Stardock has released a new patch for 4X-favorite Galactic Civilizations III. The 1.9 patch adds a lot of fixes that affect all areas of gameplay, especially AI and is a prelude to even greater changes coming to the game in coming patches.

If you're wondering why your GalCiv III hasn't auto-updated to v1.9, it's because this patch is not a typical update. To install v1.9 you must do the following:

1. Select Galactic Civilizations III in your Steam Library
2. Right-click it's name and select "Properties"
3. Select the "Betas" tab
4. Select "opt-in" from the dropdown list, then click close

Once you do the above steps, you should see Galactic Civilizations III updating. If you for some reason don't have the "Betas" tab in your GalCiv III properties, restart Steam and try again.

The most significant things this update brings to the table is vast performance and AI improvements. GalCiv III's AI isn't terrible, but it makes the same weird choices when playing that have affected AI as far back as Starcraft and beyond. One of the worse things the AI did pre-1.9 is that as you approached endgame, the AI would just stop exploring or expanding at all.

Patch 1.9 changes the AI algorithms so that it continues to play as normal, regardless of how long the game has gone on or how large the map is. There's also a plethora of small bug fixes and changes to hull stats.

As GalCiv III Patch v1.9 is in beta, all these changes to the game might not work correctly. If you opt-in and encounter any bugs, Stardock encourages you to report them. You can check out the full patch notes over in the Galactic Civilizations III forums.