I will explain why.

In my recent game I am Vasari Loyalist, having an Advent Rebel ally, and a Tec Loyalist and a Vasari Loyalist opponent, all AI. I have a good economy, have some nice planets on random medium large (my favourite map, it gives some breathing space). So, the problem is, the unfair AI's both have all the fancy stuff from TEC and Vasari pacts, and it is shockingly strong.. without a full fleet they are very dangerous.. With a Vorastra and 2-3 level5+ capitalships the Vasari could easily!! destroy my almost fully upgraded orkulus, no matter I had serevuns, they were shot down very soon by the Vorastra.. And I lost 3-4 capital ships defending a choke point, and they were level4-5 kortuls.. I managed my empire for like a minute and they were so badly damaged I could do nothing to save them.. I almost lost my Vorastra too.. But finally, after getting a real advantage in numbers.. I had a fleet 6 times larger than he had.. I managed tpo destroy his level4 Vorastra, mine was level5, but his ship was clearly superior.. Obviously unfair AI has some advantage from his research benefits, but before this wasn't really a problem for me.. Bombers solved every problem

As Vasari Loyalist I never had problems (if I survived early game and managed to get 1-2 orkuli up on chokepoints), I always had the strongest fleets, impenetrable defenses, a strong titan, but now all these are questioned by the opponent having the effects of pacts.. I only have Vasari pacts (so my pastc), my ally, I don't really now what she is doing.. stupid AI

TEC armor pact and Vasari firerate pact combo is lethal.. I think they have the supply pact that is a huge asset if you have huge fleets.. Their capital ships are superior, their everything is superior due to their pacts..

So people (who play online), aren't these benefits worth their prize? I guess Advent pacts are much weaker, this is what is causing problems in my game, nowhere as good as Vasari or TEC pacts.. TEC armor pact basically makes smaller ships 50% stronger, corvettes too, while making harder objects live longer. Vasari has some good stuff for firepower, making their titan very dangerous, and his capital ships also.. and decreases the cost of metal and crystal (after some time it can spare you a nice amount of credits), and the best pact in the game, TEC supply pact basically gives you a free fleet supply upgrade, late game it can be several times 10 credits per sec, and some metal and crystal.

I know, the slow start (expensive envoys, the time they reach destination, time till relationship bonus goes up) and the mutual relationships that are causing problems.. both people need to send envoys, wait till relationship level rises, research pacts, research envoy abilities for some nice bonuses to give your ally and to accelerate relationship point increase. So it is a very long investment, maybe something could be done to decrease the time needed for some things.

Conclusion: I think there are huge possibilities in diplomacy, it would really be a nice thing to have this as a possibility for a strong empire, and not just trade everywhere, fleet consisting of only bombers and a titan... so monotonic, though specializations may have changed it, haven't played much games online with the DLC yet..

I think it would worth another DLC or a major patch, most players would be happy to have another possible winning strategy, and not having an entire expansion that's features are almost useless now.. (Diplomacy) I feel there are great possibilities in this field.

Sorry if this topic was mentioned before, I couldn't really find a recent one on google, I just wanted to tell you my thoughts on this