Weird [MISSING] planets in Essence of War

[MasterTyler]

I just finished a playthrough of Essence of War when I noticed 3 planets named [MISSING]. I controlled one of them, the Imperial Remnant controlled another, and the Empire of the Hand controlled the last. I only found them when I was looking through planets I owned with the D and F keys. I conquered the whole galaxy, except the 2 mystery "planets" and never got the "Victorious" screen. Are the planets there for scripting purposes? Weird thing is, I can manually scroll past the GC map out of bounds to them and they are visible outside the actual minimap, just WAY, WAY to the right on the command bar. I have no idea if this is a bug or not.

[Slornie]

Those planets exist as a backstop to prevent the game crashing when one or more of the main factions have been destroyed before one of the era progression event happens.  Essentially it's an inaccessible safe harbour for each faction outside the scope of regular gameplay so that the game doesn't see them as "dead".

Unfortunately as you've discovered it does mean that full-conquest isn't achievable so even though you have effectively "won" the GC it won't end with the victory screen.  Unless and until we can find a better solution I'm afraid that's the compromise we've had to make.

[MasterTyler]

Ah. Thanks for clarifying Slornie. My first thought was that they were scripting related. I was just really confused when I found them.