I think I did a fair job pointing out the direction I'd explore in
the patch thread. I do wish I had expounded more on the possibilities inherent in making public opinion an issue, but the post was already getting rather lengthy. There's just so much room for the idea because really, the long-term strategy of a race in such an unsafe situation would be wanting to maximize the productivity of their society, or at least maximizing how much of it they could devote to a war effort.
Wars are pointless if they don't result in territorial change right now, and territorial change means genocide. Not only should outposts be the primary objectives in war, but a war should weaken a race more long-term. Right now fleets are raised, lost, and re-raised with abandon; fleets are so easy for races to build that the devs had to put a hard cap in, beyond which the AI chivalrously refuses to build. We're supposed to be the dark mastermind, right? What's the point of manipulating a race into a pointless war if they'll just bounce right back from it, if it doesn't make them stronger?
I think a lot of the hostile options should be looked at too. Steal tech should probably not be a combat mission, maybe not even lose you influence with the target race (it certainly shouldn't lose you with anyone else), and just keep the escalating cost (probably a higher base cost) to keep it from being abused. Sabotage shouldn't have an influence cost on it. Really there's a reason there's no achievement for playing the game without using any hostile acts: I rarely find them useful as-is.
I could go on and on, I'm sure, but at its most basic level the player needs at least one part of the game where they have the ability to perceive a need and go out and meet it using one of many tools; getting Federation members isn't perceiving a need, it's a win condition.