Not being overly confident and enjoying the safety of having allies, I started a 3v2v1 game, with all easy AI apart from the single player, who was unfair. I then made sure the teams were locked, to ensure that I wouldn't have to worry about not completing missions and losing my allies. Great.
I was palying the game and I realised I was still able to go to war with people, and i thought great, I can break the alliances if I want, give myself a hard time once I'm sufficiently built up. All was well until my allies decided to go to war with me, and I discovered the teams weren't locked. Not only this, but they had allied with the rest of the AI, so it was me v the rest of the galaxy.
I'm pretty sure this isn't meant to happen, so what am I doing wrong? I'm using the Mars Effect atm, but I wouldn't have thought it would unlock teams for me. Cheers.