[AgentZero]

That's what I'm saying. If a telepath proposes a deal to an alien and the image they recieve back is that of a large carnivore attempting to mate with a tree, even if they know the carnivore is something called a Hergart and the variety of tree is a Smengart Tree, they still won't be any closer to knowing what the alien actually thinks of the deal. And if they don't even know what a Hergart or Smengart Tree is, they'll stand no chance at all.
It's only when actuall communications between the two races becomes possible that they would discover that "Your Hergart is humping my Smengart Tree!" is an expression used when presented with a deal that seems too good to be true.

On another line of thought, I'd like to see a bit of work done on the 'Demands' system. At the moment, if I have ships in another empire's space, and they demand I remove them, I can accept their demand, but do nothing. Odd thing about this is that since I continually accept their demand to move the same ship, my relations with them end up getting better.
I think if you (or especially the AI) accepts a demand to move ships, the ship should be automatically given orders to leave the system. If you countermand those orders to make it stay, your relations with said empire would worsen. Also, if you're contantly being sent demands to remove your ships, it should worsen your relations with other empires, since they'll start worrying about their space being invaded by your nosey little scoutships next.