I just bought Galactic Civilizations 2 tonight and I am learning to play. For my first game, should I use any patches or should I play vanilla? I plan on devoting plenty of time to Galactic Civilizations 2, and so I will play on the largest map with the most possible civilizations(just like I do in Civ 4). Can someone please offer me an opinion on patching? Thanks

I would always use the very latest patches.

They are just improvements to the game both in running smoothly without bugs and gameplay balancing or additions. There would be no reason why you wouldn't want the best patch available.

Agreed with Sahkuhnder, always patch to latest version.

The first thing I do after installing a new game is check for the latest patches.