How to be Peaceful

I like peace as well, but peace is impossible without a strong military.

You have to build up your manufacturing capacity and build enough military to stay a little ahead of the AI. You may still have to fight but at least you will win, and it will be fun.

Edit: Rereading your post it appears that you do not want to build a deterrent military. I may be wrong but I doubt this is possible in this game, or in real life.

You do have to build some military.  If you don't, the AI will know that you're weak and, depending on their personality, will take advantage of it.  When the AI plays militarily, they actually play militarily.  They will take your worlds if you give them the opportunity.  You can't be friends with everybody, this game just is really made so that some sort of conflict is inevitable.  That doesn't mean you have go invading everyone, but you do need some self-defense.

A note, the Pragmatic tree is probably best for dedicated pacifists, since they get a lot of diplomacy perks and stuff that'll make people less likely to attack you, and have a harder time if they do.

"I may be wrong but I doubt this is possible in this game, or in real life."

It is, I basically want the be the Switzerland of the galaxy, but it seems you're right and that this game won't allow for that. I'll just build up a deterrent military and waste time researching stuff irrelevant to my preferred style of play. You'd think my complete lack of military in favor of diplomacy and trade would make me more of an asset to others in the galaxy but it apparently just makes me weak and something that needs to be conquered asap.

If this game's diplomacy model were applied to the real world the US would be invading Canada as we speak because it's weak militarily by comparison, and in general... Only they're our largest trade partner and viewed as an asset in real life. Whoever designed the diplomacy model and its criteria needs to take a Polsci or Econ 101 course at their local JC. This is basic stuff.

You can definitely win the game without ever fighting a single war, but to do so you will definitely need to build up some military to deter the AI from declaring war on you.

Playing without a military is basically an invitation to be conquered pretty fast. You can stay neutral in this game,but you'll need a military to keep unwanted guests out.

In the new game i started yesterday,i took my time with building up a decent military,wich lead the Drengin and Krynn to almost declare war upon me. After all,i was easy pickings. As ssoon as i had built up a decent sized fleet,both of them didn't even dare to attack me.

Actually, the United States DID invade Canada back in revolutionary times.

What the game isn't taking into account is geopolitical and geographical factors. For example, Switzerland is VERY protected by mountains making any invasion of them difficult. Nowdays there are many geopolitical factors as to why Switzerland isn't a huge target due to global and regional trade, international alliances, and resources. During WW2 Germany, for example, considered invading the Swiss but decided against it because it just wouldn't have been worth their time.

In a game like Gal Civ you generally don't have those problems, there isn't a reason not to invade. Basically, the game just isn't as complex as real life. These strategy games also have an inherent focus on military conflict which encourages the computer to act more aggressively. That being said, they SHOULD check to see if your a major trading partner or if you have any powerful allies.

Lastly, if you want to play peacefully and succeed you really do need to have an army. Few political and defense theories will support the idea of not having an army, it's just silly and is inviting trouble. I mean, if you want to reduce crime you wouldn't disband your police force would you? If you want more educated children your not going to disband your school district?

Build an army.

"If you want peace, prepare for war"

I haven't kept up with Switzerland's politics over the years, but "back in the day" they required every male citizen to do a military stint and every citizen was armed. They are not an example of a country that had no deterrence.

They may have gone the extra mile to avoid war, but they made it clear to everyone that they would not go down easy if war was forced on them.

Try making the AI busy by forcing differend ideology races to go to war with each other, and traderoute, trade treaty, open border your neighbours. All of this i think gives up to7,8 or 9 pluses while you are weak and ripe for invasion gives 4 or 5 minuses

As you say yourself, obviously you are doing something wrong.

Comparing gameplay to human history is where you start.  Assuming you can ignore game mechanics without consequences because of your philosophical preferences is another obvious mistake.  I know because I share some of those philosophical preferences.  You will need some minimum military.  You work towards finding a minimum. If you have pirates turned off, I suggest you turn them on.  Having enough military to deal with the pirates seems to get me above some threshold of weakness in the AI opinion.  For a while.

Otherwise, you are going to have to find ways to be clever and then share them on this strategy forum instead of just bitching about other people and their posting habits.

Your Switzerland analogy could be done with an very isolated cluster of stars on a large map with tight clusters.  I've seem them on maps and previously thought they would be bad places to start.  You may find it different.   Even if they declare war on you, you are too far away for it to be practical to attack you.  When they release a map editor, you might be able to set something up with distance and black holes. 

However, this particular universe is still an aggressive place.  Beware.  The Drengin use pacifists as condiments and merchants as snacks.

While I also tend to diplomacy and influence victories, if you want to have a game with no one going to war you will really need to create some benevolent custom races, or avoid putting the races with malevolent intent in the game.  Also you will want to limit the number of AI to a bare minimum as the more you have the greater the tension between them gets.  The worse the tension the great pull on the AI to want to take easy planets to push their advantage against their other opponents. The real world example works, but keep in mind you are not going up against species that think the same way that humans do, you are going up against races that do not have the same cultural background that you do.  

Well, Switzerland did (and still does) have a military.  Back when wars were commonly raging in Europe they had enough of a military, that given the terrain of their country which gave them enormous defensive advantages, attempting to invade them would be somewhat suicidal for any would be aggressors.  Combine the defensive advantages of their terrain with the fact that they simply didn't have much in the way of resources that were all that useful, and those are the primary reasons for them being able to maintain neutrality.  It had nothing to do with their political finesse.

So in other words, even Switzerland had an adequate military to be a deterrent.  You can either follow suit, or live with the consequences.

"Back when wars were commonly raging in Europe they had enough of a military, that given the terrain of their country which gave them enormous defensive advantages, attempting to invade them would be somewhat suicidal for any would be aggressors."

Lets see here, no, no and...... no. At no point in their history did their militia or terrain play a factor in deterring invasion. They played politics and used economics to their advantage every time. They were an asset to the Axis powers rather than a threat. When there's blood on the streets, buy property, the Swiss took that to heart. They made a fortune working with the war machine rather than against it. I'd like to play that way, but, then again like it's been said, the game doesn't simulate real world politics.

Costa Rica has no official military power. (They do have police). Maybe this is a better analogy.

If you were a big hungry empire looking for a cool little country to swipe, Costa Rica would be tops on the list.

Ever heard of a Swiss Army Knife? It wouldn't be called that if there was no Swiss army.

Build a military.

Seriously?  You think their terrain and military had NOTHING to do with not being invaded?  You don't believe the logistical challenge of invasion was a major deterrent?  Your irritating sarcastic arrogance and complete ignorance go quite well together.

govern peacefully but have a strong military to keep it.

The Swiss do take their defense very seriously, they have mandatory military service, and they have to keep going for 1 month a year untl they are 40. They also get to keep their army rifle at home so they can quickly respond to any invasion!!

Have you tried unchecking the conquest victory box?

Without trying to sound mean, you are incorrect. Geography was a major reason why with Swiss remained neutral. 

 Best Answer:  Very simple. On two of its borders were nations on one side of the war, Italy and France. On the other side of the conflict, and also bordering Switzerland, were Germany and Austro-Hungary. Whichever side Switzerland declared for, it faced potential invasion from two directions. 
It's geography is also why it was not invaded, neutral or not. It's mountainous terrain is a daunting prospect for any would be invaders. Add to the fact that Switzerland has defended their neutrality vigorously, with most of the male population of the country traditionally receiving basic military training, and it wasn't worth invading. The cost in manpower and material to take the country wasn't worth it. Also, other countries found Switzerland's neutrality useful. They could send officials there to unofficially meet with officials from the countries they were fighting, a low key back door way of feeling out the enemy, to see if negotiations would be possible to end the war. It has also served as a haven for spies to slip in and out of enemy countries, before working their way back home. The Swiss have long since learned to take advantage of this to maintain peace, and to make money at the same time. this applies to WW 1, as well as wars before and after.

If you could ignore a military technological progression without risking being dragged into war by the AI, then this would give you a significant advantage because the saved power could be invested into other areas here, and I'm speaking of both technology and military production. You would always be ahead of everyone making a diplo- or influence win far more effective than military conquest. At that, no one would ever pursue such a military conquest esp. if you keep in mind that, together with all the additional production & research you'd have to muster beforeahead, you'd also have to pay the extra proce of loosing ships in battle etc.

There's is still alot of what you can do diplomatically to weasle yourself out of war, or say, make to other factions busy with themselves.

Switzerland is the worlds best example of how to integrate terrain factors into defending their territory. All bigger bridges that lead over mountain valleys already have enough TNT in them to be blown to pieces, rendering most of land untravelable by cars, lorries or tanks. They carved mountains out in order to install military airports, silos etc there which cannot be bombed by standard enemy airforces. Infantry training revolves more about guerilla tactics so even if major swiss cities are conquered or annihilated they still would be in control of most parts of their land.

"Without trying to sound mean, you are incorrect. Geography was a major reason why with Swiss remained neutral." 

Trying to sound mean here, I'd say your reading comp needs a check. Their point about terrain was used as a reason for why the Germans never bothered with a full scale invasion and preferred to trade with them instead. It wasn't brought up as a reason for their neutrality, that was a position you took in your post and was irrelevant to theirs and my conversation with them in general. 

It's worth mentioning in regard to some of these other posts that a militia's not a paid, professional, or rigorously trained army. If I were to treat my military in this game like the Swiss militia or the small fraction of their paid soldiers I'd still be viewed as weak and picked on by the Drengin. At the end of the day my point still stands, I have to have a sizable force to deter in this game and it's not an accurate simulation of real world politics. That's fine, I don't mind building ships, I'd just prefer to not waste valuable time early game researching military techs when I could be focusing on my economy. If I don't apparently I'm begging to have my milk money stolen on a galactic scale.