[Alneyan]

The happiness hit for *winning* is so nice, and so nonsensical. For this matter, you will also suffer from lower happiness when colonising planets or building ships (if memory serves). And you cannot even capture enemy colonies to boost your happiness; the penalty for doing so is the same as for losing one of *your* planets.

Troops, the UPC and natural decrease still work as usual, with natural decrease being much "better" than usual (which means your planets will go back to Indifferent faster. A good thing if you have Angry planets, though it will not help your rioting planets). Otherwise, you could try playing with treaties; enacting non-interference treaties give you a boost to happiness, and you can break those without any penalty (*any* other treaty has a harsh happiness hit associated with it).

On the brighter side of things, you will suffer much less from losing planets (losing your homeworld is the same as losing any other colony, and the penalty is a mere 2%, against 5% for peaceful), so a riot run would do less damage. But your own Empire can create riots on its own just fine.