Forum Rules and How and Why to Register your Game

So you have bought Darkest Hour. Congratulations!

And now you wonder why you should bother to register it.

Why you should register:

When you register the game you are allowed full access to the Tech Support, Bug Reports, Multiplayer and User modifications subforums. It also gives you a nice, shiny icon that is displayed under your avatar/login name. Shiny!

NOTE: You will not receive any support on the forum unless you register!
This is because Paradox wants to avoid wasting time tracking down bugs that only exist in illegal copies.

Also only people who have their game registered will be able to start threads in most of the forums here.

Privacy issues

One common reply from people who don't want to register is concerns about privacy - "I don't want to give away my address so you can spam me with junk"
Simply register the game by entering the key provided into the correct slot under "my games/registrations" It does not ask you for any additional personal information whatsoever, and is only connected to your account info you yourself provided at the time of registration for posting here on Paradox forums, so that the system will only recognize the game as belonging to the account created here. That is all.

Players did not want games that contained any form of anti-piracy software directly on the software that so many other game companies utilize and make such software difficult to use, hence this system of registration, which allows Paradox to have some way to ensure that access to game improvements is provided to those who legitimately acquired the software. This system makes no further requests for information other than that which you already have associated with the account you created here and the key that came with the game itself.

How to register

At the top of the forum page, there is a link named My Games/Registrations. To register, you go here and enter your key.

If you have bought the game from GamersGate, the key is on that website under "My Games".

If you bought the game through Steam; right click on the game in Steam to bring up a menu that has viewing the CD key as an option. Note that you need to have installed the game for the key to show up; For reasons only Steam knows the key is provded as a DLC, so you have to install the game to be able to view it.

Once you have your key, you need to copy the key into the correct field (the Darkest Hour one). The key you have from Steam is 5x5 digits, but the registration only asks for 6x4 digits. Just fill out the digits one by one, and drop the last one left over. So if you have a key of the form 12345-12345-12345-12345-1234X, you need to fill out the forum key like this: 1234-5123-4512-3451-2345-1234, ignoring the last character "X".

If your key does not work, contact support@paradoxplaza.com.

Note that, once you have registered, there is no official procedure to "unregister"; so if you intend to give the game as a gift or sell it second-hand you should not register, so that the final recipient can register it in their own name.