Generally, the likeliness of a faction to declare war on you will depend greatly on your alignment choice. If you are Benevolent, Malevolent factions will most likely declare war on you, and vice-versa. Other Benevolent races will almost never declare war on you, especially if you are not close to winning. The Iconians, for example, have never declared war on me when I play benevolent. The Altarians never declare war on me either, even if they have ten times more power. Pragmatic races may or may not declare war on you, usually depending on things like treaties and borders, and even when they do, they will usually end the fighting much quicker. At least, I have never had prolonged war with a Pragmatic race on the seldom occasion that I do.

The easiest way to maintain peace is to play Pragmatic. Of course, Diplomacy itself is not a very effective part of the game right now for those interested in maintaining peace. They are working on it though, especially with the recent diplomacy updates, so I can only say hang on tight and wait.

Well I am playing an evil faction and I am getting threats and mocking messages from almost every faction I have met so far. I was able to make friends with the iconians by bribing them and by forming trade routes and because we have a common foe but they are my only ally. Even minor races are trying to extort me for money.

Did they actually declare war on you, though? Also, minor races will try to do that all the time, regardless of your faction's strength. It is actually much easier to extort them!

Yup, just got dow'd by a yet another race on the other end of the map. I am now at war with 5 races. Looks like this game won't be won peacefully, if at all.

Seriously guys, this is just NONSENSE. There is nothing realistic about this kind of diplomacy. "Oh sure this nation is located on the other end of the map and has done us no ill, but they are weak so let's kill them for no reason!".

Quoting naselus,

reply 8

I laughed and laughed at this That's pretty much where all those giant European empires of the last 400 years came from... and most of the other large empires previously, though they had smaller maps.

Well those European powers at least:

1. Had the means to get to them.

2. Were controlled by greedy dictatorships.

Even the pragmatic and "good" powers dow me. And regardless of if they can reach me. It means I am cut of from possible trading partners for no reason. It sucks.

 Another thing that drives me mad is that every time I have discovered a new faction I instantly start with the worst relations possible for nothing I have done because all of them start with 3 traits that give me massive diplo minuses:

We love war!

EDIT: What causes this one to happen anyway?

Your planets are ripe for conquest!

Your weak!

Your ideas are different!

Or something like that. It means I am not even given so much as a chance to become friends with anybody I meet. With the exception of the Iconians whom I was able to befriend by sending some traders to them and by bribing them before relations got too low, I have started with horrible relations to every single race I have met and then been dowed by them some time afterward.

Is this how the game's diplomacy works like? Have a powerful army or be dow'd by every race in the game?

The horrible thing is that I am not able to increase my army power because all of my ships are instantly spent defending my empire from alien attacks so my army power remains mostly static, and thus I remain weak. And then because I remain weak I am automatically hated and dow'd by every new race I discover making things even more difficult. It's a vicious cycle I can't escape from.

I have researched some diplomatic techs. I don't have any minuses for diplomatic skills. The other things I mentioned are enough to destroy any relations.

Of course!

Pragmatism means that if they can do something they will do it regardless of morals or ethics.

Good doesn't mean these races are pacifistic, that they are just there as a freegift for aggressors. It means that they are *opposed* to your ethics - which is evil. Just forget about the description for a moment, it could be up or down, left or right etc. The important implication is that it creates a diversity and thus, give a reason to wage war. Without such mechanisms in place you could easily play out any map without being threatened ever...

Then I don't understand why you pick an evil-ethical race but try to play a pacifistic low-militaristic game...? That doesn't make sense...

Ironically the AI tells you what is wrong with your game

getting a military up will prevent some AIs from declaring war on you, and about the ethical mismatch you'll have to accept that there's not much what you can do to do away with that difference. usually eliminate those of different ethics and align with similar ethical factions. if you don't want to do that on your own you could try to support specific empires might do that for you

This is one of the problems with the idea of victory conditions. It makes factions in 4x games behave unrealistically for the sake of winning the game. What happens if I turn all victory conditions off?

I think the advice about building embassies and related buildings is very good - I try to build an embassy on every planet (not always possible especially on the smaller worlds, but that's what I shoot for).

Rapidly research some military weapons techs and start putting hulls in the vacuum. That will deter the distant and protect you from the near-by. I find that my having Planetary Invasion gives them pause. Or gives me ownership of their planets...

Well it sounds like you need more evil races on the game I go 1/3 on all. You either need, or what I recommend which is editing your factions for 1/3 of each ideology.

They have those it's called a minor race.

More imagination required here.

There may be a peaceful Alien race that is simply so powerful, it can`t be defeated by other powerful races, yet it has no wish to overwhelm others simply because it is not `made` that way. Perhaps it had so much time isolated that it became that way. Perhaps it exists in such way it cannot be killed (ethereal for example).

It`s entirely possible for a peaceful alien race to exist which has not been touched by more powerful, violent races, if that peaceful race has some unique characteristic that protects it from violent conquest.

Remember, we must think out of the box. Too often we Humans think aliens should act like how we act. That`s not necessarilly the case because as I`ve said already, they`re alien, from alien worlds.

The Drath were an essential race to keep the game from being boring. The minor races don't like war. You know you could manipulate some ai stradegies to do this perhaps you could make a more peaceful mod for those who like those kind of games. Or you could make these kind of races, by modding strategies.