Im not a nitpicker, but those posts are hard to read...
i only encountered the Yor in one previous game (I'm quite new to this game) and they were friendly with me, the had a small military and i waskind enough to liberate some of their plantes before their enemy'ds invaded.
I/m playing now AS the Yor, I really wantto take advantage of the speed limitations to the AI.
But I too have encountered AI races that will not surrender until all is lost. They talk like they're winning while losing a planet per turn.
I don't think the AI is designed to consider the loss of a planet - Since it is possible to take planets from genuinly powerful AI's,, otherwise then you would be able to 'con' the AI from your own position of weakness. The dissadvantage of this safeguard is that a genuinly weak AI will be extremely dumb.
Sometimes when i find myself rolling over a pathetic AI, it reminds me of the Earth Mimbari war in Babylon5. They cannot hurt my ships at all, but they still keep on trying hehehe.... At least in Babylon5 Earth was smart enough to beg for mercy, (occasionally the AI will do this too).