For all the talk of the AI being smart about trading, check this out. Oh and he happens to be an ally, (close relations), so diplomacy should not be an issue.

Hey it is not such a big deal, I am just weary of being told the AI can fair trade. Maybe they can sometimes, but more often than not it looks something like this.

BTW another ally refused to sell me a ship for any price. So, the AI gets porked for a ship, the natural embarrassed programmer reaction is I guess, the AI will now not sell a ship for any price. Please, give me a break.

I have been playing against computer AI for more years than I want to think about, and some are better than others, but in the end it is usually helter skelter, shot through with unintended consequences. It doesn't pay to expect too much.

I am playing this game with a few allys to get an idea of whether the AI always spams colonies. As Brad said and I am seeing, if expansion is not high in their profile they do not spam colonies and they perhaps play tall to some extent. As I intimated above, that is a lot to expect from an AI.