Normally if you have your goverment set as the repulic the senate can prevent you from going to war, however i found that it is possible to get around this if you are clever. What you do is open up the dipomatic screen to another civ in the game and propose that you will attack the desired civ for them (this function is quite buggy btw). The civ you are talking to will thank you for your for your generosity and when you get out the dipomacy screen you will be at war with the desired civ. While this is a nice way of getting round those nasty politicains i am sure it was not intened and thought i would let you know.
On another note are they any other users out there with a 7800 GTX graphics card? I am getting a strange problem where every now and again all the planets and ships spin much much faster than normal, that can only be resolved with a restart of the computer.
P.S this is my first bug post so let me know if you want anymore info.
