For those looking for act of war (one of my fav RTS) you can get it at gogamer.com for $9.99
here. Shipping is usually a few $ for dirt cheap and I always get my games in 2-3 days (Cali to Seattle)
Anyway, I'm a huge fan of the total war series and can't wait for empires, real naval combat will be so much better than the instant, click and die variety. The only really crappy part about the most recent Med 2 total wars was that they screwed up the multiplayer. Instead of being able to add computer controlled enemies you could only play people which is very odd considering the single player campaign has all the AI all-ready programmed in. One of my fac parts of Rome:TW was when my brother and I would defend a city against 3-4 attackers... man that could bring my old pc to it's knees.