I updated the GOG version, successfully. However, I needed to do one more "thing" that was not obvious.
After updating with the 3 available patches, the game still showed version 8.001.
My "fix" was as follows:

For the "8.024" # to show on the main screen, do this:
Copy & Paste ( replace ) DB/Managed/Assembly-C.Sharp.dll file into:
AIWarGame/AIWar_Data/Managed folder

This now allowed the game to show as version 8.024 & removed the "update prompt".