually bought the game, you’re beyond help. :twisted:

SP2 is a real pain in the ass to uninstall - almost as painful as playing it. You may need to go into the registry, find the registry key for SP2 and manually delete it. When I uninstalled it, it left all kinds of stuff sitting around, so I’m not surprised that the CD key is still stuck somewhere.

Good luck. And I hope you enjoy it more than I did.

Troy

So far ive really enjoyed the game, my only complaint is the lack of servers for it. I ran ace utilities after uninstalling it to clear up any stray registery entries. However i searched for it after reinstalling it thinking that the key might be socked away somewhere in there and was unable to locate it. No entries under golemlabs or dreamweaver were present.

[Devil’s advocate]

The criticisms that Tom Chick and others have made of SuperPower 2 include:

  1. Too spreadsheet-like
  2. Lots of attribute tweaking with no immediate or predictable consequences
  3. Often deviates from historical expectation
  4. Long periods with no action

But as far as I can tell, all those criticisms are equally valid of strategy darlings like EU2 and HOI2. In HOI2, for example, Poland can conquer Germany; if you pick the wrong country nothing will ever happen to you; and there are some buttons that have no immediate effects that you can only push once a year! As for Victoria … don’t even go there!

So what, fundamentally, distinguishes a game like SP2 from the Paradox stable?

[/Devil’s advocate]

The differences between SP2 and the Paradox games? In a phrase, data versus information.

SP2 throws numbers at you with no clue as to how they are supposed to be used or interpreted. Economic data is broken down by industry without a hint as to how all this comes together into a coherent economy. Some industries clearly influence others, others may not. The economy in the worst of the big Paradox games (Victoria) is very easy to figure out since you buy resources, make goods and sell them. Add your tax and you get a daily income.

SP2 has a complete disinterest in what makes global sims interesting. I can set all kinds of domestic policies from gay marriage to abortion rights but I can’t take any military action less than total war. No air strikes, no crisis management, no blockades (an economic embargo, but no military blockade to enforce it). In short, war and peace are given short shrift in favor of SimLegislature where every law is decided by the players fiat at zero obvious cost. The fact that you can drag and drop a million men from the US to Vietnam instantly is further insanity. It’s almost like they spent so much time researching domestic policy that they said “To hell with it” when they got to the soldier stuff.

And I set all these ethical/moral policies with no idea how the people will react to them. Once again, Victoria - a decent but not outstanding game - had public opinion measures. This is anachronistic in the 19th century, but it at least give you an inkling of what your priorities should be. In SP2, at the dawn of the 21st century, you population is mostly a cipher. I know how many practice each religion, but not how many like low taxes. It’s like I can run a national census, but poll taking is beyond my feeble powers. I control all lawmaking, but can’t remember Gallup’s number.

The best example of how this all leads to a confusing mess is the whole stability factor. Europa Universalis had it and there was zero mystery. Action A would lower stability, investing would increase it. You would often accept lower stability to achieve a foreign policy goal - it was a trade off central to the game. In SP2, your stability changes with no information on why. Is it just people getting used to your rule? Which of the fifty policy changes had the biggest impact?

The Paradox games are not all gold. Crusader Kings was a lot of fun, but not great. Victoria was a dog’s breakfast of menus that required a lot of game time to understand. I would argue that they haven’t done a great game since EU2. But there is no denying that they make better grand strategy games than Golemlabs, at least at this point.

The fact that Golemlabs keep trumpeting the “realism” of their games doesn’t help. Never say something you can’t back up.

Troy