Well as far I know Steam never has changed the authentification requeriments for any game or for the main tool , but they can do it of course , it says clearly at the EULA , and if says clearly that you have 30 days to agree or to ask for an account cancelation with the possibility of receive a nonsteam downloadable version of any game that you had on your account .
This is not 100% sure of course , specially as you noted above , when we talk about third party games because they wash their hands leaving all responsability for the developer .
It seems that you are a lot worried about securerom and targes problems , Steam and Valve are totally against securerom and targes sistem . Gabe Newell , Valve's owner , said some weeks ago that securerom is a stupid tool and that he is traiying to stop developers to include it in the games that they release on steam . Gabe said that the actual authentification sistem is the best way to protect the games , specially when you are using a tool that doesn't need any cd to install or to run the game . If you don't have Cd you don't need to include programs as securerom that is specially based on the cd/dvd authentification.
YOu can have your doubts , but if you want to paly Empires you will have to use Steam.
Steam is not perfect , but is better than other sistems .
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