Wow... I made the mistake of picking this game up on Wednesday and just realized that it's Friday now. Turn based strategy games kick my ass. And hiding the CD from myself won't work. You dont' need it to play, or even the CD Key to install.
Yeah, it's great. Haven't played something this solid since Civ 4. And haven't played a turn based sci-fi strat this solid since Master of Orion 2. Developers are awesome too....no copy protection software to bog it down. CD key is used for updates/extras and it installs on the system. They rely on the quality of their product to push their game.