I was thinking that. TEC Rebels, Advent Loyalists and Vasari Loyalists are probably harder to build relationships with because all they want is to destroy the other factions.

Tec Loyalists, Advent and Vasari Rebels are more inclined towards peace.

Ive posted about this before too. They have hamstrung a lot of the diplomacy in rebellion. Hopfully somthing that will be fixed. As it stands you only seem to have a chance getting a ceasfire, and especialy a peace treaty with somone that is your race AND faction. And dont count on getting pacts at all. The AI wont send envoys and in  the last build of diplo they mad it so you need both of you to have the high approval numbers. Really. I like you, and want a pact with you, why does the game seem to think im leary of you.

Pat, how does this prevent multiplayer pacts, or how is it implemented?  And what about if there is locked teams?  Especially since locked teams are the most common form of online games.  I don't think it limits multiplayer at all!  But maybe I am missing something? 

It definitely screws with the AI, and I agree with StarFall, that displomacy is hamstrung in rebellion (unlocked single player).  Probably primarily because the relations penalty between hostile races has been increased so much without an offsetting mechanic? 

Getting differing pacts with another race is sooo much better than with your own race.  There needs to be a reasonable means of accomplishing that. 

Yea, except with two people, all you have to do to "build relations" is give each other the basic missions over and over and research the early diplo upgrades. Send each other 2-3 envoys and you have your early pacts. The slowing process is minimal to what it was before. And as others said its common in multi to just have set teams off the bat anyway. All the current diplo build does is make AI dumbness stand in the way of a diplo strategy. It was bad enough in the final diplo build (i purposely didn't upgrade to the final patch for months) but with the new faction modifiers in rebellion its just plain untenable. I understand if your playing TEC rebs or Advent Loyals it should be pretty hard to get foreign relations since they are all about hate and xenophobia. But there should be little to nothing in the way of REC loyals and advent rebs from being able to ally with each other and get pacts cause that part of their story/strategy (or was that final scene in the intro cinematic a lie? )