Exploit: create other breathing population

[Slick]

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I came across this unexpectedly in a single player game and realized that it could be used as an exploit. I usually take strong measures to keep my empire happy. The benefits of being Jubilant and the pain of Riots makes it worth it. So I normally don't have any happiness problems. In SP games, I like to increase the event frequency to add spice to the game. In a recent SP game, I had a small planet deep in my empire rebel due to a random event. This was in the late game and I had conquered a couple of other empires, but still had no hydrogen breathing populations. The rebelled planet was on a hydrogen planet previously populated by my native population and thus domed. When I checked, the newly rebelled race were hydrogen breathers (!) with no dome. Needless to say, this 1-small-planet empire in the middle of my empire was easy pickings for capture or surrender. Then it occurred to me that a player could have planned this by intentionally letting a protected planet with a different atmosphere riot and then rebel. Once rebelled, the population converts atmosphere breathing and its population is available to the first conqueror. If done in the early game, it could seriously change the balance of the game.

In another game a long time ago, this happened to an enemy and I made the 1-planet empire surrender to me. I didn't realize the atmosphere changing at this time because the planet was of the same atmosphere as the parent empire. I really cashed in on the techs when they surrendered because these rebelled empires have all the technology of the previous empire. Now there is a risk to doing this intentionally - if this new empire surrenders to one of your enemies, they get lots of your techs. I would conisder this, if done intentionally, a "cheesy" exploit. But I thought you all might be interested in this - or maybe I was the only one who didn't know about it.

Slick.