In think it's silly the way that planets magically converted to another empire beacause of culture in Galciv I and would like to see culture working more subtly in Galactic Civ II, culture shouldn't be an alternative form of conquest, it should instead allow you to influence civilizations policies and outlook from the inside.
Planets that are assimilated by another culture should not defect directly to the civilization doing the assimilating, instead their cultural influence should be added to the influence of the assimilator and their loyalty to their master civilization should be compromised according to how much difference there is between the moral alignment of the civilization, however the speed at which planets are assimilated depend upon how close the civs are morally to one another, so an Altarian Player (pure good 100) takes a long time to assimilate a Drengin Planet, but having done so the planet is likely to rise up in revolt against the Drengin Empire having rebelled. If the Altarians were assimilating another Pure good 100 civ, then assimilation would happen very quickly, but the planets ruler wouldn't suffer any morale penalties at all (though culture still belongs to the Altarians).
However if you are capable of assimilating a civs homeworld, then the civ become culturally dominated by your civilization, and becomes your sattelite (see sattelite Empires thread)
