This has been happening for quite a while. I'm not sure which update caused it. I've seen it in two games so far. When you go to war with a civilization and beat the heck out of them, they usually surrender to you or to another civilization friendly to them. Alas, all those surrendered planets fall into a black hole and disappear. They are no longer on the map. So if you had a hankering for that class 26 planet now in your zone of control, there is no way to get it, even if it has been surrendered to you.
This is a major bug that should be fixed, because it ruins your strategy of occupying every planet on the map. I'm currently playing the Milky Way campaign and it happened around about turn 378 or so when the Altarians turned their planets over to the Iconians.
I am having the same issue and also in multiple games with different civs.
A recent change causes an AI, that surrenders, to destroy all their planets except their home system. You can change that in the game options, or turn AI surrendering off completely
Hey, if it's not going to be fixed, at least give us the pleasure of a cut-scene where all the planets are blown up and there is lava and Teslas floating all over space.
Removed screenshot.
I mean most of the time I wouldn't mind if they deleted their colonies, the AI usually builds things in bad places, but why destroy the whole planet? Why don't just make it empty, ready to colonize, or destroy all buildings except the main building? This should be changed in the next patch IMO, planets shouldn't disappear.
Technically they do not disappear, they get destroyed. (Mass Genocide )
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