Expansion pack needed once AP received?

Not sure. Since AP has it's own directory and since I have seen some posts telling to people with the beta AP to be sure to upgrade to the latest version of galciv, you might think that AP don't update the standard version of Galciv.

But the retail version of AP can be another thing: since they must be sure that it can work for on the first version of Galciv, it possible that the two patchs will be included on the retail version of AP.

But it is just guessing.

AP requires the base install of Gal Civ to run. 

As long as you don't uninstall Gal Civ, you can remove the downloads, since you can always re-download Gal Civ and Altarian Prophecy if necessary.  And you can always burn them to a CD so that you have the backups.

 

ok...say i uninstall everything. From scratch i instal Galactic Civilization from the box (CD) and then AP from the cd and i've got everything, right?

Only if GalCiv from the box is now version 1.20 or later. It says on the AP description on Stardock Central you need at least 1.20

~SDC~

It would not work if you just re-installed from the CD.  You would have to use Stardock Central to download Gal Civ if you delete the patches, or re-download the latest patch.  However, you don't need both 1.1 and 1.2, so you can just keep 1.2.

--Cari 

thanks