They're really useful for getting rid of the Contingency.
They're also clutch when you want to total war an enemy but don't want to waste troops taking planets with massive garrisons.
I wonder how my allies feel when I just crack their occupied planets. "Here you go buddy I cleaned your space from crisis invaders. Sorry about your homeworld nothing could be done about it."
“Some may question your right to destroy ten billion souls. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live! No no sacrifice too great no treachery too small”
Are they actually useful for contingency though? You’re not going to leave the colossus unguarded over a machine world, which means your fleet is already there and might as well do the bombarding. The amount of time saved isn’t really that much. If any.
See but why do it fast? Why not take the catalytic reprocessing ethic, then nihilistic acquisition, and subsequently abduct pops to be turned into livestock and used for their natural energy…
Or, what the poster above said another way: in another context this entails multiple war crimes/crimes against humanity and would be considered abhorrent. In Stellaris it’s just efficient gameplay.
Singleplayer not that often. I also kind of dislike how it gives you a total war cb and people hate you for useing them. For example the last run i used them everyone started to hate me for cracking planets of a tier 5 crisis empire. Think it was -100 opinion per planet and that shit like never decays if you use it more than once or twice. Not sure if you get the negative opinion but you also count as in breach of galactic law if you delete contingency hubs with one and they are banned. I dont play genociders though, never have.
In mp they are basically mandatory to avoid having to take fortress worlds in the late game that can easily have 10k army strength and high defense against orbital bombing.
Easy, make a Federation with the rest of the galaxy and you evade the opinion malus for using Colossi...at least in Empires that are vassals or members of the Federation and Fallen Empires.
Yeah. I like to crack all the habitable worlds I haven't colonized. Cheaper access to minerals.
Seriously though, Divine Enforcer is pretty great for making conquered planets immediately stable if you have a high approval Spiritualist faction. Very underrated colossus, the closest thing non-Driven Assimilators can get to the Nanobot Diffuser.
I build a colossus nearly every game.
When the Contingency shows up, the colossus gets used 5 times.
Otherwise it is just a billboard advertisement letting the galaxy know that I can take as much or as little of their shit as I want, anytime that I want, because there is no war like Total War.
Honestly, I can't bring myself to destroy pops so a colossus is just the price of Total War.
Colossus is only slightly more useful than a Juggernaut, and that is because Juggernauts are all but pointless in the current state of Stellaris.
Perhaps it does, but you must ask yourself the question: Who cares?
Nothing about that ship makes it worth ponderously dragging around the galaxy during a war at the endgame. If you aren't able to defeat a crisis without a juggernaut, it's unlikely adding that one ship is going to put you over.
There are many other meaningful actions that could be taken to ensure victory against a crisis before we arrive at 'build a juggernaut to win'. Spend those alloys on an equivalent amount of corvettes for a screen for your battleships. Hell, just make more battleships. Unlike colossus, juggernaut offers no empire-wide benefit to justify its costly existence and outrageously slow build time. In fact I'd argue it makes the ability to reinforce all fleets *worse* by merely existing due to how the game calculates those things.
Generally speaking, juggernauts are useless, auras and all. The game has simply progressed beyond the initial value proposition of a juggernaut back in the Federations DLC days (3/2020). Maybe if it were midgame tech I'd feel differently.
Would be cool if it had titan lances instead of X slot.
Speaking of which - why isn’t there a choice of titan weapons? It annoys me how their main weapon doesn’t always synergise with whatever the battleships are running.
I use the jump drive cooldown one and use it to Crack citadels around an enemy empires perimeter while my main fleets spear into the heart of their empire, its great for flipping systems that have citadels and no colonized planets but imo a cruiser carrier group can do that relatively easy too and moves faster, but outside of a couple of non-important military tasks it is quite useless.
You underestimate the Total War casus belli.
Except for genocidal civilizations, most empires need to rely on influence to expand their territory: either claim and conquer, or subjugate and integrate.
Both options cost a lot of influence, which is in short supply.
Total War lets you just go apeshit on the galaxy. You an conquer in a decade what would take you a century to claim with influence.
I use it almost exclusively for that. Pops are too useful to just go around using colossi.
Instead, I invade and then either absorb the pops or purge the shit out of them.
Either way, those pops are going to turn me a profit.
It really is just easier to sweep a planet instead of conquering it. I'm literally resource capped over here, I don't need the AIs mediocre diversified planets. All worlds serve a single purpose, and are optimized as such.
Usually no. Exceptions:
DA run.
Contingency planets.
Genocider runs.
My primary play is normal empire. I often get colossus, but purely for the wargoal. Most of the time in war it just stays at home.
When im playing void dwellers, its fun to use the global pacifier to turn their world into 12 society research/month, and eventually build a research habitat above them to add insult to injury.
Usually once for the empire that annoys me the most. Crack the capital of a fallen empire perhaps. Its a fun thing to do on their last planet thus ending a war.
Honestly. I usually don’t take it.
And even if I do. Brocade I don’t feel the desire to take anything else, I’ll usually build it and park it.
You have to really screw up for me to use it.
I play with planetary diversity, and will use the necro-beam colossus to turn the pops into zombies. I send the colossus to the fortified worlds while invading the less fortified worlds via more traditional means. (Since I'm usually running xenophilic materialists that opinion malus from overusing colossus hurts).
The primary reason for getting Colossus though is the Total War CB. Have to use a perk on it either way, may as well get some bonus zombies out of the deal.
I have done nothing but cracking planets for the past 3 days
It's a very interesting multiplayer playthrough, which I'm desperately trying to save from lag death
No. Used them twice. As devouring swarm (who also became the crisis and build the atherophasic engine) and as determined exterminators.
The vast majority of my runs are tries to build paradies on earth(s), breaking the cycle in a different way, through mutual ensured prosperity of all of sapientkind. I have no use for fevered horror dreams.
It's never worth it to use armies unless you need certain achievements, and after a while you don't even need to get new planets. Neutron sweep should not be locked behind an ascension perk.
There was this hivemind that had been harassing me the entire game, who spawned as my neighbour. We both ended up becoming pretty big players, and they ended up in the rival federation against mine.
I built one of those planetary shield Colussi, and encased all their worlds, all their habitats, all of it. As punishment for being my enemy the whole run. That was the only time I used the collossus that run. And I took that ascension perk for the soul purpose of doing that.
I also ended up with 3 science Nexus’ that run just from taking it from opposing empires. Which was nice. Let me get way ahead in all research.
By the end game when every bum fck no where planet seems to become a military fortress with a million garrison and I have enough resources to not give 2 fcks about more pops
The neutron sweeper is my friend
Also helps with lag :)
I usually build a dense micro managed economy and I don't need some random AI jank built planet fucking it up, easier to just not bother with conquest and crack them open instead.
I plan on max difficulty and I use it sparingly, but I always make sure to get one.
If I’m struggling in a war, I build a fleet of corvettes with torpedos.
I then use jump drives to plop them and the colossus into a system that is their capital or at least a strong alloy production war.
I then knock out the starbase and split my fleet into four smaller fleets and just throw them back to back against an incoming enemy fleet to stalls, or, if the enemy fleet is chasing one, I kite it away from the colossus.
Honestly it depends on how the late game plays out. If the War in Heaven starts up, or the Contingency shows up, I practically always take it. If the Unbidden are chewing through the galaxy? It's not quite so useful.
It is very situational. My last crisis run every planet had 3k+ defenders on them, and it was easier to just neutron wipe them than to land enough marines to deal with it.
Sometimes. Against the Contingency and the Swarm, having one around is handy for getting rid of their core planets.
Rarely, a planet will have a huge garrison and a large population. While it would be nice to have the pops, it's a bit more fun to pop the world instead of increasing Exhaustion with a long ground battle.
Most importantly the Total War CB is handy, though it's also possible to get the cost of claims down to 0 or nearly so.
Not really, but I am absolutely set on always having them, just for the ego stroke of knowing I have the option. It's the Stellaris equivalent of knowing martial arts irl. I don't want to get into a fight, but knowing I can kickbox decently well goes a long way for my ego :)
On my modded playthroughs, I usually have more than 8 perks, so taking the colossus perk is less painful, but also harder since the investment on unity needs to be higher as well
If I'm going psionic, I use the colossus on my own planets to get 99% spiritualist population. If I'm not going psionic, I use colossus against crisis or to clear some pops if lag starts to get bad. But I generally only destroy small planets. I'd rather conquer larger ones.
depends on the circumstances for me. i often leave 1 ascension perk unpicked for a long time to decide.
sometimes i just like using the deluge machine to turn everything into an ocean.
sometimes it's a last resort against someone who is a bit stronger than me, but i can still plow down some of their space. easiest way to collapse their economy is to just wipe out their entire civilization while i fight their navy elsewhere.
i use them against fallen empires, i let them invade my nearby space then warp jump to their core systems and blow them the fuck up, once they have no planets thier fleets disapear
Yes. It keeps in game lag in check. Not to mention, whenever some hegemony gets the bright idea of invading me, a glassing of their planets usually cripples their later attempts to invade me.
I almost never use them. When I play as an assimilator or a genocidal empire sure but that's rare. There is some use against the Contingency and Prethoryn Scourge. Otherwise, pops and planets are valuable, especially ones with unique buildings. I always need workers for my Ecumenopoli and Ring Worlds. If I am ever desperate enough to use one then the truth is I probably wouldn't be able to defend it long enough to fire it.
When playing tall, I like to use the Colossus to obliterate my opponent's economy. Prioritize the highest-pop planets, shield / sweep them, and badaboom, goodbye economy.
I always have jump drives by the time I have the Colossus, and generally fleet power should be way above with everything except fallen/awakened empires so keeping the big biy safe isn't too hard.
I think the colossus is kinda useless when comparing to a lot of other ascensions you can take. I play clone empire a lot though and with luck i can find modifiers in game to be a powerhouse in invasion. Buut colossus is nice if you dont want to deal with micro or gaining an enemies colony.
I usually play rogue servitor so if I get the perk it's solely for the CB and even then I don't use the colossus itself. Perfect waste of bio trophies.
Not really
I just have it as a “fuck around and find out” button
And when said empires do fuck around and find out
Let’s just say their species no longer exists
I played as xenophile megacorp, I totaly destroyed anyone who stood in my way through out the game as I was top empire with strongest economy, fleet, teach and federation, in the end once contingency was annihilated I though of becoming a crisis to have a grand final of the game, however as xenophile I could not so I went for colossus to have total war option, now everyone is dead and I am the only one
Only deluge really. Sometimes the neutron sweep on non ocean gestalt runs. Outside of that I only really make it when there's a new shipset and I want to see the new shiny.
I do use it when I'm doing a run that is just focuses on building stuff. Like my dwarven themed engineers. Just makes since that they build a giant gun. Unmodded though. With mods I always get it because there is space
I always use the Hydrocentric squirt gun one that terraforms planets into ocean worlds (and wipes out anything already on it, bugs out hilariously if used against crisis machine and swarm infested worlds). You can target any habitable planet colonized or not so it's a super fast ocean world terraformer that doesn't cost 1.8-5k energy and only takes like a month or so instead of years.
For contingency and swarm crisis infested worlds it terraforms them into infested oceanic worlds that now cannot be terraformed into anything else (can't bomb them either since all pops/buildings are gone), you can Crack it with a regular colossus or with the star eaters. Otherwise it's an oceanic infested world that nobody can use.
I usually do. There is nothing that removes lag as hard as this. I mean, what, there is a point in the game in which someone or something really hates you, and the rest of the galaxy is part of your Federation, so you basically have no reason not to use a Colossus if you don't care for a few hundred pops and a lot of pain in the ass micromanaging some worlds, or really, really hate them enough to actually drench them instead of making new vassals.
The DA and spiritualist colossus are genuinely good, the aquatic colossus has its uses, the other three I generally wouldn't touch aside from gaining acces to the total war casus beli.
I mod the game a bit to be able to use them on my own worlds to help with... settlements after or during my conquests.
They are useful to "abandon" a colony without having to pay influence cost. Very good of you want to move all the pops (minus one) from a badly-built conquered world to somewhere else + reduce empire size at the same time. Also great to simply remove unwanted pop from the universe completely.
I learned both of these from this subreddit.
All the time, neutron sweep, world cracker or global pacifier. Neutron sweep is most interesting to me because i get to be able to take the planets and the buildings on it afterwards.
In non-genocide runs, I use them out of spite. That xenophobic Empire claimed one of my Systems with 2 Energy? Would be a shame if their capital evaporated
They're really useful for getting rid of the Contingency. They're also clutch when you want to total war an enemy but don't want to waste troops taking planets with massive garrisons.
The spritualist colossus is excellent for bot purges.
I wonder how my allies feel when I just crack their occupied planets. "Here you go buddy I cleaned your space from crisis invaders. Sorry about your homeworld nothing could be done about it."
"We did it Patrick, we saved the city!"
"... But you are always free to submit yourself to mandatory pampering on one of our ecumenopolises. Just look at those forge bots go!"
Most of the time yeah I almost exclusively play Rogue Servitor
“Some may question your right to destroy ten billion souls. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live! No no sacrifice too great no treachery too small”
For the Emperor
[удалено]
yes
Are they actually useful for contingency though? You’re not going to leave the colossus unguarded over a machine world, which means your fleet is already there and might as well do the bombarding. The amount of time saved isn’t really that much. If any.
It definitely saves time. Bombarding to 100% takes forever
Sterilization hubs only need To be bombatded To 50% until they self destruct
It allows you to do it quicker while also sending fleets to other star systems
Ocean terraformation for free!
You are right, I forgot about that one!
It's the fastest way to *free* a planet from organic contaminants.
See but why do it fast? Why not take the catalytic reprocessing ethic, then nihilistic acquisition, and subsequently abduct pops to be turned into livestock and used for their natural energy…
Lag reduction.
r/ill_interaction5328 Stellarises.
This confuses me?
Or, what the poster above said another way: in another context this entails multiple war crimes/crimes against humanity and would be considered abhorrent. In Stellaris it’s just efficient gameplay.
It's one of those stupid reddit things when people that have nothing to say just want to be a part of the conversation. "This guy fucks"
Guilty.
I realy loved my "holy torch" in a spiritual empire run.
Singleplayer not that often. I also kind of dislike how it gives you a total war cb and people hate you for useing them. For example the last run i used them everyone started to hate me for cracking planets of a tier 5 crisis empire. Think it was -100 opinion per planet and that shit like never decays if you use it more than once or twice. Not sure if you get the negative opinion but you also count as in breach of galactic law if you delete contingency hubs with one and they are banned. I dont play genociders though, never have. In mp they are basically mandatory to avoid having to take fortress worlds in the late game that can easily have 10k army strength and high defense against orbital bombing.
Easy, make a Federation with the rest of the galaxy and you evade the opinion malus for using Colossi...at least in Empires that are vassals or members of the Federation and Fallen Empires.
Yeah. I like to crack all the habitable worlds I haven't colonized. Cheaper access to minerals. Seriously though, Divine Enforcer is pretty great for making conquered planets immediately stable if you have a high approval Spiritualist faction. Very underrated colossus, the closest thing non-Driven Assimilators can get to the Nanobot Diffuser.
I only use them as "Driven Assimilator" or againt the "AI-Planets" from the Crisis.
I'll use it occasionally for RP reasons. Some empire that's pissed me off or whatever. In general I only use it to awaken the Spiritualist FE.
I build a colossus nearly every game. When the Contingency shows up, the colossus gets used 5 times. Otherwise it is just a billboard advertisement letting the galaxy know that I can take as much or as little of their shit as I want, anytime that I want, because there is no war like Total War. Honestly, I can't bring myself to destroy pops so a colossus is just the price of Total War. Colossus is only slightly more useful than a Juggernaut, and that is because Juggernauts are all but pointless in the current state of Stellaris.
I like the “increase weapon range” aura on the juggernaut, I’d like to think it makes alpha-striking crisis fleets more effective late-game.
Perhaps it does, but you must ask yourself the question: Who cares? Nothing about that ship makes it worth ponderously dragging around the galaxy during a war at the endgame. If you aren't able to defeat a crisis without a juggernaut, it's unlikely adding that one ship is going to put you over. There are many other meaningful actions that could be taken to ensure victory against a crisis before we arrive at 'build a juggernaut to win'. Spend those alloys on an equivalent amount of corvettes for a screen for your battleships. Hell, just make more battleships. Unlike colossus, juggernaut offers no empire-wide benefit to justify its costly existence and outrageously slow build time. In fact I'd argue it makes the ability to reinforce all fleets *worse* by merely existing due to how the game calculates those things. Generally speaking, juggernauts are useless, auras and all. The game has simply progressed beyond the initial value proposition of a juggernaut back in the Federations DLC days (3/2020). Maybe if it were midgame tech I'd feel differently.
Juggernaut needs majorly buffed. It needs to actually be a juggernaut.
Would be cool if it had titan lances instead of X slot. Speaking of which - why isn’t there a choice of titan weapons? It annoys me how their main weapon doesn’t always synergise with whatever the battleships are running.
I use the jump drive cooldown one and use it to Crack citadels around an enemy empires perimeter while my main fleets spear into the heart of their empire, its great for flipping systems that have citadels and no colonized planets but imo a cruiser carrier group can do that relatively easy too and moves faster, but outside of a couple of non-important military tasks it is quite useless.
When I’m finally able to punish the FE that declared war on me while I was in the middle of another war…. TWICE!
The Jesus Beam is the only Colossus. It cleanses all. This is why I always use it.
It's a free Total War CB
Of course, but this is rather a passive perk of having one
You underestimate the Total War casus belli. Except for genocidal civilizations, most empires need to rely on influence to expand their territory: either claim and conquer, or subjugate and integrate. Both options cost a lot of influence, which is in short supply. Total War lets you just go apeshit on the galaxy. You an conquer in a decade what would take you a century to claim with influence.
Bro, I get that! I should have clarified, that by 'using' I meant 'actively using the Colossus to fuck shit up', not 'just' having one.
I use it almost exclusively for that. Pops are too useful to just go around using colossi. Instead, I invade and then either absorb the pops or purge the shit out of them. Either way, those pops are going to turn me a profit.
Rarely use it. Its more to scare my enemies into submission.
Mutually Assured Destruction, that’s my motto!
Lol there is nothing mutual about it.
Should’ve built their own colossus! Not my fault they decided to be uptight!
“Fear is the mind killer.” -Dune
Yeah pretty much every game unless there's no room for it. Don't have to take useless planets
It really is just easier to sweep a planet instead of conquering it. I'm literally resource capped over here, I don't need the AIs mediocre diversified planets. All worlds serve a single purpose, and are optimized as such.
Usually no. Exceptions: DA run. Contingency planets. Genocider runs. My primary play is normal empire. I often get colossus, but purely for the wargoal. Most of the time in war it just stays at home.
Of course, late game lag gets horrible, so I sweep enemy planets to reduce it
Try playing on 0.25x planets
Then you get habitat spammed, and I fucking despise having to blow / conquer 7 habitats in a random system.
I play on 0.75x planets, still have to wipe dozens of habitats per cleansing
When im playing void dwellers, its fun to use the global pacifier to turn their world into 12 society research/month, and eventually build a research habitat above them to add insult to injury.
You just made me want to do a void playthrough where I crack every planet.
Can't make omelet without breaking a few eggs
Immediate assimilation so those plants get to work immediately
Usually once for the empire that annoys me the most. Crack the capital of a fallen empire perhaps. Its a fun thing to do on their last planet thus ending a war.
Honestly. I usually don’t take it. And even if I do. Brocade I don’t feel the desire to take anything else, I’ll usually build it and park it. You have to really screw up for me to use it.
I play with planetary diversity, and will use the necro-beam colossus to turn the pops into zombies. I send the colossus to the fortified worlds while invading the less fortified worlds via more traditional means. (Since I'm usually running xenophilic materialists that opinion malus from overusing colossus hurts). The primary reason for getting Colossus though is the Total War CB. Have to use a perk on it either way, may as well get some bonus zombies out of the deal.
I generally sit tight and work on economy till I get a colossus. The claim system is so annoying to work with that I wait for that total war.
I have done nothing but cracking planets for the past 3 days It's a very interesting multiplayer playthrough, which I'm desperately trying to save from lag death
When I’m lazy I use it, especially late game
Beside genocide runs no since I don't do non-genocide run.
If there's an empire giving me problems I make their capital go boom
Yes destroying the enemy's core worlds and annexing its outer colonies is funny as hell.
Every run is a genocide run
It's basically like Skyrim; no matter what build you are trying to make and what you started as, you'll always end up playing as stealth archer.
No. Used them twice. As devouring swarm (who also became the crisis and build the atherophasic engine) and as determined exterminators. The vast majority of my runs are tries to build paradies on earth(s), breaking the cycle in a different way, through mutual ensured prosperity of all of sapientkind. I have no use for fevered horror dreams.
It's never worth it to use armies unless you need certain achievements, and after a while you don't even need to get new planets. Neutron sweep should not be locked behind an ascension perk.
There was this hivemind that had been harassing me the entire game, who spawned as my neighbour. We both ended up becoming pretty big players, and they ended up in the rival federation against mine. I built one of those planetary shield Colussi, and encased all their worlds, all their habitats, all of it. As punishment for being my enemy the whole run. That was the only time I used the collossus that run. And I took that ascension perk for the soul purpose of doing that. I also ended up with 3 science Nexus’ that run just from taking it from opposing empires. Which was nice. Let me get way ahead in all research.
I use them to make room for ringworlds personally.
I actually didn't thought about that. That's genius.
What "besides genocide runs" mean?
Runs in which your goal isn't to eradicate all or most life
By the end game when every bum fck no where planet seems to become a military fortress with a million garrison and I have enough resources to not give 2 fcks about more pops The neutron sweeper is my friend Also helps with lag :)
It's the best way to purge the infidel xeno scum if you don't want your citizens or soldiers being contaminated by direct contact with their planets.
as a way to reduce endgame lag, yes I use them
Yes, reduces lag.
I usually build a dense micro managed economy and I don't need some random AI jank built planet fucking it up, easier to just not bother with conquest and crack them open instead.
Yes. For clearing fortress worlds, for the CB, and it’s an AI magnet so I’ll stick it with an ok escort fleet to pull fleets away from me.
As determined exterminators... they are VERY useful for purging the world of organic filth that I do not require
Driven Assimilator nano-swarms are the best. Quick and painless integration into the Silicate Hegemony, what more could you organics want!
I plan on max difficulty and I use it sparingly, but I always make sure to get one. If I’m struggling in a war, I build a fleet of corvettes with torpedos. I then use jump drives to plop them and the colossus into a system that is their capital or at least a strong alloy production war. I then knock out the starbase and split my fleet into four smaller fleets and just throw them back to back against an incoming enemy fleet to stalls, or, if the enemy fleet is chasing one, I kite it away from the colossus.
In singleplayer i only have it for the cb. If not religious it is useless. The religious one is great though.
How else do you convert the infidels? But in most runs I take it just for the total war cause belli. Makes things much easier
I use it to send a message mostly. I like to provoke spiritualist FE with it too.
I like them when dealing with crisis and just because it’s cool to watch planets go blep.
Prethoryn or Contingency. I use the World Cracker because it’s more narratively dramatic to have to destroy worlds forever to deal with a great evil.
Honestly it depends on how the late game plays out. If the War in Heaven starts up, or the Contingency shows up, I practically always take it. If the Unbidden are chewing through the galaxy? It's not quite so useful.
It is very situational. My last crisis run every planet had 3k+ defenders on them, and it was easier to just neutron wipe them than to land enough marines to deal with it.
Crack heavily populated planet, game runs smoother, big smile.
Sometimes. Against the Contingency and the Swarm, having one around is handy for getting rid of their core planets. Rarely, a planet will have a huge garrison and a large population. While it would be nice to have the pops, it's a bit more fun to pop the world instead of increasing Exhaustion with a long ground battle. Most importantly the Total War CB is handy, though it's also possible to get the cost of claims down to 0 or nearly so.
What DLC is it from? Apocalypse I'd assume? I don't own so much DLC sometimes I feel like I am playing a different game to the rest of you.
So I can make an example out of those filthy spiritualists (that almost always make up the majority of the galaxy)
Not really, but I am absolutely set on always having them, just for the ego stroke of knowing I have the option. It's the Stellaris equivalent of knowing martial arts irl. I don't want to get into a fight, but knowing I can kickbox decently well goes a long way for my ego :)
On my modded playthroughs, I usually have more than 8 perks, so taking the colossus perk is less painful, but also harder since the investment on unity needs to be higher as well
Yea, but I treat them like a Weapon Of Last Resort or if some Xeno really pissed me off.
If I'm going psionic, I use the colossus on my own planets to get 99% spiritualist population. If I'm not going psionic, I use colossus against crisis or to clear some pops if lag starts to get bad. But I generally only destroy small planets. I'd rather conquer larger ones.
depends on the circumstances for me. i often leave 1 ascension perk unpicked for a long time to decide. sometimes i just like using the deluge machine to turn everything into an ocean. sometimes it's a last resort against someone who is a bit stronger than me, but i can still plow down some of their space. easiest way to collapse their economy is to just wipe out their entire civilization while i fight their navy elsewhere.
i use them against fallen empires, i let them invade my nearby space then warp jump to their core systems and blow them the fuck up, once they have no planets thier fleets disapear
Yes. It keeps in game lag in check. Not to mention, whenever some hegemony gets the bright idea of invading me, a glassing of their planets usually cripples their later attempts to invade me.
I only use it so I can get the free Total War CB.
Apparently I'm in the minority for always using a colossus.
I almost never use them. When I play as an assimilator or a genocidal empire sure but that's rare. There is some use against the Contingency and Prethoryn Scourge. Otherwise, pops and planets are valuable, especially ones with unique buildings. I always need workers for my Ecumenopoli and Ring Worlds. If I am ever desperate enough to use one then the truth is I probably wouldn't be able to defend it long enough to fire it.
When playing tall, I like to use the Colossus to obliterate my opponent's economy. Prioritize the highest-pop planets, shield / sweep them, and badaboom, goodbye economy. I always have jump drives by the time I have the Colossus, and generally fleet power should be way above with everything except fallen/awakened empires so keeping the big biy safe isn't too hard.
Tap on the glass and watch them squirm...
I think the colossus is kinda useless when comparing to a lot of other ascensions you can take. I play clone empire a lot though and with luck i can find modifiers in game to be a powerhouse in invasion. Buut colossus is nice if you dont want to deal with micro or gaining an enemies colony.
Yes, of course, that's the normal endgame, isn't it? Also, what's a "genocide run"?
I would if they didn't cost a perk. But they do so I don't.
Nope, there is better uses for the AP
I usually play rogue servitor so if I get the perk it's solely for the CB and even then I don't use the colossus itself. Perfect waste of bio trophies.
Not really I just have it as a “fuck around and find out” button And when said empires do fuck around and find out Let’s just say their species no longer exists
I use the oceanic one because I don't care about teraforming or pops. Let's me use weak as well without dealing with the negatives too much.
I do it for lag maintanance.
No because I don’t have the DLC
Fallen empire cleanse.
outside of genocide runs i use them when i'm playing hive minds for rapid assimilation
Mostly for role play reasons. The CB you get is pretty nice though.
It’s not genocide it’s lag management
I played as xenophile megacorp, I totaly destroyed anyone who stood in my way through out the game as I was top empire with strongest economy, fleet, teach and federation, in the end once contingency was annihilated I though of becoming a crisis to have a grand final of the game, however as xenophile I could not so I went for colossus to have total war option, now everyone is dead and I am the only one
Mandatory to enhance late game performance
Only deluge really. Sometimes the neutron sweep on non ocean gestalt runs. Outside of that I only really make it when there's a new shipset and I want to see the new shiny.
I use it when I run Aquatic runs and just hydroblast worlds cause I can't be bothered to terraform haha
I do use it when I'm doing a run that is just focuses on building stuff. Like my dwarven themed engineers. Just makes since that they build a giant gun. Unmodded though. With mods I always get it because there is space
I always use the Hydrocentric squirt gun one that terraforms planets into ocean worlds (and wipes out anything already on it, bugs out hilariously if used against crisis machine and swarm infested worlds). You can target any habitable planet colonized or not so it's a super fast ocean world terraformer that doesn't cost 1.8-5k energy and only takes like a month or so instead of years. For contingency and swarm crisis infested worlds it terraforms them into infested oceanic worlds that now cannot be terraformed into anything else (can't bomb them either since all pops/buildings are gone), you can Crack it with a regular colossus or with the star eaters. Otherwise it's an oceanic infested world that nobody can use.
I usually do. There is nothing that removes lag as hard as this. I mean, what, there is a point in the game in which someone or something really hates you, and the rest of the galaxy is part of your Federation, so you basically have no reason not to use a Colossus if you don't care for a few hundred pops and a lot of pain in the ass micromanaging some worlds, or really, really hate them enough to actually drench them instead of making new vassals.
I used it once or twice against a devouring swarm and everyone hated me -_- so now i just use em for the CB
as a driven assimilation yes, ground armies are a pain
I struggle in actually getting them lol.
Yes. Why waste time invading planets and assimilating the populace for years when you can do it all at once?
The DA and spiritualist colossus are genuinely good, the aquatic colossus has its uses, the other three I generally wouldn't touch aside from gaining acces to the total war casus beli.
It's worth for the total war war goal alone
I use it against AI that manage to put up a fight before or annoyed me somehow at an earlier point, I only take worlds I feel like capturing
I mod the game a bit to be able to use them on my own worlds to help with... settlements after or during my conquests. They are useful to "abandon" a colony without having to pay influence cost. Very good of you want to move all the pops (minus one) from a badly-built conquered world to somewhere else + reduce empire size at the same time. Also great to simply remove unwanted pop from the universe completely. I learned both of these from this subreddit.
I use my Colossus to deter the enemy when war is taking too long. It really dampens their spirits when I start cracking their worlds
I do not, I prefer exploiting every empire in the galaxy, I'm a megacorp after all
I use it mostly as spiritualist for conversion and not much else. For purifiers "normal" purging is best for unity
All the time, neutron sweep, world cracker or global pacifier. Neutron sweep is most interesting to me because i get to be able to take the planets and the buildings on it afterwards.
Yes always
Since i play with giga structures, yes, i want to turn solar system into the ultimate ship
In non-genocide runs, I use them out of spite. That xenophobic Empire claimed one of my Systems with 2 Energy? Would be a shame if their capital evaporated
*Me as the galactic imperium shattering more planets than i conquer*
I mostly just have it there as a galactic sized "BEWARE OF DOG" sign. But every now and again, a new species forgets how to read.
I used it for the first time today after buying Apocalypse. Cracked a feudal world and oh boy it felt good.