I am a great fan of the Total War series of games and it was total horror i discovered you need to use the highly annoying, buggy and unreliable steam to actually install the game and probably to play it. After having a terrible time getting the equally crappy Galactic Civilisation equivalent of steam (I can't remember its name as I have totally uninstalled it and no longer play any of those games which require it). Can I please beg the designers of the game to not use steam's - or at least offer those who buy the boxed game the option of avoiding it.

Perhaps this is suitable in countries which charge for bandwidth rather than downloading data, but in my country the updates can take several hours to download and it can end up costing me a fortune, which makes the game valueless.

I have always avoided steam based games, but my love of Total War overcome this - unfor7nbtaly the experience has been so awful I will probably return the game and will never purchase any others which require steam. (Or scream)

Now for some useful hints. If you are installing the game from the boxed version remeber to use the registration code at the rear of the game manual and not the special forces units. Once installed, it will take several hours to download the updates. You may find yourself getting a "The steam servers are too busy to handle my request?" before the installation occurs. Unfortunately you will have to keep on re-trying until the inital patches down load. The system may try and download the full game, which will take multiple hours if you don't live in the US or UK (or Korea). You will have to kill it and re-try. If you search for "empire total war The steam servers are too busy to handle my request?" on goggle you will find the web is filled with other folks who are experincing the same issue. You can find some useful hints.

My final comment is, if you find steams annoying, please voice your concern.