I purchased Vanilla Hegemony off steam a number of weeks back. I was really enjoying it, until my empire was too big and the game became bogged down in tedious micromanagement.

I came here to figure out if there was a solution I was missing, and I see that there is a Beta version of Gold which I could download. Great! It sounded like many of my complains would be addressed. I downloaded the Beta and played thru the first 'chapter', when suddenly I get a 'buy now for $29.99' screen and a dump to desktop.

That is unfortunate. I thought that if I owned Vanilla, then I could play the Beta of Gold with no problem... is that not the case? Is there any direct upgrade path for me? I understand and would be willing to pay a few extra buckos for the upgrade, but I'm not particularly interested in dropping another $30...

Um, the download centre (I think) should have a different serial key thingummy for the Gold, if that helps.

It does help, and I figured it out. Thank you!

You have to insert your serial key for Vanilla and receive a new one for Gold. Then register the last one and you are free to download the latest Gold Beta. Try searching in the download centre, its somewhere there.