Everybody works together

Update 2? I have been kicking it into high gear since I feel like I am so far behind!

It is all about diplomacy today. While attacking your neighbor may be fun if you don't be diplomatic about things you are doomed to fail! This is where your nation relations as well as government relations come into play, as they modify the likelihood of A) the AI accepting a trade/deal/alliance and B) your nation being ok with entering into an agreement with a nation. If you do something with a deeply hated nation your country will suffer as a result of public backlash.

By tapping on a neighboring nation's territory you bring up their diplomacy menu. From here you can instigate all interactions between your countries.

Trade
Fairly standard ordeal here, you can trade or sell (or a combination of both) cards, territories, and access to tech tree technologies.

Alliances
You can request nation alliances here. This is useful because by entering into an alliance, you are expected to come to each others aid. You can have the option to renege on your alliance duties but this will significantly harm your relations with other nations in that alliance, making it harder to deal with them in the future. You are rewarded by honoring your duties with morale bonuses as well.

Vassalization
You can either become or offer the option to be a vassal. As a Vassal you give a part of your population gain and credit intake to your ruling nation in exchange for a tight bond between nations. You cannot do this between nations that do not share at least neutral governments.

Treaties/Truces/Peace
You can request truces that will discourage attacks for a certain number of turns. These can be broken but if they do they seriously hurt a nations morale. With this you can offer territories, credits, or cards to help push a deal through.

Demands/Threats/Proclamations 
You can issue statements to other countries either threatening them, or promising them something (such as protection of independence). This straightens nation relations and can be used to sway/strong arm a country into doing something you want them too. An example is you can demand they pay you X credits for Y turns or you will invade them.