How do Diplomatic Victory points work?

"By building alliances and friendships with other factions and empires, you become highly valuable as a friend and simply too dangerous as an enemy. When you have accumulated enough Diplomatic Victory points in the great game of galactic diplomacy, you become the dominant political force in the galaxy."

So, how do I accumulate Diplomatic Victory points? Does any kind of trade count? Like, even if I just give someone a flat 1 dust in exchange for nothing? Are different deals worth more than others (alliance seemed to be worth a lot)? If I have peace, open borders, & cooperation agreements with everyone and everyone likes me, what else can/should I do to accrue points?

Solution 1:

Here's is a good high level recommendation for how to achieve diplomatic victory, although the article doesn't give way to MEASURE the exact amount of points you earn from different actions: (Original Link is dead, now archived):

In summary, [you have] two jobs: first secure dominance, second maintain equilibrium. Unfortunately, the second part can make the game a bit dull, because once you've got a strong hold on the galaxy, nothing will really happen for about fifty turns as the clock counts down to victory. But achieving a decent balance makes for a fun an interesting challenge which is quite different from the usual wars of conquest; I have to say the is the most realistic, attainable and interesting diplo-vic I've seen in a 4x. Good luck!

It probably won't help the author, but will help a lot of other players.