[raynor]

I think it is pretty good feature of the AI that they maintain their Partnerships even though they are murderous. I think this means that if they were more powerful than you, they would go to war and try to cleanse the universe of you. But right now, they know they can't compete with you and don't want to lose out on the benefits of trade, research, intel, resupply, ship designs, start charts, etc. I think that is pretty cool--as compared to an AI which has 1/10th the resources/tech you have and which randomly declares war on you and loses a trade treaty worth 90% of their GNP.

The disadvantage of the diplomatic model is that in most games you can be all happy and friendly with everyone right up until the turn before you build up incredible defenses capable of standing up against a united AI front and an armada which can utterly devastate every planet in the galaxy...