Galactic Civilizations III was first released on May 14, 2015, and Stardock celebrates its fourth birthday with the release of a new version 3.7 Anniversary Update as well as a sale on the 4X space strategy sequel. This post has all the details on the patch, which is inspired by fan feedback, as well as the sale, which offers the chance to pick up the Core Edition for 85% off or the Gold Edition for 70% off. Here's the overview: "For the game's 4th anniversary, we've focused exclusively on a top-to-bottom series of improvements based on fan requests! These improvements are major quality of life changes that improve the overall experience of Galactic Civilizations III. v3.7 improves ship AI, multiplayer performance, memory use, pathfinding performance, pacing, and the empire management UI, as well as addresses a host of minor bugs. It's available now as a free download for owners of the base game." Here's the change log for the patch:

Gameplay

• Ships are more likely to use hyperlanes (Retribution only)
• AI handles ships more intelligently on larger galaxies in terms of evaluating their target value.
• AI handles building up new colonies better later in the game
• The AI no longer uses the Government as "explorers." (aka fodder)
• Colony Capital now gives +1 raw production for every level it goes up.
• Reduced thruster hull mass modifiers to 0.05% from 25% in both Crusade and the Base game
• Fix some balance issues with weapons and growth improvements reported on the steam forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/4/1771511442695715977/
  Re-Enabled the Fusion Power Plant, but nerfed it to work better as a prereq to the Quantum Power plant.
• Fix mismatched description and value on Precursor Factory world for Morale value. Changed both to 4 from 10, make sure it is not OP.
• Synthetic races can build the Advanced Planet Capital and Terraforming improvements.
• Yor Manufacturing: Increased manufacturing bonus
• Yor Manufacturing: Level one adjacency value is now a multiplier ( for consistency with subsequent upgrades).
• Synthetics can properly colonize extreme worlds.
• Tweaked the leader-game-intro screen and economy summary
• Ship designs that use components removed in Retribution can now be loaded again in Retribution. The old deprecated components are simply ignored.
• Extreme world colony mercenary ships can now actually colonize extreme worlds if Crusade is installed.

UI

• Fixed a typo on the Quantum Power Plant
• Updated the game startup window to work with larger fonts
• Show Morale on the Planet List Entry Window
• Changed Copy, Edit, and Delete buttons on the Civilization Setup Window to be icons instead of buttons.
• Fixed typo in warning message if you stacked multiple Commanders in a fleet.
• Changed "Class" to "Role" label on the Fleet tool tip.
• Changed "Type" to "Role" label in the Fleet Details window.
• Flavor text (English only) tweaks to planet descriptions.
• Grammar cleanup on the Korath.

Bugs

• Ships no longer spontaneously catch fire.
• Fixed a problem where the benevolent-explorers trait wouldn't always spawn a planet: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/1/1839063537784628967
• Fixed rare crash when an AI colonizes a planet with an artifact.
• Fix a startup crash related artifact crash and some custom factions
• Fixed bad Intrigue ship definitions in the United Earth faction
  Fixed an endless credits/research exploit detailed here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/4/1815422173048651922
• Custom factions based on the Terrans now use the expected solar system (earth, mars, etc.): Addresses: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/4/1850323802565175363/
• MP no longer de-syncs because of mismatched custom flavor text
• Fixed moderately common crash in MP caused by the AI losing its train of thought in mid-conversation.
• Change "Kiln of Worlds" to require Promethion instead of PromethionStone (which no longer exists).