I have ships in their system. and no I haven't received any messages. I am using a work around by changing all races relationships from "not met" to "no relationship".

<t> I created a new game with only two races. entered game editor and added 12 more races and game them planets. exited game editor went into diplomacy and played for an hour until I met up with one of the races I added. I went into diplomacy to arrange trade and to my surprise I did not see the new ...

I fixed it, I had the "Clean Galaxy view" checked. it's located in main menu, Options, Advanced Display Settings,very bottom check box. I had it checked. After I unchecked the box I loaded up my game and everything was fine. Thank you guys for your help.

I am not getting an Influence overlay on the main Galaxy screen, the minimap show influence. most of the buttons have no effect.
system info: Win7, AMD 2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM, 64-bit, Video Card AMD Radeon HD 7900S, 2Tb HDD.
If it makes a difference I purchased DW Universe through Steam.

Must be nice, I'm not even getting an Empire Influence Overlay.