You've breezed through the first few levels but now you're stuck. You keep waiting for the fungus to hit the last few island nations but before you know it, the damn scientists are dispatching the cure worldwide. The fungus pathogen is arguably the most difficult to beat but I'll tell you how, step by step.
But first, where to start? Most of the time I like to infect India first but for the fungus I prefer Madagascar, which will spread to either South Africa or Australia.
Wherever you choose to start, you'll probably want to switch the game to fast forward mode because you need to sit back and wait, silently as the fungus spreads. You can access fast forward mode by clicking the down arrow underneath the date in the upper right hand corner of the game screen.
Keep collecting DNA points by popping the red and orange bubbles.
The fungus level on Plague Inc. is so challenging because it is difficult for the virus to survive long distances (such as air travel or sea travel). Because of this you have to invest your DNA points in transmission. Depending on which country you start with, begin spending points on bird or cattle transmission (level 1) but save up points so you can upgrade water transmission to level two.
About now you should be getting notifications that your fungus is mutating causing new symptoms. In the past this was great news, a freebie but in fungus mode, symptoms are bad news. As soon as a new symptom developed you need to devolve it. To do this, click on the disease, then the symptoms tab, click on the brightly colored symbol and select devolve. As an added bonus you'll get two DNA points. We'll need those in a minute.
Because I'm impatient I like to upgrade both air and water transmission to level 2 and then upgrade to the bonus bioaerosol. While expensive, this will maximize the likelihood of the fungus surviving oversea travel. This is critical because it is the only way to infect the pesky areas like Greenland, Iceland and New Zealand. As long as you keep devolving symptoms, the fungus won't be discovered.
You need to keep your eye on how the fungus is spreading in countries. Again, Greenland and Iceland are notorious for having slow infection rates. If you start killing people too fast, all the infected people will die and can't infect new people.
Keep being patient, keep devolving symptoms and tracking your infection spread and saving up DNA points. I like to wait all the way until you receive the message "there are no more healthy people in the world". Once you get that message, unleash hell.
To do so, I prefer the symptom tree: coughing - pneumonia - pulmonary edema - pulmonary fibrosis - total organ failure - coma. For a full list of symptoms, their parent symptom and effects. Check out the Plague Inc. Symptom Encyclopedia.
With two lethal symptoms - total organ failure and coma, the world will be rid of humans faster than you can imagine.
Congratulations. You've beat the Plague Inc. fungus level.
Thank you for the great pointers on how to pass that damned Fungus level!
ReplyDeleteThis worked perfectly. Took longer than I excepted but better than being suck. The rest were too simple after Fungus
ReplyDeleteI've been playing the Fungus level forever! Ah can't wait to actually beat it now!!
ReplyDeleteGood guide! Thanks! Let's see how it will go!
ReplyDelete(by the way, there's a typo in the first sentence, sorry!)
When do you start buying genetic reshuffling and hardening and medication resistance?
ReplyDeleteUpgrade medication as soon as possible (this will help with spreading your plague). Genetic reshuffling and hardening should be used to keep cure percent at or below 40%. First upgrade should be used at about 10%.
DeleteThis stategie (for the resistance and genetic) holds good for any one of the lvls
Thank god for the help!
ReplyDeleteTried so many times and gort close but failed. Seems so simple now!!
Thanks for the help. Tried for hours before I found this.
ReplyDeleteFinally, after months stuck at this level I WON!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips
This is critical because it is the only way to infect the pesky areas like Greenland, Iceland and New Zealand Serophene . As long as you keep devolving symptoms, the fungus won't be discovered.
DeleteAs an infectious disease epidemiologist, I have to take my hat off to you... Wonderful strategy.
ReplyDeleteFungus is dead simple to win with the patho-statis gene.
ReplyDeleteGreenland is a good place to start, but any will do.
Start with 10x Spore Burst. They only cost 1 DNA each and will cause at lease one red bubble. Then take the remaining 3 spore abilities.
Then proceed with anti medicine and cold or heat resistance.
Then take Water and Air transmissions while devolving all symptoms.
Get a few more transmissions, just save around 50 DNA points. When the world is all infected go for Total Organ Failure and possible Coma and some other hard to cure symthoms.
The world will drop dead pretty quick. Use the DNA points from deaths for more deadly symptoms or the abilities to delay the cure.
for people using the free, unhacked version (without gene manipulations) this is unhelpful but thank you :) x
DeleteThanks spamd42. Your plan worked GREAT!!!
ReplyDeleteI get close...but then Greenland starts exacting infected people! I need to start in that god forsaken piece of ice! Your tips have helped me greatly though.
ReplyDeleteYep, first time through trying this strategy the humans amped up their medical research and though I killed 6 billion, they killed my plague faster then I could kill them. Transmission + Antibiotic resistance and Genetic Reshuffle + Cold Resistance and ZERO on spore transmission and I got them all killed with only 35% cure research.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this didn't work for me. I got close, but still couldn't infect everyone and they found a cure WAY before could get close to killing hardly anyone. I'm about to just put the game down. Out of the 40 or so times I've played, I've only won twice. It only seems to randomly let you win regardless of how you play. The game is a really cool concept but its way way too hard...
ReplyDeletelol.. I laughed. I can win any time as a Bacteria or a Virus. I am having a hard time with the fungus type though.
DeleteYou have to try different strategies for each type of plague.
used spore burst until i had 12 countries infected for a quick start, then cold resistance, transmission, drug resistance.
DeleteThe key is to keep devolving symptoms...
I had 100% of people infected, 0% cure research, 69 dna points. guess what happenend next? :)
Extreamly thank you for the tips I followed every single step exept when i had to evolve the simptoms I devolved all the Transmision's and WON. Again thank you
ReplyDeleteGood strategy. I used something similar to beat Fungus on on Brutal.
ReplyDeleteI used the powerup that gives you bonus DNA from red bubbles. Started in Egypt. Immediately went for the first Spore Eruption right off the bat. Then upgraded air and water to level 2. After that I got cold resistance to level 2. Those are vital for the northern countries. Finally I got Bioaerosol. I didn't bother with devolving, but I didn't buy any new symptoms except for the ones that give infection bonuses.
Once everyone was infected I went right for Total Organ Failure, and it was over in a few minutes.
this helps greatly, thank you :D
DeleteI just passed the fungus level today (first try). I only just read through this page just now, I pretty much used the same technique! Only I started in Japan hoping it would spread from all the flights going out from it. Ended up having to release spores and adapt it to the cold to get it to infect greenland
ReplyDeletenice tips althought there is another way to infect those islands, use spore explosion special when you have most of the world covered and this gets them without the need of planes/boats.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem i find with this game is i could be infecting 2-8 million people a day and only recieving 1 dna point per fortnight/month and end up getting cured way before i have enough dna for pulmonary edema/pulmonary fibrosis its highly irritating watching the dna and cure go up at a ratio of 1:15/20 even with full points in cure prevention
I don't know if it will help anyone but helped me a lot, I was patient had every country infected but New Zealand, used a spore burst for that one. Once their was no healthy people left in the world I devolved all my transmission traits to get the DNA for defense and to get more symptoms. Hope this helps.
ReplyDelete+1 internet achievement to you sir.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million, I was trying like 20 different ways to bit this level.. This was my last idea, to sit and wait, but I didnt think of devolving the symptoms;) Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI spread my fungus infection while devolving symptoms and the world still started the cure. They start curing the disease regardless of lethality or severity. Maybe my game is win-resistant??
ReplyDeletedont use symptoms. devolve them as soon as they auto-evolve. the longer it stays hidden the more people are unknowingly infected and are likely to be killed in the end. go for drug resistance 1 &2. then bird and livestock. then air and water. heat and cold. dont waste points on spores until the very end when theres one maybe 2 countries left to go. wait until it says there are no healthy people left in the world. up your game by saving dna points for upping the genetic hardening once discovered by adding symptoms. and watch as your black little heart flickers with glee
Deletewhen finally adding symptoms begin with rash then insomnia.
DeleteThe society we live in its like you wake up, and hope to wake up the next day...
ReplyDeleteFlights to Entebbe | Cheap Flights to Entebbe | Cheap Air Tickets to Entebbe
I feel like this is not the most effective way. If you get the rash symptom it helps spread (Fungus is a skin disease, so this symptom tree is the best). This article leads to the idea that cure research doesn't start til people die. but that's not true. And worried about people dying before they infect others? Get the symptom on the right side that makes corroding bodies infect others. :D Just my advice.
ReplyDeleteActually...most of the nasty mycopathologies are respiratory and then go systemic. Such as our friend Invasive Aspergillosis (~70% fatality rate WITH treatment if it does go systemic but typically presents in immunocompromised pts.). Just saying....God I love this game :D
DeleteAlso, you don't use spore explosions at all? Does he even know about them?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEverything listed here, I already knew. Pretty obvious strategies. My only question is this: is there any way to get greenland fully infected other than sitting here devolving symptoms for 3 damn hours?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't hard. It's stupidly boring to sit here for hours clicking red and orange bubbles all day; doing the same thing over and over again while i just wait.
managed to infect the whole world without them noticing by this method then it leapt to like 65% before I got them all killed off, was tense!!
ReplyDeleteI am an extreme Gamer and have never given up before. But this Damn Fungus bought me to my knees. I had people at my job wondering why I've been so obsessed with FUNGUS for the past 3 months. It's almost impossible. THANK YOU !!!! With the advice in this forum, I FINALLY BEAT FUNGUS !!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH what a freakin battle !!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI found the best way is to just infect the world first and then unleash hell. I put points into lvl 1 heat and cold air and bird, and the pills one. whenever I got a free mutation I devolved it right away until I infected the world then did the total organ fail and coma. It takes a little longer but this way you dont have to race against the cure at all until you are ready at the end. Also doing it this way I had about 95 DNA to do my symptoms when I was ready to kill all humans
ReplyDeleteThanks it worked perfectly :)
ReplyDeleteGot everyone infected ... but your game is ridiculously stingy with Dna pts on fungus level. So I couldn't kill anywhere near fast to beat the cure which developed from 0 to 65 over about ten minutes while I got 2 DNA points. Just stupid. Think I'm done with this game now. Shame, too, since the other Sims were fun. Fungus is unbalanced and unduly frustrating.
ReplyDeleteiPhone 4S vs Galaxy S. there is a big difference when playing fungus level. With all settings been the same, the app for galaxy ends up with over 90 DNA points more than the iPhone. (while playing with everything been equal) which makes it hard to kill everyone on the iPhone. Why is there a difference ?? We have done many test on this level with the same outcome.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips! Very helping! Finally i can move on to the next level and say bbye to this godforsaken fungus!
ReplyDeleteHow do you get the total organ failure symptom?
ReplyDeleteOnce the world is infected, try devolving ALL of your Transmission traits. Especially with the "Ionised Helix" Genetic code modification unlocked. At four DNA points apiece, you will easily have enough points for just about anything you want.
ReplyDeletewoow its work finally i win with fungus thanks thanks
ReplyDeleteVery nice game, although it has some flaws...
ReplyDeletea mutated strain of a plague would actually have to infect the world again or at least the mutation does not happen everywhere at once, but that would be too much realism.
Still in regard to the fungus, it's a little unrealistic that the desease doesnt get spotted even without having symptomes. Where is the funguses reservoir? blood? skin? lung? liver? it has to be somewhere and therefore it can be spotted.
This "infect everyone and then get severe"-strategy is way too easy. You could pretty much wait forever to infect everone. Probably its even possible without going heavy on transmission just using a few spore explosions and the right starting point.
Some final words:
I almost beat the fungus level with a normal strategy. I had all countries but not all inhabitants infected. It was really close with the cure, it was actually at 100% 2 times, but i could twice barely get the next DNA shuffling or hard to cure symptome. Finally I ended up with only one country alive (Botswana!), but then the deaths were too fast to infect more people. And even after "devolution" of some lethal symptomes and a quite good balance of deaths to new infections for some time I ended up with 25000!!! survivors.
I really dont understand the mechanic behind it, because after devolution of the more severe symptomes I had 95 or so infectivity and maybe around 20 lethality.
Is the time of being infected taken into account here or not? Because someone who got just recently infected, will not directly die the next day or just with a very low probability.
OK enough for now
thx... at lasttttttt!!
ReplyDeleteBeen trying this. I'm finding the DNA points aren't adding up to enough for the symptoms at the end to kill everyone. Are you using the spore eruptions?
ReplyDeleteWow... this actually worked. I have tried this technique before but it never worked. What made it work was when everyone was infected the symptoms made it work. Cant wait to try the other disease types. Oh and if any one wants to know before hand,you need 120 Dna points to buy the symptoms... with some additional ones.
ReplyDeleteWell done dude! I was working along similar lines but I wasn't devolving the symptoms. Silly old me!
ReplyDeleteStuck! Everything 100% infected except new Zealand only at 3%, how do I speed up infection?
ReplyDeleteActually there is a glitch with the fungus. You need the pathostatis gene (Ability costs don't increase). Then you go to evolve the Spore Bust for 1 DNA. If you deevolve it you get 2 DNA back and since the Reevolution cost doesn't increase you can slowly but steadily generate DNA by simply evolving and deevolving.
ReplyDeleteI bet fungus in ~250 days and didn't really went for the fastes way...
Even on Brutal difficulty it shouldn't be too hard with this glitch
Right now I have 6,199,501,171 infected and it still hasn't been spotted. Every country has bee infected. But new infections are happening at about a couple of dozen at a time and I have it on fast forward.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the Brutal level. I've played it before with this strategy and won. This could still go either way.
Damn, it was just spotted.
I just lost the f****** game.
ReplyDeleteere is the strategy for fungus on Normal difficulty
ReplyDeleteStart in Iceland
Upgrade the air and water twice
Upgrade Heat twice and Cold once
Upgrade drug resistance 1
Sell any mutations for DNA points
Once the entire world is infected buy total organ failure symptom which starts with coughing
Upgrade more drug resistance to slow down the cure if you have any DNA left :)
I finished the game at 51% cure level
What do you do when infection rates slow to a crawl? I've had this happen twicez, once on bio and once on fungus. I've tried usinng spore burst and adding more transportation but the numbers don't budge. Both time it happened I was past 6 billion infected as all countries. At this rate it will take hours to finish -- and that's on fast
ReplyDeleteIt's doing it again. Right after it hits 6, 233, 500, 000 or so it slows right down. This is really beginning to piss me off. :-)
DeleteOnce they get militarized, you have a hugely hard time infecting new countries. Infection across countries tends to net 1-9+ people in the new area. If you get less than 8-9, they are killed before it spreads usually. This isn't due to "lethality", it seems like, but "armed response". Brutal and a militarized response (any of the "armed patrols", "citizens have AK47s", etc.) mean you're pretty much lost.
Deletethanks for the idea..i have played that level more than 20 times but always being defeated
ReplyDeleteEasiest way to beat fungus/brutal:
ReplyDeleteGet "auto-pop orange/red bubbles", "ability costs don't increase", and "mutate transmissions" upgrades. Turn off auto-pause. Start in New Zealand and let the game sit there on fast forward for an hour or two. New Zealand/Fungus will sit indefinitely without meaningful growth, until you buy drug resistance. This should net you 200+ DNA.
You should have a few transmissions mutated. Buy Air 1/2, Water 1/2, and Extreme Bioaerosol. I like to get Extreme Zoological, but insect 1/2 or whatever else you like transmission wise works after air/water. Also get drug resistance 1. Now it should start actually growing (still slowly-ish).
Once it gets to about 25% of New Zealand, start spore bursting. Since ability costs don't increase, buy one set of spore bursts up to the spore explosion. This should net you DNA rather than wasting it (total cost 8 or 9, with auto-popping bubbles for about 12-20). This should start your plague in gear. Evolve Sneezing if not already evolved. Devolve all other symptoms. If any mutate before you're ready, devolve them again. This will allow you to infect without detection for the most part. When you have points, get Cold Resistance 1 and Heat Resistance 1. If you have plenty, get Cold Resistance 2 and/or Drug Resistance 2. Let it infect a bunch of countries.
When you have some 10-12 countries left, grab the other set of spore bursts and explosion. Get spore hardening if you want. This should infect everything else. Let it percolate until everyone's infected or they randomly discover it. You should likely have some 100+ DNA now. Get Immune Suppression, Coma, Skin Lesions, and Necrosis/Organ Failure. Watch virtual people die.
Just to be clear, there is a way to beat fungus on Normal without buying any extra genes? Cuz I'm still sucking it up and can't win, even though infecting everybody without detection is working. I feel it's because I'm not accumulating enough DNA points. I just want to make sure it's possible...
ReplyDelete@Ivy, yes that is possible, but it will take some time. I started from China and just waited and devolved the mutated symptoms. When China was 100% infected, +1 to hot and cold resistance and meds, +1 to air and water. Then wait and wait and wait, and keep devolving symptoms as quick as you can. It took me 8 years totally. When all the people are infected, release the hell by total organ failure and coma, and use DNA points from deaths to slow down the cure. Key is patience, and not letting them discover you --> be quick with devolving symptoms. I used spores only for infecting four last countries, otherwise I just waited. It works but it's SLOW.
ReplyDeleteTrying out fungus on brutal with no cheats... Any suggestions???
ReplyDeleteI've infected 99% of the people, it's showing that there are no healthy people on the graph, but I still haven't gotten the message that there are no healthy people left. It's been almost 10 years, too. It's still undiscovered, and I'm popping DNA bubbles and devolving symptoms, but when should I start the lethality phase? I've got over 200 DNA points as well. Should I start now, or wait some more?
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much for this. The only problem I would have to say is that I had every country infected, but the process was taking to long. I have to do Cold 1 and Cold 2 in order for Canada to be infected. The process I did, since I have the full version and I have genes was that I put on: Catalytic Switch (which you get DNA points for blue, cure bubbles), Aerocyte (increase chance if plague spreading by air), Sympto-Stasis (symptom costs don't increase, but easier to cure. Doesn't really matter if you use all the symptoms and they die easily) , Darwinist (increase chances of plague mutating), and Extremophile (give your plague a minor bonus in all environments).
ReplyDeleteAfter all of this, I used my DNA points on Livestock I, Birds I, and Water I & II. Then I waited and used my DNA points on Air I & II, Bioaerosol, Insect I, Birds II, and Rats I. Then every country was infected, but then it took forever for the colder countries to get infected completely, so I used points for Cold I & II and then everyone was infected. I used the symptom tree that you stated above and then I was done. Thanks for this. I finally won. I never thought that using symptoms was the reason why I was losing.