Steam for Empire Total War game

[Snakebyte1]

Hi..

I'm not a gamer, but I like playing Age of Empires and Empire Earth and such from time to time. I was interested in the new Empire Total War, but as I researched it seems to be that you have to subscribe to the STEAM service in order to activate the game on line, and then even to run the game.

I don't play online, I just like to buy the game, install it and play. I don't like this idea of having to install this Steam client and forcing me to authenticate each time I want to play the game.

Am I misunderstanding how this Steam thing works? Seems like a bad deal to me.

[rallynavvie]

I had to load Steam to run Empire: Total War as well. There is a CD version of the game but the Steam version allows slightly easier access to the DLC add-ons that are available for the game so I went with the downloadable version through Steam. Steam also notifies you when there are updates available for the game. Since it's used for a lot of other games it acts almost like a launcher app for games, managing their updates and such. It also makes it easier to join multiplayer games in some cases. I think it does require internet access for any authentication purposes but most people have broadband connections these days so it isn't often an issue. I'm not sure if there's a way to play "offline" though and if there are they likely can't be discussed here.

I didn't like the idea of installing Steam either but I did it and it doesn't really bother me much. I recommend using a shortcut directly to the app instead of launching through Steam since sometimes there are some ads and stuff you have to click through that can be annoying.

BTW that game is evil. "One more turn" becomes 7 hours of gameplay before you know it