Okay, so this was a new game started after the .70 alpha upgrade released before Christmas break. I had been playing version .65 and then noticed the separate download on the epic games launcher, so I installed that which installed as .70 alpha. Then, I decided to just start with a clean new game in a single galaxy universe with three opponent races in .70 alpha to make sure no artifacts or conflicts would arise from the .65 version of game saves.  How do we go about "verifying our files" as you suggest?

Again, where do I go to verify that I have the latest updates? Physically where do I go in the game to see which version i'm running and how to manually update it if need be? Because I don't see any options to do that and the only spot in the game that explains which version i'm using simply says: Version .70 alpha. The game doesn't auto-update as far as I can tell and I don't know which screen to look at and where it is in the game to see the complete version information?!?

It took me awhile to find that too.  Clicking on the ... not very intuitive.  I agree most games do show full version in game itself, but this is an Alpha, so we'll have to cut Stardock some slack