So I finally got the time and mood to try out this masterpiece. I was expecting a game that focus on cooperation and surviving the harsh alien environment, yet what greets me is endless war. Like 10 or 20 turns into the game, everyone is fighting everyone in a massive world war that lasts the whole game. Is this supposed to happen? The only AI that doesn't actively seek fighting is the UN faction. Kinda makes the diplomacy pointless and hard to pay attention to the alien story.
I'm playing base game with scient patch.

kinda unless you match up with their ideals perfectly, at least thats been my experience thus far
gotta admit i havent played too much (still under 100 hours combined playtime
from both gog version and my original disks

War war with short breaks. It is a game about conquering the world.

Hmm, when I fight the AI, they do seek peace when I'm winning. But the wars between AIs seem to always rage on until one of them is eliminated. Kinda annoying when I want to try science victory. If my neighbor is expanding ferociously then I have no choice but to backstab them before it's too late. Yeah, I found that I kinda have to follow my neighbors' ideology for a non-domination playthrough, otherwise they will declare war on me in a few turns.

I guess some reviews I read are somewhat misleading then. Still a great game but I wasn't expecting to play Civ 2 in space. Maybe I should also give Beyond Earth a try at some point :p

That is exactly what I felt it was but with some twists and improvements. I suspect they made SMAC right after Civ2.

Not an expert on playing this and do not even have SMAX. Maybe I just play it wrong but for me it is just one long war.

The following is directed at games where these wars are between AI-AI Factions, if your problem is people choosing Vendetta against you, then that calls for other options - mostly "buying" peace until you can buff up your defences and/or finding Allies. A big topic but I'll focus on the question of "general" war-mongery here.

Two things - one specific to your problem and one only associated with it.

Usually if you contact a faction you have at least "Blood Truce" with, one of the dialogue options will be "Call off your Vendetta on my friend...".

When you ask for this, you will either: get a message saying something like It is xxxxx who has pressed this Vendetta, or you will get a message saying "So be it. As a personal favour to you I'll call off the vendetta." [or thereabouts]

Now I am not sure if this ability to ALWAYS force an end to an AI on AI Vendetta is difficulty level dependent, but it always works in my games [I don't play at the highest level].

If you only know one of the Factions involved in the Vendetta, then the Faction you DO know will have the Com frequency for the other and will most likely trade it/sell it to you. [A useful option regardless of Vendetta status.]

Now this might only buy ten turns of peace between these two AI's [Blood Truce only lasts so long] but if you are looking to cut down on total numbers of wars, or if you think Faction A or B being at peace will be to your advantage, then it costs you nothing and may be worthwhile. Just note that a particularly war-like Faction [Believers, Hive, etc] now suddenly at peace may look YOUR way for their expansion! ;)

The second point I'd bring up is that one of the MOST useful early Projects, if you are looking for a more peaceful game is "The Empath Guild" which you can start with only an E3 tech [Centauri Empathy I believe] and which gives you an infiltrator in every faction [very detailed info screens for the other Factions], gives you the Comm Frequency for any Factions that you haven't met [good for diplomacy, tech trading, general trade and alliances] and also gives you 50% more votes in the council than your population would normally get, which means it is likely that YOU can become Governor and get the increased trade associated with that.

[Note that this bonus also stacks with other Projects that increase one's Council vote and with Lal's Faction bonus, making him almost unbeatable unless everyone else votes for one competitor].

Even for players looking to run a Conquest game, this is invaluable since you can peek into EVERY base a Faction has, to scope out their defences, without having to get a Probe team into that particular city/Faction.

So see if you can get one or the other Faction to end or at least delay their Vendettas against another AI and make your games at least a little more peaceful this way... :)

Lasivern

Go to the Social Engineering menu and change your choices to those of a given faction. Contact them and they will be more agreeable to your offers. Then go back in the same turn and change your Social Engineering to the next faction and make a deal with them. Do this as much as you can and then change the choices back to your own. So, it costs you nothing.

To really get a boost, make a colony ship. Send it out away from any trouble and make a colony. Then call up someone and give it to them. The menu choices to click are:

"I have a proposal to make."

"Will you accept a small token of my goodwill and friendship?"

"I shall turn over one of my bases to you." (Scroll down to the base name.)

This should make them Magnanimous toward you. If you make a trade deal with them, then this base will eventually provide you with more than enough energy credits to pay for the colony ship. I always try to do this to an ally that is being wiped out. Good luck!