The newest patch should be good. Public patches are typically happy with any older version, although in the past, daylight savings time has been known to confuse it.
You will probably want to get the Imagepacks while you're installing.
http://bt.spaceempires.net/download....7_2007.torrent
They're fully backwards-compatible addons to the stock graphics; includes new weapon animations, components, facilities and space objects.
Note: This does not change the stock game, but the majority of mods out there have the imagepacks as a dependency.
(Downloading and installing them once saves lots of time and space)