Steam

I've been using Steam since Half Life 2 was released, really glad to see Total War is going that way.

1. No more searching around the net for updates - games can update automatically
2. Smaller updates - games on Steam tend to get patched little and often so (hopefully) no more 250MB downloads!
3. An end to game disks and CD Keys - you only need them for the initial install!
4. You can download the game from Steam servers ANYWHERE in the world
5. Integrated friends lists, community features, server browsers and matchmaking

I'd also hope for good mod support, Valve have managed it with the Source engine so hopefully CA will follow suit (as Steam will make our normal ways of modding a little more difficult). A Total War SDK? Finally?

Another thing I forgot to mention while in ANY game on steam when you hit shift + tab (only if you set it to be like this, you can have this off or set it to different keys) it brings up a menu where you can chat to your friends, change some steam settings, surf the web with Steam's built in web browser. I really like the web broswer part. It is really usefull if you are lets say looking at gamefaqs or want to check your email or want to be on facebook or check out some cheats or checking to see if the ETW demo is finally released. This means you don't have to alt tab out which take time and then have to load the game back up. Again this works in any and every game on steam.

i was around when steam was first releaste and then it was quite bad program, (word of mouth) only that made me never use steam but now when empire is in steam i created a account and was marveld by the simplicity of the program and if it is a DRM it is by far the best DRM to date (if you need to format a pc game with a securom game in it you first need to uninstall the game) from what i can tell i just need to install steam again and then download the empire and play again..

make me wonder why i never used steam before. :)

Well, I think it was quite bad when they released it, but they patch(ed) it regularly and nowadays it's pretty fine.