Because the forum itself tells us the date on which you've made your post...
...it is unnecessary to specify yesterday's date, because anybody who wishes to know that information can simply infer it from what's already provided by the forum software.
As for whether you need the CD in your disc drive to play, or whether there is some key-based copy protection, that's probably written on the box, as well as other places like the manual (as Sylvester pointed out).
Fighting Steel is pretty old, so I would assume whatever copy protection it may have would be pretty straightforward. I'm sure everything will become clear the moment you put the CD in the drive and try to install.