Affect of military power on relations?

from Stardock Forums

I'm trying to go for an early alliance victory, but if I play a good player the evil races hate me, and if I play an evil player the good races hate me.

I set up all my trade routes with the races that don't like me, and give them lots of stuff, but I still can't get better than "warm."

So I am wondering: Do you need to have a great military to get people to like you? If not, how can I get those other races to like me?
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Several factors go into your problem.

1. The more diplomatic bonus you have the better. So you should never trade diplomatic techs to an AI because they will remain close diplomatically to you. Starting your empire with a higher diplo bonus is a good thing.

2. When trading with AI if you give more than you get that will increase your diplomatic status with the AI over time. This includes giving tech/money away to keep the AI happy, although be careful when you are giving things away.

3. If you are ahead in culturally this helps greatly with your diplo status. This means you should build many culture social projects as possible.

3.1. Offshoots of this which mostly help you are to have a higher population with a good morale. The benefits to a higher pop is more tax and faster production.

4. A large military presence can also help keep your diplo status high with the other AI. This though is not as important as your culture.

5. Bribing the AI to fight with each other while you trade with them will keep the AI busy and may also increase your diplo status with that AI because they are becoming weaker as they fight.

5.1. It may be to your advantage to make sure that a weak AI is not about to be conquered by a stronger AI. If this is about to happen you should invade the weaker AI and take the planet first. This of course increases your production, culture and you also may steal a tech when you take the planet.

6. Finally you may have to do a 1000 Credit x 50 month bribe once or twice to get an AI to ally with you. When you are about to do this make sure that you have around 10K credits in case you have to do this with more than 1 AI.