Problem running Empire total war?

Hey guys i quit the total war series for awhile and decided to come back, since oblivion modding started to get really boring. i re-downloaded E: TW using the CDs. The installation (as it did before) insists i install steam so i did and created an account and so on so forth. Whenever i try to start the game after installation or any time after it starts to run giving me the empire total war start up screen, but they it just gives up i guess or something and crashes. any ideas?