I play locked teams because of this... Diplomacy needs a serious looking at... Thankfully though the game is good enough that it's fun with a FFA or X vs X locked game.

While I agree that the diplomacy needs to be changed, I just won my first 4 player game against 3 normal AIs (after 2 previously unsuccessful attempts due to AI gang-ups as you described) by working the diplomacy. The first few runs through I neglected to do the missions, and all that did was make the AI mad at me.

The secret the 3rd time was to ingratiate the AI to me, largely through doing the 'Give me resources' missions. I allied with 2 different AI's along the way, and not once did I get ganged-up on by the AI. In fact I wasn't even attacked by AI (except for the pirates) until about 3 hours in. I won that game in about 4 hours.

I do think that the diplomacy options are too minimal, and are all one-way in nature, and need to be changed. But I now believe that proper use of the diplomacy will keep you in the game for a long time.

Yet sadly diplomacy is the only thing that gives any kind of challenge to the game. I found locked teams FFA way too easy so far.

The AI in this game STINKS and BLOWS.

Default at war is one thing - but absolutely nothing I do can generate peace. I used to enjoy the "peaceful option" in Gal Civ & Gal Civ 2 - apparently in the move to a more RTS like game, Stardock has decided to punish anyone that doesn't want to spend the whole game fighting.

which of the fours x's stand for diplomacy? not just in this game but any game?

I see the point about there not being a peaceful resolution. In my game, it came down to me and my ally being the only ones left, and the allegiance between us was at 100%.

As soon as our last common enemy fell the ai was like, "well, looks like we have to fight this out" and broke our allegiance. too bad for him, because I mopped up the galaxy with him.

But in any case, there should be an option for ending the game at peace with one or more AI opponents.

The "exploit" x could certainly include diplomacy. "Exploiting" a cease fire to gain advantage on another foe, for instance, or "exploiting" a trade agreement to earn some cred.

I dislike that the AI automatically starts out at war with them when you first meet them. It is difficult to build their trust if they already hate you.

Trade Alliance just means they wont shoot your trade ships and your trade ships will go through there controlled areas to get somewhere over going a place that has enemies. so you can still shoot there ships just not there trade ships. so you don't actually trade with them.

I also think the diplomacy needs some tweaking I played a custom map and I allied with the AI in my star but all the other AI's wanted me to shoot my AI teammate by the time all the missions ran out all the other AI allied against me talk about a 1 sided match I didn't stand a chance 8 against 2 and it was mostly my planets under siege.

Don't worry, this should be fixed with the upcoming expansion.

LOL yeah!  I don't recognize any of the names here as currently active forum members.

I was thinking the same about your name.

Nothing beats a good haunting

AIs DO form alliances with each other... you just don't know about it until you figure it out (like their ships not attacking each other, etc).