I found a minor oversight compared to how it use to work in Gal civ 2.

I want the ability to Double click on a Minor races home planet or Major races Planet in order to bring up the diplomacy screen for that race.

if I want to look at their report or trade with them I have to play a game of "Go Fish" with their icons in the main diplomacy screen. In gal civ 2 you could highlight a planet and there were various informative stats about the planet, who owned it etc. and there was a "speak to" button but seeing as espionage has been put off until later im guessing they never got around to adding this similar handy tool.