Surrender in this game is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. If I am pushing into an enemy’s territory and have them on the ropes they just up and surrender to another race? Has this ever happened in the history of war? It would be like Japan surrendering to Brazil instead of the US in WW2. It makes no damn sense what so ever. Plus the whole instant 1 week switch of the government on all planets over to the other race is stupid too.
The Surrender option should only be available to enemies you are at War with. Plus the surrender should then open up a negotiation with your enemy; so that terms of the surrender can be agreed upon. Not an instant handover of all planets to the other race. There should be lots of options available for surrender terms.
Edit: Oh and here’s another thought, if you do surrender planets to another race, there should be an approval penalty based upon your current government style and alignment vs. the other race’s government and alignment, the more extreme the larger the penalty. If it’s bad enough the citizens should go into some form of civil revolt and possibly break away from the new government and possibly become independents or something like that. This should also be possible on hostile take over as well, with people rebelling against the invading force. How you deal with it could be an alignment issue. It’s much too neat and clean in the current game.