Hi everyone,

I got this a little while ago, and I've figured out the basics and the mechanics, but a couple of things are stopping me from really enjoying this much.

I don't have the time to try to get into multiplayer, and 1v1 vs the AI is a joke, so I'm trying to play some 2v2v2 games with an AI teammate on my team.  But two glaring things occur to me:

1) When I'm playing a fixed team game like this, I don't want to have to deal with the diplomacy system (which I hate really).  The possibility of losing my ally because I don't want to attack their targets (who might be on the other side of the solar system) is annoying, but a much MUCH more annoying problem is that my teammate keeps making peace treaties with many of the AIs.  Their fleets are sitting around in systems with enemy forces or defending my systems, but just ignore enemy forces from one or more of the enemy AIs.

Is there some way to prevent this from occurring?  Not much of a teammate who won't fire on the enemy.

2) Is there a simple way to order the AI around a bit, so I can tell them where to attack or defend?  Enemy teams seem well able to coordinate strikes, so its pretty frustrating when I can't get my teammate to do anything in concert with me.

Thanks for your help.