Colossus: Fun, but useless?

[Water]

Just won another match on Ensign, barely squeaking by (700 point total, spammed corvettes like crazy in year 2499), and I think if I had forgone Colossus I would have pulled away quite easily.

It seems that even when the universe is united against a Fanatical Purifier, you get about 2 shots with the Colossus (World Cracker) before friendly relationships start to really deteriorate. After I nuked the 3rd planet or so treaties and embassies started disappearing every couple of seconds. Though the Colossus is a good solution for "fixing" late game lag, if I would have picked Wonders of the Galaxy (?) and built a matter decompressor and Dyson Sphere I would have kept my relationships and been producing 1000 more minerals/energy.

The Colossus is fun, but building an army of 5-8k is relatively easy if you start early enough. You also gain planets, pops, and production. Question being, does the Colossus have any practical use?

PS - It is a quicker solution to winning a war outright than invading every single planet and habitat that's holding out, but you lose all bonuses as previously mentioned.

[mss73055]

my experiences exactly.

The last ones I built were the squirt guns of the aquatic DLC. Only to discover these cannot flood machine worlds.

So yes, a Colossus is just a troll tool used by fallen empires.

[ScreamCon]

Well... if your actually using a colossus your kind of a fascist state. . .
Only radical empires seeking immediate change and the disappearance of everyone around them use them.

Genocidal empires however do not have relations to ruin so they may use them however they see fit.

[EleventhStar]

most if the time i pick the perk for the total war casus belli, not the actual thing.

[VoiD]

Yeah, kind of a waste of time, just follow your fleets around with a 10k land army and let it auto cap every world without even looking at what's inside.

Besides, colossus take so faken long to fire that the entire war would be over before they got rid of a single planet.

The only useful thing about it is the TW CB, which is something BtC can get too anyway, plus insane bonuses, plus star eaters which are what colossus should have been: A big fortress of a ship full of weapons and shields that can also destroy planets, in fact, entire star systems.

Or you can just stay under lvl 5 to avoid having to fight the entire galaxy, not that you need to, the perk is so strong that you can easily beat everyone else at the same time.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by VoiD:

Yeah, kind of a waste of time, just follow your fleets around with a 10k land army and let it auto cap every world without even looking at what's inside.

Besides, colossus take so faken long to fire that the entire war would be over before they got rid of a single planet.

The only useful thing about it is the TW CB, which is something BtC can get too anyway, plus insane bonuses, plus star eaters which are what colossus should have been: A big fortress of a ship full of weapons and shields that can also destroy planets, in fact, entire star systems.

Or you can just stay under lvl 5 to avoid having to fight the entire galaxy, not that you need to, the perk is so strong that you can easily beat everyone else at the same time.

I know right, try out the subterranean origin with a unity build. Then bath in the glory of infinite fleets. Late game you'll make so much ships every shipyard will be spewing them out like virus bursting by thousands.

[Mennan]

Neutron sweep is a good way to clear out FE/AE capital planets which have stupid large army counts on.
I suppose it would be useful in multiplayer lobbies against people building fortress planets at chokepoints and you're in the jump drive cooldown for your fleets.

[Geirfinna Lieselotte]

I like to play antagonistic empires like Devouring Swarm, Assimilator or Xenophobe slaver, so Colossus is a really cool weapon for me.
I absolutely like modded weapons like the Planetary Digester, not only it's good for RP but instead of just wiping the pops or cracking a planet, it turns it into a useful resources deposit.

Like Mennan said, it's useful against the absurd amounts of defensive armies FE have, and as I also use mods like ACOT, it helps cleaning regular planets that become fortresses thanks to enigmatic buildings.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Driven assimilator colossus can instantly assimilate an entire planet.
A spiritualist colossus lets you force people to become spiritualist.
Destroy's robots/synth but it is a good way to spread the faith right?

For multiplayer there is the unspoken threat of losing your worlds.
Pop's can be replaced, Building can be rebuild but a planet that is gone is gone for good.
Granted between habbitate's and ringworlds that isnt that big of a deal but still.
Losing your corusant(forgot the name) or major resource/factor world is painful.
And it makes the ai want to give up faster.

But the reason power is the total war option it give's.

For me personal colossus is a statement:
I am so powerful i can afford to waste resources on a planet killer.

Also in multiplayer the fastest way to get someoone to agree to my terms is using it on there capital world.
You woudnt believe how fast some people hit the surrender buttion to not lose there capital for good.

[crgzero]

I use them for thematic reasons depending on what I'm playing. But since I always use gigastructures I like blowing up entire solar systems.

[GlompFox]

Anytime I have a chance to completely destroy a planet in one for or another... I'll usually take it as managing ANOTHER planet at that point is usually more of a pain in the rear than a positive thing. Also getting rid of excess enemy pops decreases the lag.

I will admit that the aquatic version that lets you drench entire worlds is pretty fun as it lets you even have the option of colonizing a nice new ocean world without having to pay for any of the teraforming!

[Garrett]

collosus is for late game lag, yes it works