Opinions on ethics of this PBW move

[PvK]

Ya, sounds like the situation is better handled by Protectorate or Subjugation treaties, except that if one player is leaving, he would then have to submit two turns, whereas Surrender allows combining empires.

I agree surrender should require acceptance. (I don't expect the Swiss would have accepted surrender by Nazi Germany.)

Surrender of course turns two empires into one, which has both advantages and disadvantages for the new empire formed. It only has one set of traits and characteristics, one research queue, one intel queue, one diplomatic channel, one treaty column, one set of trade relationships, one ship set (except for old ships), and I think fleet experience may be lost. If the empires had trade going between them before, that's lost, so a potential 20% production and resource loss there. On the other hand, the points are all pooled, which can be helpful for some things - mainly it requires less management.

PvK