State of the Game

[Slaists]

About the ally thing. Ive found it increasingly hard to get any kind of alliances. Even with overwhelming love from another faction they never want to do more than NAP me. Its rather annoying.

How far along are you with your campaign? It gets easier to get alliances as you grow stronger. Also, beat-up AI factions (victims of other AIs) tend to be very willing to ally with you.

Unless your faction has diplomatic malus, it is not that hard to get allies even in the early games. I frequently need to offer the AI to join their wars, etc. though; sometimes a little cash.

The usual sequence is:

NAP, trade, military access, defensive alliance.

The second one is problematic with some factions which are hard-coded (or so it seems) to avoid trading.