I have never had this come up before, but figured I would ask anyway.

When you encounter the Hostage Situation Domain Counter, if you pay the trade good then you get control of the planet right?

Someone thought the parenthesis that says the planet remains uncontrolled) could applies to the whole Domain counter text.

Based on the description on neutral landings, it seems to imply that a GF unit on a planet means you control it.

Am I correct in that being the case?

Also speaking of Domain Counters, how does Annexing with Dip II work?

I have always played that you can annex planets that have domain counters on them, as long as it isn't Mecatol. Are there restrictions for when you can annex a domain counter?

Can you only do it while it is unrevealed or all the time? Like say you hit a fighter ambush and fail... can you then annex that planet?

If you pay off the hostage situation, you do keep the planet. The parenthetical "the planet remains uncontrolled" is connected to the "lose all Ground Forces in the initial landing" bit; IE, it's saying, you lose your GFs, and you do not get the planet. But if you pay them off, your GFs stay there, and that DOES mean you control the planet - your GFs can never exist on neutral planets.

If you annex a planet with a Distant Suns token, the token is simply discarded. You do not get the benefits of any "good" ones, nor do you get the bad stuff of any "bad" ones. It doesn't matter if you have revealed it or not. (Revealed domain counters cannot be Razed, but the planet CAN still be annexed)

Thanks for the quick response