A players inability to win is the most common complaint about Plague Inc. on the net. Plague Inc. is fun and addicting because you need to employ true strategy, a trait most iOS apps lack. If you're looking for boring step-by-step instructions you can surely find them elsewhere. This post will teach you about the strategy of Plague Inc. You can apply the lessons you'll learn here throughout the game. You will become a master of your own Plague!
1. Understand the difference between severity and lethality
This alone killed me when I was trying to beat the fungus level in particular. Most first level symptoms are not fatal. They are necessary to get you to the second and third level traits which can prove fatal. While investing in the first tier of symptoms from every base symptom will make your pathogen more severe, it will NOT make it fatal. Remember, to win you have to KILL, not infect. Those pesky scientists are efficient once they discover a cure. Check out the Symptoms Encyclopedia for more info.
Note: Drug resistance does not make a pathogen more lethal, only harder to cure.
2. Start in the right country/region
I still contend India is the best place, but there are several schools of thought. For a more in depth look check out. The Best Place to Start your Plague. By far the most read article on this site.
3. Invest in transmission early and often
In order to kill everyone, you must first infect everyone. To do that you need to spend your precious DNA points on transmission. Investing in most transmission means (other than air and water) will increase the likelihood of mutations. Mutations have the double benefit of being free and increasing how many DNA points you get with each infected country later in the game.
4. Don't let trends and graphs fool you.
You'll be amazed at how difficult the last few people can be to infect. Many times people will think they are on their way to winning around only to discover they didn't actually kill everyone. If you don't get the message "There are no healthy people left in the world" their are uninfected people working to fend off your pathogen. This issue is most common with the fungus level but can occur on any level. If you are about to wreak havoc with lethality, make sure everyone is infected or your disease will stop spreading, leaving a few pesky humans around.
5. Take advantage of devolving traits
With one exception, you get points refunded to you for devolving any attribute, not just symptoms. Transmission, symptoms and abilities all get you 2 DNA points refunded. The only catch is that re-evolving them is much more expensive. The point to remember is that if you don't need a particular trait anymore, get the DNA points and use it for something you need. For example, if every country is infected, there is no need to have the air and water transmission traits. Those 8 points will go a lot farther in stopping cure research or upping the lethality of your pathogen.
6. Actively track which countries have been infected
This is to save you time and frustration. If one of the pesky countries (Iceland, Greenland, Madagascar, New Zealand) closes its ports before it is infected. Quit and start over. The only chance you have is on the fungus level where you can release more spores...you might just get lucky. I'd also like to see this added to other levels.
What are your go to tricks for beating plague? Leave your recommendations in the comment section.
Thanks. I got the closest when I started in Greenland though. It defeats the problem of having it spread to the most difficult to infect country in the game. Another good idea is to keep the disease "invisible", meaning that it has no symptoms so that it is undetected as it goes from country to country. I have tried this and found it successful, but i am aware that the disease will evolve on it's own. It's up to you to keep it or sell it until it infects more people. It's ideal to keep it if 40% of the world is infected and up and to sell it if it's less than 20%. Make it at least one drug resistant so that regular antibiotics can't kill it. I didn't win that game because of some glitch where the drug was erraticated because two countries that put no more than 2,000 dollars in research killed it, when the drug was only 75% done two seconds before. But anyway, hope I helped!
ReplyDeleteI won! My disease destroyed the world! Follow what I said and then go for Necrosis once more than half the world is infected or when the cure is being worked on. (even if it's 1 percent). Then once everyone in the world is infected go for Total organ failure. Victory!
ReplyDeleteThose 8 points will go a lot farther in stopping cure research or upping the lethality of your pathogen.
ReplyDeleteOnline Pharmacy
Those pesky scientists are efficient once they discover a cure. Check out the Symptoms Encyclopedia for more info.
ReplyDeleteLidocaine
You just gotta be vrry patient with the infecting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've been doing pretty well on normal by starting in Greenland and evolving all methods of transmission except blood and insect - and evolving the whole trees. I be sure to *quickly* sell any mutations that happen before *everyone* is infected. Sometimes I buy the heat resistance to speed things up in Africa, then when everyone is infected (Canada can take a long time >.<.), I start with coughing, then sneezing, then down to total organ failure, and the two under it that are lethal and more difficult to cure. After that, as people are dying fast, I just keep dumping any DNA I get into the most lethal things I can buy. I'm almost done with normal now this way. It seems to be the most effective. Mostly I have the add mutation gene active, because I want them for the DNA I get when I devolve them. You just have to be quick, if they start research on a cure before you start killing you're screwed.
ReplyDeleteI never have the infection issue. Having played the computer predecessor to this game (pandemic). Infections occur best with birds 1 and 2. Which trigger massive migrations and attacking birds. Which almost garantees entire country infection. Also when added to bioaerosol air 3. Gives a very quick infection rare throughout the world. Try it if having trouble infecting everyone. But beware of the mutations. The random mutations will put your disease on the radar. The longer you stay off the radar the better.
ReplyDeleteI have beaten the game on normal but brutal is truly that. You Gain DNA for devolving but you lose 1for every one after eventually costing you DNA like it does on viral. This is going to be tough.
ReplyDeletei like to start in a country with air and sea ports. max my transmission routes and keep symptoms low. after it gets to higher daily infect rates, start with harness abilities. as soon as it says no more healthy people...BAM!!! organ fail
ReplyDeleteI started in the USA on fungus level, it does two things: first, it neutralizes a country with a lot of research capability and gives frequent orange DNA. Second: it spreads into Canada easier whom also has a ton of research capability. Also wait as long as possible before spreading the spores, spreading to early when your virus is weak causes you to attract world wide attn.
ReplyDelete"If one of the pesky countries (Iceland, Greenland, Madagascar, New Zealand) closes its ports before it is infected. Quit and start over. The only chance you have is on the fungus level where you can release more spores...you might just get lucky."
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily true. If you max out the zoonosis trait (bird+rat+sheep) your pathogen can spontaneously infect closed island countries. My bacteria infected Greenland, Poland and New Zealand this way, even though all three had closed their ports.
Poland -> Iceland
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ReplyDeletethis game is nice, but the ios version must pay for expansion and genes
ReplyDeletenot true. you can unlock them all by playing the game
DeleteDo not increase the death and lethality before severity and infections because you will kill off your own disease if it cant spread through dead bodies.
ReplyDeleteThis is really a nice game!Five star alarm
ReplyDeleteStill working on winning fungus at the normal level. Thanks for all the tips. My tip: when you have pesky countries that won't infect, use DNA points to buy spore bursts, and voila! Those countries are infected!
ReplyDeleteI won by concentrating on environmental and transmission vectors. If a disease can be infectious in all climates then you have a great start.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I do!
DeleteThat special feeling you get inside when greenland executes your infected population. O.o Hehe, but all in all this helps a lot. Though most of it is common sense if you have played pandemic. :D
ReplyDeleteI focused on transmission and abilities. I didn't even touch symptoms and devolved any symptoms that evolved. Through that technique, I got the whole world infected without them even noticing.
ReplyDeleteFirst play through without any hints or tips (just going on my experience with Pandemic 2) I mmanaged to infect the entire world without much hassle, and killed off humanity within a year.
ReplyDeletePlaying these games scare and sadden me a bit at the end, just to think what it would be like, being some of the last people alive, but sick and dying as well... to watch the end of the world unfold and there's nothing that anyone can do. Good thing this is just a game
Exactly
DeleteUgh I tried so hard in fungus to infect Norway & an earthquake killed off all infected. Too bad you don't get DNA for reinfecting. Wonder if all your infections can be wiped out just because of natural disasters & lose. Another time in fungus I waited 2 years to get Madagascar infected as even though rest of world completely infected. Most ships & planes were white instead of red.
ReplyDeleteJust focus on transmission and drug resistance until everyone is infected. If you get a mutation remove it asap. Once everyon is infected, be patient and get 120 or more dna, then buy symptoms. You're disease cannot be noticed or you have to start all over. Only infect, stock up, and kill everyone.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't work for viruses.