Empire requires Internet Acess to Play SP

I took my internet off to test my theory and I was correct It has to launch steam and steam has to have internet to connect. Will not run offline. I am very upset about that

In the top left corner of the steam window, you can set it to offline mode, and not need to connect.

Try this:

Start steam and got to File->Go Offline, then click "Restart in Offline mode"

Now you should be able to play without being net connected.

It gives an error as well as it crashed my computer completely not just to desktop and I am running

Amd 64 3.2 gh 6000+ dual core proc
2 g ram and nvida 9800 gefroce video

I highly doubt that steam caused that.

Were you able to run the demo?

yes just fine except for sometimes I had the same problems with naval battles and sometimes I didn't it was random