If you're feeling brave and ready to experience new bugs before anyone else does (and hints of features hiding somewhere in the background), feel free to give the "Public beta" channel a try - and give the new update a try! Here's a brief changelog:

• Religions in the game! See the rise and fall of faiths! Will the Rationis Lumine come to terms with the followers of Pingoism?
• Emperor mode improvements, including:
  • Direct diplomatic window where you can propose peace / alliances etc
  • War room - where you can see ongoing wars and allocate generals to fronts
  • An option to "step" forward time in smaller increment
• A help screen with all the shortcuts in the game (check it out!)
• Fullscreen mode
• Webbed starlanes
• Shortcut for "Escape" button to close current window
• Setting to disable ALL WILL BE ASHES (ok you guys finally get what you want!)
• Setting to disable Conspiracies (they are a bit underwhelming right now anyway)
• Death match mode - create lists of empires to pre-put in the game
• Fix to show auras when stars are disabled (e.g. show wealth on earth maps)
• A button to make ships fleet commanders
• A big Giant Wheel