Beta 4D of Galactic Civilizations II has been released.  In about 3 months, Galactic Civilizations II will be at a store near you.

At this point we're moving towards feature-completeness and then we'll move onto putting in the final content (i.e. graphics, sound, etc.).  The screenshots you see of Galactic Civilizations II won't look as good as the final game will. 

Beta 4D has a ton of new features but the biggest ones probably revolve around:

• You can now upgrade ships.  You can select individual ships and upgrade them to a different ship that is of the same hull-size. There is a money cost and a time cost. Money cost has to do with how significant the upgrade is and the time has to do with how far away from friendly territory it is.
• We have started to implement the new invasion system. It isn't done yet and it a bit rougher than we'd like but we wanted to get it out there so people can see what direction we're going.
• Pirates are in.
• Minor races are in.
• You can now change the color of the interface for any civilization you choose (for instance, I chose "purple" for my last game).
• The Ethical Philosophy dialog is now in. When you research Xeno Ethics you must choose a ethical philosophy which will give you various bonuses.
• The Civilization Manager is much more complete now
• The new governors for managing ship building and rally points are now in which should drastically reduce micro management of ships.
• Lots of changes to the technology tree, star base modules, and other goodies that you can use to enhance starbases and planets.
• TONS of bug fixes.

Fairly full list of what has been added since beta 4C is HERE.

There's still quite a bit to do which we hope to have done by next week for a beta 4E.  Features we hope to put in by then include being able to upgrade any planetary project into another one, Artifacts, mineral rich zones, etc. on planets finalized, and planetary invasion completed (other than visuals).