What does entering into "Alliance" Do?

Entering into an alliance:
- the most important reason is to allow you to win an Alliance Victory
- closest relationship so you should be able to trade better and they are nicer towards you
- when going to war there is a chance that they will too with your enemy, however it is not obligated to do so.
the reverse is also true, if your ally goes to war, then you have the option to follow

The alliance is slight flawed IMO, since there isn't any decent way to help your ally - protect their planets or starbase. Neither will they help you defend your property. Starbases won't help you either (unless voted by the UP) so if you are the weaker race in a war which happens to be a buffer between your ally and it's enemy, you will lose very quickly.
You cannot orbit your allies' planets and cannot get stuff for free very easily especially if you are losing.

What makes it worse, is that the AI (or you) can make peace with the enemy afterwards yet still be allied (since you opted to go to war to stay allied) and can still be obliterated by the enemy with the ally not doing anything at all (since they are not in war). It's wierd.

The only reason to enter an alliance is to win the alliance victory.

Theyve missed out on a huge oppitunity for some tactical meneuvering involving coordination between the player and the AI ally. For example a secondary priority of AI ally ships defending player ships (perhaps un-armed ships or weaker combat vessels) if there are no other AI ally ships in range etc. Or actually coordinating an attack on a region of space together.

Or you could outline a particular overall strategic battleplan in the diplomatic window like, "Fall back and defend Altean territory"* or "Advance and do a cleansweep of Drengein territories but leave planets" or a set of objectives to follow in a particular order 1) "Clean sweep" 2) "Planetary invasion phase". Going a step further provide coordinates to actually attack, like "Attack ship at these coordinates ".

Sounds simple but is probably quite complicated to actually code for to get realistic behaviour in this regard.

* Territory being regarded as the extent of your cultural influence not just the planets you occupy. So that space and the ships that lie within itself can be defended and attacked

Also noteworthy -- the two times I bothered with an alliance, if I didn't rush to my ally's aid, my former ally declared war on me. The AI -- I suppose I should say "all of them" -- just can't seem to keep itself out of wars, period.

I disagree.
I played a game where I allied with the Terrans. They were much more powerful than me, but I used them to do war for me against my ennemies. It worked very well!

And even if they were way more powerful than me, they were really nice to me, as I was doing lot of trade with them. I suppose my alignment was important in that situation too.

I often use the alliance to give me a little more time before I can really kick ass
Then I choose between the various kinds of victories!

alliances are really flawed imho
they just dont offer any decent advantages (except diplomatic victory)

it would be cool if starbases always gave the advantages to allies (without UP vote)
and something like "share tech" should be an option for alliances

on earth this is done: scientists work together worldwide and research the new technologies across borders
the licensing then is done by the industry but the research itself is not restricted to countries
likewise, it would be awesome if allied players could simply combine their research points and researched techs become available to both races
everyone still pays for the tech he produces but the tech points are simply added together
this would not add additional research points but it would eliminate any overhead (allies dont have to research a tech twice)
it would also allow for more distinct roles:
i ally with the drengins, i go 100% research and dont produce anything and they go 100% production and put my shiny new weapons on their ships

this would be really cool but kinda hard for the AI to do ... maybe with some heavy scripting ...

sounds good, but your "Ally does 100% Pro" you do "100% Research" just cuz your allied is flawd too

Is taking on an ally a liability in Metaverse games? If I have an ally will I get more points if I turn on him before ending the game?

You know, while reading this thread, i suddenly noticed something about my games. I've never once gone to war WHILE in an alliance. Like, i've HELPED Allies in War....but i don't think Someone as EVER delcared war on me while i was Allied...Man....Is the AI any good when fighting alongside the Player? The only time i've ever interacted with the AI on any militaristic sense, is usually with them infront of the barrel. Hmmm...Might have to try this out.

I find allies to be a good thing. In my last game the Korx and Yor declared war on me and the Thalan Empire saved me by wiping out the assult fleets for me.

You know, while reading this thread, i suddenly noticed something about my games. I've never once gone to war WHILE in an alliance. Like, i've HELPED Allies in War....but i don't think Someone as EVER delcared war on me while i was Allied...Man....Is the AI any good when fighting alongside the Player? The only time i've ever interacted with the AI on any militaristic sense, is usually with them infront of the barrel. Hmmm...Might have to try this out.

I've had the Drengin declare war on me once, but that is it. No other race has ever declared war on me either.

Thanks for the responses. I secured my first alliance with the Jessuins after the Andians were gobbled up and the Altarians declared war on the Jessuins, who asked me as their main trading partner for help. I bribed the Altarians to make peace and build up the Jessuins (more pop, more trade) and took the alliance option when available. The Altarians have not declared war on them again.

The second alliance was the result of using the Drengins to fight a proxy war against the second great power, the Torians. I didn't want anyone else to get the Drengin territories and the Torians, Iconians and Altarians piled on them. I fed them modern ships and technology and cash and although their military strength was rated small it was all good combat ships so they bloodied the attackers. Iconia made peace with them. Since I was on friendly terms with the Altarians and I didn't know what allying would do, I bribed them to make peace (cheap actually, and they had lost several fleets) before allying. This left the tiny Drengin Empire at war with the large Torian Empire, and I allied with them but nothing popped up asking me to go to war - therefore I asked the question above as to whether Alliance does anything.

My hope is that the Alliance will deter anyone else from attacking the Drengin while the Torians will keep fighting and taking substantial losses based on Toria being the number 1 military power and the Drengin being the 8th (it must measure tonnage or something like that, not fighting power, since the donated cruisers keep beating the Torian fleets that flow towards them). When more Torians show up, I donate more ships, and unless the Alliance relationship indirectly affects relations I'm still neutral with the Torians.

Maybe I'll try an alliance victory, or just use the Drengin as attrition against the Torians while I pursue Tech victory or influence victory -- something different from just killing everything.

BTW this is on "tough" with randomized opponents and the only other war was one between the Arcaens and the Yor - I saw the Yor were doomed and jumped in and grabbed most of the Yor planets, the Arcaen conquests then fell to influence.