They take into account their special characteristics, anger files and politic files. However, Phong are pacifist race to the extreme. They have even managed to get peace with my new Xi'Chung race, which are genocidal, psychotic and xenophobes.
They DO get in war with Abbidon (which is another peaceful race btw.) on regular bases as if they can't stand them organically.
Note that race relations have two sides of the same medal - your attitude toward them (you don't see it on diplomacy screen, but you can see it if you take control of that empire) and their attitude toward you (mood on diplomacy screen). These two are usually not the same and the AI makes decisions regarding both. On their attitude toward you (the one you can see) depends what treaties they will accept from you, and on your attitude toward them MOSTLY, but not only, depends what will they offer to you (or what treaty level they will offer to you). That makes a diplomacy a little more complex since now is usually not enough to have 1 aggressive empire to make war. The peaceful one (Phong for e.g.) will bombard the aggressive one with peace offers until they accept them (this is what happened to Xi'Chung). Of course the aggressive one may declare war few turns later if the reasons of their angry on the other empire still exist (like territorial dispute). That usually shows a little erratic relationship between two empires that can be seen quite often - they are at war for a few years, then they make trade alliance, and few turn later they are at war again.
[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 03 February 2001).]