Random Biosphere Thoughts

[Aluminum Elite Master]

#1 - It's an Easter Egg in plain sight. It has to be built next to a neighborhood, so it's a living space. It's basically the Biodome from the Pauly Shore movie of the same name. I half-way am surprised the quote for building it isn't "Homeostasis! - Pauly Shore".

#2 - Do those improvements show they get the 200% bonus? Since there is no indicator for power according to the yield of, say, a solar farm, where can I go to see if the bonus is actually applied? I only ask because the NFP has introduced a number of bugs and I could see one of those improvements bugging out for the bonus, so I'd like to check.

#3 - Probably easy to miss, but the improvements listed and the hydro dam get tourism added... anyone use the Biosphere more for the tourism than the power? It seems like a dual-use wonder, because the power can be huge for science vic (how I play), but I could see it being super powerful in late-game culture if you haven't already won the culture vic (added tourism and extra appeal to all tiles along rainforest.

#4 - It feels like it occurs too late into the tech tree to be all that useful... since it's on the other branch away from electricity, and since it's so expensive, it just comes out really late unless you sit and hold onto Shah Jahan, the new engineer, and have a boatload of cash in reserve. Just IMO, but maybe move Biosphere to the Electricity tech instead? That brings it both earlier in tech, as well as on the same branch for some of the earliest clean energy sources.

Just some of my random thoughts.

[LextheMighty]

2. You can tell in the power section of city details. It doesn't actually show the bonus applied to the individual improvements, but if you do the math you can tell that your overall city power was increased by it.
4. It's very good for science victory because one of the exoplanet projects requires a lot of power.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by LextheMighty:

2. You can tell in the power section of city details. It doesn't actually show the bonus applied to the individual improvements, but if you do the math you can tell that your overall city power was increased by it.
4. It's very good for science victory because one of the exoplanet projects requires a lot of power.

Okay, that's good to know for #2. I'll go and do it that way then. Like I wrote before, I actually want to check and see if all of those improvements are affected properly when it's completed, because that's a long list of things that have to get factored in.

And for #4, I agree that it's pretty good for science vic, but I feel like it's easier to get the final tier government that has the +3 power in every city instead. That's what I guess I meant there, in that, by the time you get to either Mars or Exoplanet projects, you might be just finally getting close to finishing the biosphere. Meanwhile, if you have reasonable culture, it is more likely you already hit the final government tiers as well and can just get the power that way. So, maybe put Biosphere earlier in the tech so people building in in their 2nd or 3rd best production spot can still get it done on time if having to hard-build. The issue is that the biosphere is competing with the science vic projects themselves, and would be the lesser priority, unless you move it earlier in tech.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

And for #4, I agree that it's pretty good for science vic, but I feel like it's easier to get the final tier government that has the +3 power in every city instead.

The Biosphere will double the +3 power in every city from that government to +6.

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

So, maybe put Biosphere earlier in the tech so people building in in their 2nd or 3rd best production spot can still get it done on time if having to hard-build.

The Biosphere is much too powerful to be moved earlier in the tech tree without a major revision. Frankly, I'm surprised that it has survived as long as it has without a nerf. It empowers (literally) your science victory while simultaneously providing tourism to stave off an opponent's cultural victory. That's a lot of value from one wonder.

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

The issue is that the biosphere is competing with the science vic projects themselves, and would be the lesser priority, unless you move it earlier in tech.

Biosphere comes well before science victory in Gathering Storm, so there's plenty of time to build it before you need to start building space port projects in more than one city. It is generally going to be very easy to plan to build a spaceport (and the initial one-at-a-time projects) in one city and the Biosphere in another one. By the time you would be able to start building laser projects in multiple cities the wonder will have finished.