Wail of the Sacrificed and Enduring Devotion

Initially it was that way... (somwhere back in BETA) but it appears that the developers changed their mind on the issue in the mean time. It does kill the planet no matter what.

Although, oddly enough, this change was never mentioned in a changelog.

You order the planet population to be killed, with the planet itself. This is not caused by hostile activity, and the starbase ability only protects against hostile attacks. If it would save the planet that ability would be so often used it wouldn't be a big event, though in reality it surely would be to kill an entire world.

Thanks for your answers!

So, you have to use Wail of the Sacrificed only on small planets, because with big, fully upgraded planets you sacrifice too much, even with Progenitor Mothership bonuses?

 

Then again, if you could take out an entire fleet with only the lose of one planet that would be worth it.

You only want to sacrifice a high population planet. 

The devs said they never intended for Enduring Devotion to protect against Wail of the Sacrificed, it was actually a glitch that it worked at all.

It's not unprecedented either- culture can kill a planet too despite enduring devotion or the other block colonize techs.

Note that having a starbase with Enduring Devotion will mean that only you can colonize that planet after it's been destroyed by Wail (or if it was made neutral by culture and then the culture was pushed back). Any other faction that tries to colonize it will have to go through the starbase first.

I only sacrifice high population planets to maximize the damage. That is why I keep colony ships on standby to refuel my planet bomb. 

Goa, you are correct. It was a bug that you could hold on to your planet after Wail via Starbase.

Thanks for the info!