For people who are willing to put up with some rough edges, we have made the beta of 1.2 available on Stardock Central (see downloads area) to anyone who has purchased Galactic Civilizations II.

There is a pretty significant list of changes (see the link below) of what's in there.  Everything from a modified battle system, updated AI, user interface enhancements, as well as support for modding with the starts of our example mod.

Mods in GalCiv II are very powerful. The final example mod will actually provide an alternative UI, an alternative set of alien civilizations with an alternative tech tree.  One can imagine people creating total conversion mods where GalCiv II is basically just the engine for whatever sci-fi turn based strategy game you want.

But remember, it's still a beta so there are some rough edges in there. We expect to release another beta next week and then move to a final 1.2.