What's the appeal of having so many colonists?

[Ouroboros]

Not judging people who enjoy it. In fact - my impression is that I'm the one in the minority here.
Just trying to understand what the appeal is. Maybe I'm missing something I'm not seeing, which may make me want to try it.

IMO 8 is a minimum, while 10-12 is optimal. More is a hassle. A crowd. Kills the identity of the individuals.   
I could be wrong but colonist number has a lot of say in threat strength? So it evens out in terms of balance?

Personally I'd rather get away with as few as possible. Because then every colonist feels more personal and important. It is a number where losing some is not fatal because with 8-12 at least 2 people have each skill easily. There is also base size. With fewer colonists, you require less food and less power - these can take a lot of space on the map. 
 
If your base is a part of your map it looks good and feels good. If half the friggin map IS your base, I don't know. It takes away aesthetics and coolness. I don't like small bases - but I see a lot of bases which are so huge you almost can't tell the biome. With 13+ colonists it becomes more of a management chore. And if someone dies it's not "We lost Mary..." it's "Colonist 13 died - replace this expendable asset". It's also the case of feeling like your faction is an elite force. Which feels better with a "normal sized" colony.

Overall I personally can not see the appeal. It's probably just personal taste. But I want to try and understand it from the other side of the perspective. Maybe some points you guys make will make me want to give it a try. I just want to hear the appeal from those who enjoy absolutely massive colonist numbers like 16+ people.

[Canute]

It is a difficult challenge, like when you settle on extreme biomes.
With 50+ colonist you have to plan at other dimensions then when you just got 8-16.
You need more room to plant stuff, manage lifestock.
When you don't play or larger maps, you maybe run out of space for all buildings.
And when you don't play peaceful, you have to prepare defences against large raids.

[Ukas]

Guess it depends on your personal playstyle. Typically I build a base for about 15 pawns in the early game, well, more like a farm than a base perhaps. Then later I start to expand, and build a town with roads and separate buildings for different purposes like hospital, pharmacy, armory, community hall, mausoleum, brewery, farms, movie theater, clothes factory, smokeleaf joint factory etc. Also houses instead of rooms/barracks. Well couples get their own houses while singles live in an aparment buildings. I love ideology dlc because I get to build new stuff like a gladiator hall & a disco. Indeed, at some point it's a challenge to manage & defend and that's why higher number of colonists are required. But much like you said when there's 50+ colonists it's hard to remember for example who's a shooter and who's melee and the oldest 10-12 are the ones I tend to follow.

[TheVillageGuy]

I was interested in how many colonists the game could handle at the time, which was about 50. It can now do about 10* more on the same machine, before it starts getting too slow to seriously play. I'm now at 794 https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorldPorn/comments/pjpm91/sparta_794_waldo_is_the_only_one_wearing_a_brown It's just another way of playing the game, I guess.

[AileTheAlien]

I usually start with 1-3, and get sick of the threat-scaling mechanics around the time I get my 6th person.

[Alenerel]

I usually start with 1-3, and get sick of the threat-scaling mechanics around the time I get my 6th person.

just choose lower difficulty

[Armaz]

20 colonists are optimal for me. 5-7 of them are heavily armored and armed soldiers.

[Bozobub]

I think a large part of the appeal is *intensity* of play.  More events/raids/what-have-you happen with more colonists, that simple.

[aBadNickname]

The logistics of managing a large population is more interesting and having multiple bases that import/export stuff makes the world feel more alive compared to a single base that you defend all day and every other base randomly generated and feeling dead. Besides good stories have background characters that generate an impact on the world and support the main character.

[Osprey]

I've recently been hit with the idea of a more militant playstyle, i.e. building a small army to go out and do stuff like raiding an enemy base. A larger number of colonists obviously helps, since more colonists means more meat for the grinder a wider selection of potential soldiers. Plus, the idea of forming a larger, more spread-out faction also appeals to me as well; having different bases in different locations to perform different tasks (eg. mining base in a mountain, logging base in dense forest, etc.) feels more rewarding and story-like than having a single superbase to do everything. Multiple bases then basically requires a lot of hands on deck; you're not gonna effectively run 3 or 4 bases with just 10 peeps.