The diplomatic AI is wonked
Everyone is friendly at first (with a few raids at first I might add - which seems realistic to me). However, I've had races ask for alliances and then three turns later start disliking, then hating me, and finally declaring war in less than a dozen turns. And I've done nothing to them - not raided them, spied against them, or even trespassed into their space. I think their dislike appears to be tied both to my progress, their lack of expansion room, or my small fleet. Nevertheless, this is pretty unrealistic and frustrating. It sort of takes the role playing out when the aliens act to erratically. This needs to be tweaked.
Also, in my Last game, all aliens hated me rather quickly. I was whipping two races rather easily, and each time, as soon as I met another race, within half a dozen turns, they were declaring war on me and again, I had done nothing to earn that enmity. Again, it seemed to be tied to my progress, not anything I had done. Obviously, if I am dominating, the AIs will gang up - I expect that - but not so blatantly - it needs to be a more measured response.
Another thing, I was beating up on race Y, the archenemy of race X, who had been warning me of race Y for several years. Yet X refused to help me against their archenemy when I asked and declared war soon on me! That makes no sense at all.
I'd also like to suggest that when a treaty of any type is signed, it is signed for "X" number of years, and cannot be broken by either side. Then even if the alien starts to hate me, I can rest assured that I have "X" years to prepare myself. That's one thought, and as I remember it, in MOO, when you signed a peace treaty with an enemy you did have about 10 years to prepare yourself when they could go back against it.
The diplomatic AI is the most disappointing thing about an otherwise great game.
Grifman