What constitutes an empty planet? Do Leaders or domain counters prevent a planet from being empty for the purposes of Diplomacy II

I believe the simplest definition of "empty planet" is "planet void of Ground Forces and/or Mechanized Units". At least that's the definition we ran with in our last game.

I''m pretty sure 'empty' just means 'empty'. No stuff on it.

I'd say a planet with nothing but a control marker (or nothing at all) is "empty." Anything else would make it non-empty (IMHO) but I might yet be proven wrong about leaders or artifacts or stuff like that.

@Fnoffen: I'm assuming that at least PDSes and SDs also qualified as non-empty?

Edit: I believe a planet with a domain counter is also considered empty. I seem to recall hearing that one bandied about as claimable with Dip II.

I KNEW I had read the definition somewhere. Found it in the Shattered Empire Rulebook. Page 14 under The Diplomacy II Strategy.

"...in order to claim one empty planet (one without any Ground Forces, Leaders, PDSs, or Space Docks on it) adjacent to a system they control, even if another player controls the target planet."

I assume that Mechanized Units are to be included in the list there.

This would mean that neither Domain Counters nor Control Flags make a planet non-empty.

The fact that planets with Domain Counters on it would be considered empty makes peaceful annexation a viable way to get rid of such scouted nasties as Radiation or Biohazard. Or any other DC you simply don't want to deal with. (Maybe you don't trust your dice hand with a Settlers DC...)

Fnoffen said:

Indeed, and the extra time it would take to scout and then annex and then colonize (presumably at least two game turns) means that strategy isn't exactly unfair, balance-wise, either.