Hello,

In this v2.8 update, we've streamlined lined base game experience, improved ship defenses, adjusted population mechanics, and added some general quality of life improvements to the game.  Please read below for details.  

Gameplay

• Major boost to defenses: Defenses are now reduced by the square root of damage rather than full damage making defenses much better.
• Balance pass on defenses based on new combat update that makes defenses a lot more worthwhile.
• Updated AI ship blueprints to reflect the changes to the battle system.
• Peacekeeper event won't trigger until at least turn 200 (instead of 100)
• Defenses on Peacekeepers reduced so that they can be worn down faster.
• More AI research focus attention
• AI improvements to planetary improvement choosing.
• AI better at early game administration resource and late game invasion legions
  Upgrading to a ship to a colony ship class penalty increased.
• AI now will adjust how big its fleets need to be based on the assignment of the fleet.  Thus, scouts and survey ships don't need escorts while mega fleets now need larger fleets.
• AI smarter at picking quality ship designs.
• AI much better at going after key technologies based on the conditions of the game
• Tweaked the AI fleet governor to use defenders.
• Pacing improvements for the Crusade tech tree.
• Commander ships are no longer stackable in a fleet
• Adjusted the culture tree to be more in line with the planetary improvements
• Cultural Festival now requires Cultural Influence
• Streamlined the base game tech tree.
• Decreased the spacing between civilization starting positions and pirates
• Base game laser weapon now comes with Militarization tech.
• Set default colony ship population to 1.0
• Minimum population for colony ships increased from 0.5 to 1.
• Nerfed several of the crazy Lost Treasures DLC rewards
• Navigation Center is now a Galactic Wonder
• Eliminated ship moves going up based on the level of certain planetary improvements
• Required starbase spacing reduced from 4 to 3.
• Mega Resort -- changed the bonus from +25% bonus to a flat +4.
• Financial buildings now provide +1 to influence growth
• Galactic Navigation Center global moves decreased from 3 to 1 (yeeesh!) ...and it now longer provides an additional 0.5 points per level! (double yeesh!)
• Galactic Navigator's Guild benefit reduced from providing 4 moves per turn to 1!...and it no longer provides an additional 0.5 points per level in moves!
• Galactic Mainframe research bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5
• Starport level benefit increased from 0.5 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase Promethion cost reduced from 10 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase Duranitum cost reduced from 5 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase improvement increases by 0.5 instead of 1
• Changed the default invasion from 1 legions to 2.
• Industrial Sector maint reduced from 2 to 1

UI

• In the ship commands, "Go to" renamed to "Auto Pilot."
• Cosmetic change to the FOW color.
• Cosmetic change to the size of ships on the main map.
• Cosmetic change to the starbox visuals.
• When receiving messages from a Civ, it names the Civ in the title bar.
• Added tooltips to the various "idle" button states.
• Added tooltip support for notifications.
• Updated message for insufficient population to eject a colony ship to "Unreserved colony population is less than the minimum ship load" so that people will know that colonies have a reserve population.
• Added dialog if the game fails to start because the graphics driver fails to initialize.  This is usually caused by out-of-date drivers.  
• Added a warning if your graphic drivers' date is older than 2013.

Bugs

• Crash fix in the event that the AI can't negotiate with another AI for a tech trade.
• Base Game: Custom factions with the "Raider Ship Style" will now get the proper ships awarded by events and anomalies.
• Fixed crash in battle tooltip if privateer is stationed by itself in a starbase or shipyard
• Fixed several improvements tooltips that were saying they were both "one per player" and "one per galaxy"
• Fixed typos and sTough
• Fixed typo.  Near bay ships...to Nearby ships.
• Recruit Celebrity requires an Aurorus Arbortetum instead of Helios Ore because, uh, why would any celebrity be interested in raw ore? How does that even work? Hey, famous movie star, here's some metallic ore for you. Please do a USO tour. Because... you know, you'll get some ore!  As the famous saying goes, you will attract more celebrities with flowers than...ore.
• Fixed shipyard window to always show the military production generated by the sponsors regardless of if there's a ship in the build queue or not
• Fixed issue in influence system where it was displaying "Foreign ship in your ZOC" alerts for ships owned by allied players
• Fixed AI related multiplayer desync bug  
• You can no longer launch empty colony ships from a starbase.