Refresher course on race relations.
This game has three levels of race relations. The lowest level is the default posture. The next level is race specific and the highest level is the planetary defensive state. The higher levels override the lower levels. To be more specific...
The default posture governs how your race will relate to new races when you meet them for the first time. If you have adopted an aggressive posture then you will automatically be at war with any race you meet. If you are peaceful by nature, then you will be at peace with the new races you meet.
Once you have encountered a race, the default posture no longer affects your relations with that race. Instead, you may specify, on a race by race basis, whether you are at war or peace. This will govern how your forces will react to these races when you meet them again.
(Remember your turn report displays how you wish your forces to react to the other races. You can only infer from your encounter reports how they feel about you.)
Finally you have an option, on a planet by planet basis, of further defining how you wish to relate to the races of the galaxy. Planets may be set to react defensively to all alien ships that approach them or they could be set to peacefully welcome with open arms all ships that approach them. By default, planets will conform to your racial settings and react as if your ships were meeting at a neutral world. If the races are at war then your ships will fight. If not, then not.
This option on setting your planet defensive state allows a race to be friends with another race but set boundaries on that friendship. Also, this option makes it difficult to determine exactly what is the current relations between two races since they may be at peace and yet still fight at a defensive planet. This bit of uncertainty makes diplomacy all the more important and could drive a wedge between potentially stable alliances.
The indiscriminate elimination of all alien life forms typical of the defensive planets may be undesirable in some cases. For example, in a Galaxy Explorer team game, some players may wish to close some planets to all other races but not their team mates. In this case one can declare the respective race an ally, and thus not only have peace with it, but also grant it the right to orbit one's defensive planets without taking any damage.
Commands: (these are case sensistive)
; ; for setting default posture ; O DEFAULT PEACEFUL O DEFAULT AGGRESSIVE ; ; for setting race relations ; ; declare raceName an ally O ALLY raceName ; declare peace to raceName O PEACE raceName ; or, fully equivalent A raceName ; declare war on raceName O WAR raceName ; or, fully equivalent W raceName ; ; for setting planet defensive state ; O CONFORM planetName O DEFENSIVE planetName O PEACEFUL planetName