Was watching some Youtube Video's of Hegemony: Phillip and some people were mentioning that they were unable to conquer certain towns and there was talk about illegitimate copies of the games and longbow putting out fake/deliberately corrupted files to torrent sites.

If this is true can I just say Bravo! I have been really impressed by your 'No-DRM' stance previously but was worried that it might hurt a small indie developer quite significantly. I very much like your attempt to mitigate damage while still treating your real/actual customers with a degree of respect by with-holding intrusive DRM (or any DRM for that matter).

Also, I want to just put it out there once again that I am very much looking forward to Rome and will be looking to prepurchase as soon as I become aware of the option.

I whole-heartedly disagree with the OP. As someone who bought Phillip on Steam, upgraded here, and plans on giving you money for Rome here, I 100% disagree with DRM or silly little ploys like this. I won't buy the game if it has DRM.

I whole-heartedly disagree with the OP. As someone who bought Phillip on Steam, upgraded here, and plans on giving you money for Rome here, I 100% disagree with DRM or silly little ploys like this. I won't buy the game if it has DRM.

Are you unable to read?
I said I was happy with their no DRM stance and I like the company for not using DRM at all.

I found something amusing because it makes life difficult for pirates but has zero effect on a legitimate customer because there is NO DRM. But as it turns out the company didn't do these "silly ploys" as you say. Turns out the people who put it on the torrent site just made a mistake (or the person playing was a moron). So chill out on your anti-DRM crusade and check out if you are having a shot at the wrong people or not.

:(

The main problem I have with DRM is that its not really designed with the target market in mind. I'm in college so most of the time I get to play games on my comp is when I have no internet access, and thus have a legimate excuse not to be studying something. I'm sure the same could be said of many others, espicially in this particular market(PC and Strategy), I don't pirate games so the only other complaint I have against DRM is the inflexibability for modders.

As for "silly little ploys", I can't see whats wrong with the torrent thing. The game is incredably cheap and a good buy to boot when contrasted to the other PC options, such as the average rushed, bugged EA game. The only reason I see people torrenting this game is because they are even cheaper. While making a move like putting up bad copies purposely on torrenting sites would be quite unseemly for a large, well-known developer, I don't see any reason a small indie wouldn't find it a logical path.

To be honest, I didn't even though there were hegemony cracks out there until this thread. I regular many torrenting sites, as many people make software and put it up as freeware that regularly equals, or at least comes close to, the mainstream(and usually quite overpriced)alternatives for whatever the software does. I've never seen any Hegemony torrents whatsoever.

As for my opinion of the whole issue, keep in mind that the demo downloads the entire game, and the game's coding isn't difficult to get into. It doesn't take the team that made the Stuxnet worm to successfully crack a demo copy for personal use. While they may be impossible to stop, they arnt the problem - its the fact that some of them will put it up for others. Its an obvious fact that out of the many who pirate software of any kind, the vast majority have no hand in actually cracking the software in the first place, very few are even close to knowing how. If those who do crack the software just kept it to themselves, software piracy would barely make a dent on any company's profit margins. That being said, I'm in favor of anti-piracy measures, providing they don't sacrifice the integrety of gaming in the process(DRM).

If Longbow started or was doing something along the lines of what the OP thought, I would give them a round of applause.

Drm actually encourages piracy more than it discourages it, it puts a limitation on the legitimate owner, and pirates get around that limitation, what do you think is more prefferable, unable to play your game because the ubisoft servers SUCK or the pirated version Which has NO DRM.