Solar Axis expands rather quickly

[digitCruncher]

Does anyone have any idea how to stop the Solar Axis from forming? My understanding is that the requirements for creating the Solar Axis are:

Two empires both have at least 2 planets
Both empires have at least +10 relations with each other (it might be +0, but in my case the Solar Axis formed between two empires with 11 and 14 relations with each other)

And the requirement for joining the Solar Axis is:

Your empire has at least 2 planets
You and one empire in the Solar Axis have decent (+0? +10?) relations with each other

And the ONLY requirement for leaving the Solar Axis is:

You and one other empire in the Solar Axis have -50 relations WITH EACH OTHER (initially), and ~100 months have passed (losing 1 relations with each other each month)

So in my case, the Thoraxians captured the Acturians planet (the Acturians where attacking the Burlusts, and left 1 million robots on their planet as 'defenders', and no ships. I tried to intervene, somehow got wiped out in one turn, and spent 12 months repairing my ship).

Then the Evucks and Boarines attack the Peltians. The Peltians have 2 million population (because they have a 0.5 environmental satisfaction) and I can't defend them. The Boarines win, and form the Solar Axis with the Thoraxians.

But the war doesn't stop there. The Boarines are still at war with the Evucks, and the Evucks capture the old Peltian planet. The Evucks now have two planets and positive relations with the Thoraxians, so they join the Solar Axis. But to my surprise, the Boarines, despite having -60 relations with the Evucks, and only one planet, are still in the alliance, and don't block the Evucks joining. I gain influence with the Boarines because of this, but they don't seem to be wanting to leave any time soon...

And of course the Skylaxians and Andor are now at war with the Evucks. The Evucks have a huge bombarding force, but the Skylaxians are woefully weak, so I ignore it. The Skylaxians can't win against the Evucks, and can't even launch any invasions, and the Andor don't capture planets, so I think I have stopped the Solar Axis from spreading ...

But then the Evucks surrender to the Skylaxians. They now have 2 planets, and the Skylaxians are now in the Axis too.

So now I only have 2 empires outside of the Solar Axis. The Andor are my starting race, and I stole their orbital factories and research stations, so I have -400 influence with them. So that leaves the Burlucks ... who have no forces, and about 90 ships currently bombarding their planet.

Obviously I have a lot to learn, but is that really that fair considering that to get two people into MY federation, I need 300 (!) relations between the two empires before they will even consider it (or make a strong / safety coalition, which still requires two pairs of 90 relations)? A lot of the setup was my mistake, and understandably so, but the only viable strategy to prevent the Solar Axis from forming is to simply stop people from invading anyone, full stop.

(PS. I will still keep playing this until the bitter end ... my strategy now is to somehow fight practically everyone, and try to get them to stop attacking the Burlusts. Then build relations between the Burlusts and Boarines, and hope I can form a federation between the two if and when the Boarines leave the Axis)

[lifehole]

See with the last patch the requirements for forming the federation were upped, even though the game wasn't slowed down. Theres a ton of stuff being actively added to the patch notes right now: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Post-1.0_Release_Notes

The main problem being that the federation has to have 300+ mutual attitude to form (or 90 for strong/safety) so what ends up happening is because it's so high, they end up forming the pact first.

I don't know if there's a way to prevent it, but the upcoming patch says it does ALOT to fix the craziness of the game massively outpacing the player.

[digitCruncher]

Ground invasions will no longer try to pull the last few ground soldier population units from a sending planet, to avoid actually emptying out the population.

Aha. So I was using 1.009 .... that would have stopped the fall of the Acutian planet. Which would have stopped the spread of the Solar Axis as there would only have ever been one empire with 2 planets at a single time.

[lifehole]

Ground invasions will no longer try to pull the last few ground soldier population units from a sending planet, to avoid actually emptying out the population.

Aha. So I was using 1.009 .... that would have stopped the fall of the Acutian planet. Which would have stopped the spread of the Solar Axis as there would only have ever been one empire with 2 planets at a single time.

Yep, game is going through a lot of tweaking right now, daily, infact. You'll be seeing stuff change a lot if you take more than a day a campaign. But it's all towards a better goal, I think.

[Histidine]

If the minimum mutual liking for SAP formation is in fact 0 or even +10, I agree that's way too low and it needs to be raised a lot.

[PokerChen]

A second option is to introduce an increased chance of betrayals within the Solar Axis Pact, and the possibility for players to influence/orchestrate one with a member race that joined the axis despite liking the player.

[Draco18s]

If the minimum mutual liking for SAP formation is in fact 0 or even +10, I agree that's way too low and it needs to be raised a lot.

Also this.  I find it hilarious that there are FOUR races in the SAP and that they haven't conquered the whole galaxy yet.