Owners of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar can now upgrade to version 1.8. For the past month, we've been putting v1.7 through its paces and ultimately decided due to the level of change to release it as v1.8.
The new version includes a ton of new features such as new planetary governors, an event log, a detailed lease screen, a local high score screen, updated AI, improved planetary improvement graphics, memory optimizations, improved performance, and more.
This free update is available for download via Stardock Central.