I see the Steam release has a HQ texture pack available for free. will GOG have that also?

Yes gog has them. See attached screenshot.

You just need to make sure your game version is 1.0.7.

Currently the offline installer is outdated (1.0.4) and does NOT include them. So for the time being you need to use Galaxy to update the game.

Yep - GOG is really pushing Galaxy. I hate that.

For now I won't buy this game. No need to buy an outdated version. I will wait for a month or so and in the mean time my money goes to something else. Bad luck GOG...

It's been one week as of today.....

EDIT: Offline installer finally updated! Except it is still outdated..... 1.0.7 when it should be 1.0.8.....
HQ Textures are in but .8 fixes some critical stuff.

EDIT2: And now the latest version is 1.0.10. so the installer is once again 2 versions behind.

EDIT3: After all this mess, the installer is finally updated and on par with galaxy. (18/10/2023)

Yeah - Lucky enough the game is now up to date...
I simply wait with buying a game until the off-line installers are up to date.

Sadly you cannot see that (other than in posts on the forum) that the off line installers are the most current.
So I often wait a month or more before buying a game to make sure I am not forced to use Galaxy.

I really hate it that people, that do not want to use Galaxy, are treated by GOG as second class citizens. The whole bloody reason I buy my games on GOG is that I do NOT have to use some garbage client, but here we are. I do not have to explain why I do not use Galaxy (like some people on the forum demand from me), I simply do not want to. Period.

Anyway - After seeing it's finally up to date I bought the game. Let's hope there are no more updates needed, and non-Galaxy users are again presented with the short end of the stick...

You absolutely can actually :)

Just go to https://www.gogdb.org/ type in the name of the game you want to check and compare the changelog/downloads and builds tabs.

Thanks - That's very useful. Very much appreciated...