Any chance of getting Defensive Alliances?

In my last game I thought I would make a departure from my usual cultural victory strategy and go for a (hopefully peaceful) alliance victory. I ran into the Arceans early on, cranked up my trade with them and was soon allied. They weren't going to be good for much, tucked off in a corner, but I figured I had to take what I could get. In the end, I should have just killed the losers, since they ended up being more trouble than they were worth...

Next I started working on the Altarians on the other side of the galaxy... when I was interrupted by that @!$% event that gave massive planet quality increases to everything within a few sectors. (And this was using 1.01a, where allegedly the event had been nerfed?!) Lucky for me it happened in the dead center of Drengin space, where each sector had 12 or more planets. ;-(

Made the game exciting, I guess -- but having to do ground assaults half a galaxy away against systems with 12+ billion inhabitants (and that was only because I went to war immediately, before the systems could be developed) distracted me from the Altarians for a bit. In the end the last of those systems to fall had a population of 95 billion... I gave up assaulting that one and just culture-flooded it.

So... that problem dealt with, I went back to building up my relationship with the Altarians -- for about 2 months. Because then my "allies" the Arceans revealed themselves as a bunch of psychotic war-mongers by declaring war with every minor race plus the Altarians.

To preserve my alliance, I had to join the Arceans in their war... and this is my problem. Historically the vast majority of alliances have been defensive ones -- if one of you is attacked, the other one helps. You'd have to be an idiot to write someone else a military blank check like the alliances in GC do. Even if you don't actually contribute to the wars, you're still forced to declare it, and you can kiss you relationship with other races good-bye.

So, is there any chance alliances could get changed to be more reasonable? Or even just add a defensive alliance option, so that you only need to go to war with someone if they attack your ally?

J
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