Even Medium-seized galaxies crash now

Nope, none of that. Like I said, it made the PC act as if it had a heat problem and just automatically shutdown. Not a "crash," but the computer TURNED OFF. I'm sitting there and the screen goes dark and the "power on" button is out on the PC (laptop). 

Sometimes it does it early on but usually lets me get a few turns in. Other times, it lets me play a little while then goes out. Then I'll load from the auto-save but the more that gets explored/built, the faster it crashes. I would think it's a heat issue on MY end, but if that were indeed the case, the thing would "power off" on OTHER programs or when the system gets overtaxed for whatever reason.

As it is, I'll reboot, close anything I don't have to have on startup, go into the game immediately, and I'm lucky if I get 15 mins before Crash City, USA happens again.

As for the patch, I'm not sure. I looked for version numbers on startup or maybe under the menu after startup and I just cannot find a version number. However, I do get that patch version update window....I hadn't played in a long time and recently tried again - I like Civilization V and this is like Civ in space to me, so I tried. 

Never got any crash report or anything. Just the computer decides to shut down. I made sure my specs on this older laptop are good enough to run the Medium galaxy, and it says you need 2 cores 8 Gb RAM, which is what I have, plus the 4 Gb video card. When I bought the PC about 6 years ago, It was considered a pretty high-end machine. Not so much now, but still it's not completely obsolete, especially with the video memory, but I don't think the VRAM is the issue. Could the game somehow be causing my laptop PC to generate too much heat?

I did some poking around while writing this response and steam is set up to auto-update and it appears I'm on v. 3.6, but only guessing as I can't find something saying "THIS HERE IS VERSION 3.6" or whatever, but the poking around to a link took me to the page for v 3.6.

Uploaded the file you asked for here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xKTqo34i0SYVvtqlCUYTrA4iLIX45STi

I really like the game and would love to play it. Thanks for your timely response and interest in the issue.

Keo

Does your laptop have any overclocking for CPU and how old is the machine?

It says it can overclock but I've never tried to. Doesn't mean it doesn't try on its own. the PC is about 6 years old, but again, this is the ONLY program that causes it to just shut off the way it does. I posted the link to the error file so I hope that helps point in the right direction. The old/worn sticker says 2.4 GHz with turbo boost up to 3.0 GHz but that made no difference to me as I just don't over-clock computers because of possible heat issues/overwear it can possibly cause.

The version number is displayed in the lower right corner.

When was the last time you cleaned the fans of dust or changed the thermal-paste of your machine?

Have you tried lowering the graphic options and see if that makes a difference?

I'm on v 3.6

I checked the vents and they're clean, I hear the fan running, but haven't opened it up to clean dust off the fan itself. I still think it's acting like a heat issue would. Unless you have any other ideas, it looks like my best bet is to find the tiny screwdrivers, open the thing, and clean and dust inside. I'm sure there's some there - I have 2 cats so it likely needs it anyhow - but my head-scratcher is why it only does so on the one program.

The way GalCiv 3 works is that it uses your CPU cores more efficiently than most other games. Each core is pushed independently. This can lead to higher temperatures. I'd recommend trying to get your laptop cleaned properly, maybe re-pasting the heatsink too. Alternatively, you can try to limit the CPU clock speed by disabling turbo. One other thing you can try is to get a cooling mat for your laptop, they're pretty cheap to buy on Amazon.

At any case, this sounds like your laptop is getting on in years and might not be managing heat so well. Ultimately you should want to look into getting a new laptop now that it's 6 years old. You don't need a super gaming rig for GC3 or anything but even a mid-range laptop or entry-level tower is going to give you a better experience.

Thanks, but I don't have the money to get a new laptop and it still runs everything I need other than this one game. I'll try the inexpensive fixes first. If nothing works, oh well....software always gets bigger and more complex, not smaller and simpler. I do appreciate the help though.