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The following are strategies for the Shadow Plague plague type. Please read the Wiki Rules, before adding a strategy, tips and Q&A here. If you aren't quick enough to devolve a mutation before it's spotted, then pause the game time, then devolve the mutation. If you want to write new strategies, please use this page. Main Page Catalogue 1st Part - 2nd Part - 3rd Part - 4th Part

Strategy 5

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Note: Strategy originally submitted in November 3, 2018 (2018-11-03)

Basic Information

• Author: Anonymous User reviewed by other editors such as DiseaseMaster7 in 2018
• Difficulty: Normal

Genetic Code

• Aerocyte
• Extremophile

Gameplay

• Start in Saudi Arabia or Egypt. Notice how people are dying, but no one is infected. It may seem tempting, but don't evolve the "Shadow Blessing" yet. This starts the plague. This will have both the Templar and the WHO on your trail.
• Go to the Vampires tab in your disease interface. Immediately evolve Blood Rage (you'll need it soon) and Therianthropy (you'll need it now). Upgrade Blood Rage as much as possible on both sides. Therianthropy can be upgraded as you go along (Shadow Portals are not used, however. Just upgrade the travel speed ones). If you think it may help, you can also evolve Lair Building, but I did not use any lairs.
• Perform a Blood Rage on your starting country. Wait until about 5,000 to 15,000 people die. Then, use Therianthropy and fly your vampire east. The countries you land in do not matter. Perform a blood rage on them as soon as you arrive.
• At this point, people will notice the killings, and associate them with the Blood Cult. Continue flying around, as this increases the time before the Templar discover you.
• When the Templar set up base, 4 to 7 countries will be outlined in blue. They will have a fortress icon on them, and a sound effect will play. When this happens, it would have been best to evolve Demonic Fury and and at least Lair Healing 1, though 2 is preferable. If it is not evolved yet, do so ASAP, as the Templar grow stronger daily. If a popup claiming that a base is prepared for anything shows up, you're doomed. Restart.
• It is preferable to have at least Travel Speed 1 by now. Fly to the countries fortified by the Templar and perform Blood Rage on them. The last base is the most experienced due to survivors escaping to them, so you may have to retreat. If so, Blood Rage your retreat nation to regain HP. Please note that you may have to do this multiple times in order to destroy the final base.
• Once the Templar have been demolished, if you wish, you may fly to low-population countries and consume their population via Blood Rage. If you do so, however, it would be preferable to stick to Greenland and Iceland. (Optional)
• It's finally time to unleash the plague. Go to the Symptoms tab and evolve Shadow Blessing. At this point, you should have overflowing DNA points from your Blood Rages. Use these to evolve a Vampiric Awakening and the following symptoms; Nocturnal, Anaemia, Pallor, Weeping Sores, Hyperdontia, Jugular Bite, and Shadow Slaves. The remainder should be spent in the Vampires tab on the Blood Gift tree, all the way to Corrupted Air. If you want, you may spend the few remainder on transmissions, if you are still paranoid about your disease's spread.
• Your disease will immediately get spotted, and WHO labs will start popping up. Fly your vampire over to these countries and Blood Rage them. This becomes easier once your second vampire is created. Heal them via Blood rage, and then begin flying the two around the map to the nearest labs and destroy them. There are labs being created even after the initial, so be careful.
• Your cure's speed will be hit hard after you collapse the WHO initiative. However, countries will still try to work on the cure. If you are having trouble, evolve the lower branch of symptoms (they postpone the cure) and Blood Rage those countries. At this point, every Blood Rage almost completely infects the country. Continue this until everybody is either dead, infected, or a vampire.

Strategy 6

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Note: : Strategy originally submitted in October 8, 2020 (2020-10-08)

This strategy is based off of DiseaseMaster7’s strategy (itself based on Pravus Gaming’s strategy) mixed with elements of the Anonymous for Casual and Normal, designed to have a better success rate and work on all difficulty levels from Casual and Normal thru Brutal and Mega Brutal... I wrote it because the other guides did not really cover the first 2 stages of the game well enough (they are fine at covering stages 3 and 4 though).

Basic Information

• Author: The_Overmind

Genetic Code

Note:necessary to get all of these on harder difficulty levels, if you don’t have all of them yet play on Casual repeatedly until you collect all the genetic codes.

• Brawler - free Blood Rages are essential, without this you need DNA to do Blood Rages
• Budget Bat - free Vampire Travel is also essential, without this you need DNA to do Vampire Travel
• Mad Scientist - automatically collect DNA during the long, boring stage, this strategy does not use Lairs for healing at all so no need for anything related to that
• Suppression - since our strategy takes care of islands and infects all continents, crossing closed land borders is a better passive bonus
• Extremophile - gives a bonus in all climates

This strategy has four stages:

1. In the first stage, our vampire goes around from country to country feeding on civilians and evolving stronger abilities under the Vampires tab, moving around a lot to avoid detection by the humans.
2. In the second stage, our vampire fights and defeats the Templar bases as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence here.
3. In the third stage, we build Lairs around the world to accumulate DNA and also for teleportation purposes later on, and we also destroy as many island countries as we can. This is the long, boring stage.
4. In the fourth stage, after accumulating massive amounts of DNA, we quickly evolve a disease that is as contagious and deadly and possible and have the vampire instantly travel around to all of the Lairs and any islands not yet destroyed to infect everybody, as well as destroying WHO labs, and we finally win the game.

Important things to remember:

1. Do not evolve anything under Symptoms (such as Shadow Blessing) until Stage 4 (until you have Lairs around the world, tons of DNA saved up, and a bunch of island countries destroyed.
2. Do not build any Lairs until Stage 3, after the Templars have been completely wiped out (the end of Stage 2). Templars have a nasty habit of using drones to destroy Lairs and we don’t want that to happen.
3. If you do not have Brawler, Blood Rages cost DNA, and if you do not have Budget Bat, flying around between countries using Vampire Travel costs DNA. You should only play on Casual if you don’t have all those genes, and make sure to save up enough DNA for those abilities ahead of time by doing Blood Rages long enough in countries where Templars do not have a presence. For Casual players who do not have Brawler and Budget Bat, always make sure you have enough DNA for any travel and Blood Rages mentioned later in this guide ahead of time, and if you don’t have enough DNA, continue your current Blood Rage until you have enough, because if you run out of DNA without both of those abilities you lose. For players who have Brawler and Budget Bat, as well as the other suggested genes, you will be able to use this guide to beat any difficulty level up to and including Mega Brutal. If you do not yet have all of the genes unlocked, please play and beat it on Casual again and again until you unlock them all, in order to be able to win at the harder difficulty levels with this strategy.

Stage 1

1. Start in Saudi Arabia. Immediately evolve Night Wraith (to avoid detection) and Blood Rage (so you can attack humans and harvest DNA).
2. Start a Blood Rage in Saudi Arabia. Evolve Therianthropy as soon as you can (for the Vampire Travel ability to travel between countries).
3. As soon as you have Therianthropy, fly to Egypt and start a Blood Rage there. Check often on the status of your current country (in this case Egypt) and as soon as the police start searching for you, fly to Libya and start a Blood Rage there, continuing this pattern.
4. OK so we will be flying between a lot of different countries until the vampire is successfully tracked by the humans, in order to avoid detection as long as possible, and in every country, we will regularly check on the status of that country and as soon as police start searching for the vampire, we will move onto the next country. We will also evolve various Vampire traits during this time too.
5. The countries to go to, in order from where we start, are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, West Africa, Central Africa, Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, East Africa, Sudan, Middle east, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Balkan States, Italy, Spain, France, UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Baltic States, Poland, Germany, Central Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, S.E Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea. This is a route that can be traveled where we avoid ever going in the same country more than once and keep moving around. You will not actually be able to get to all of these countries before you are detected; typically the vampire is detected while in Europe, this is just a list that is long enough to give you a way out so you can keep traveling prior to being detected. Anyway, always keep track of the status of the country the vampire is currently in, and if “Police team form to hunt Blood Cult” has appeared, it is time to move onto the next country in the list immediately and start a Blood Rage there. Once you are detected, Stage 1 is over and Stage 2 begins.
6. We will be evolving as many Vampire Traits as possible. Night Wraith, Blood Rage, and Therianthropy are the first three we evolved, in Saudi Arabia. After this, the order to evolve Vampire Traits is as follows: Dark Ritual 1 (so we can heal), Adrenal Surge (for stronger attack), Dark Infiltration (for stronger attack), Shadow Blades (for stronger attack), Demonic Fury (for stronger attack), Travel Speed 1 (for faster and longer travel), Travel Speed 2 (for faster and longer travel), Dark Ritual 2 (for faster healing), Lair (for the eventual ability to build Lairs, which we will not use yet), Shadow Portal (which not only lets us teleport to Lairs instantly but also strengthens attacks even more once the Welcome to Hellmouth Combo appears soon after), Lair Healing 1 (least important), and Lair Healing 2 (least important). Actually we won’t get to evolve all of these during Stage 1, but this is the list we will also be following in Stage 2 for evolving abilities.
7. At some point, an alert will come up stating that your vampire has been tracked and authorities know where you are, and it will mention what country you are currently in in the alert. Once that happens, time to move to Stage 2.

Stage 2

1. This stage begins when the vampire is successfully tracked by humans. Once that happens we stop moving around and instead just stay in the current country continuing the current Blood Rage and evolving traits in the order listed in Stage 1, until Templar unveils the vampire threat to the world and its bases appear. The very instant that happens, it is time to go on the attack, go straight to the nearest base, do a Blood Rage there, and destroy the base.
2. You should be able to destroy the first Templar base without leaving the country it is in, but have a bit of damage. Do another Blood Rage to heal yourself and note that in battles with future Templar bases, you may need to fly out of the country with a base in it to a neighboring country to heal and then fly back into the country with the base, sometimes just once, sometimes a whole bunch of times, depending on how strong you are and how strong the enemy is. The Templar bases get stronger over time and they also get stronger the fewer of them are left. The first one is the easiest and the last is the hardest and with the last one and possibly also the second-to-last or even third-to-last one you will be going in and out of that country again and again, doing a Blood Rage in that country to damage the base, and doing a Blood Rage in a neighboring country to heal yourself. Remember not to let your vampire die during any of these fights with the Templar! Always retreat when the vampire’s health gets low to a neighboring country to do a Blood Rage to heal before going back to the country with a Templar base and doing a Blood Rage to attack again.
3. Any excess DNA you have that is enough to purchase evolved abilities, you should do in the order mentioned back in Stage 1, the order that starts with Night Wraith and ends with Lair Healing 2.
4. Anyway in this stage, we will go around and destroy all the Templar bases, as quickly as possible, starting with the ones that are closest and easiest to get to. The strategy back in Stage 1 of moving around a lot to avoid detection and getting the attack as strong as possible should have given us strong attack here in Stage 2 when we actually fight the Templar. Remember NOT to build any Lairs until after ALL of the Templar bases are wiped out. If you build a Lair you will have to fight off Drones and you are very likely to get your Lair destroyed by the Templar. It is best to just avoid building any Lairs at all until after the Templar are wiped out, since there is a possibility the Templar might build new bases and you might have to go off and fight a base far away from a Lair you built, leaving it undefended against Drones, so just don’t build Lairs in this stage, it is better that way.
5. Eventually either you should be able to destroy all the Templar bases or, if you have bad luck, the Templar will turn out to be too strong in this particular game, and even after fighting them a really long time, they might be building new bases faster than you can destroy them. If the Templar end up being super-strong like that, just restart the game and try again. It is possible to defeat them at least half of the time with this strategy, I think, but sometimes you just have bad luck and they get too strong and you need to restart the game. This depends on where the Templar put their bases, timing, and other factors, and the more experience you have fighting them, the better you will get at this.
6. At some point, eventually, you will finally win, although it is possible you might have to restart the game and start over if you have bad luck. Hopefully that is not necessary. Once the Templars are completely wiped out, it is time for Stage 3.

Stage 3

1. Now we can build Lairs, now that the Templars are gone, but we still want to hold off on evolving any Symptoms, so make sure to continue to avoid evolving Shadow Blessing, which we only evolve in the final stage. We do want to finish evolving every single one of the Vampire Traits, though. In Stage 3, it is easier if you change from normal speed to fast-forward, so do that.
2. As far as where to build Lairs, build them in the USA, Brazil, Central Africa, Central Europe, China, and then a final one in Iran.
3. As far as destroying island countries, first go to Greenland and use Blood Rage to kill everybody, which should be the fastest country to wipe out. Next, destroy Iceland too, the second fastest to wipe out.
4. After destroying Greenland and Iceland, you can take your pick and destroy the following, listed from least populous to most populous: New Zealand, New Guinea, Madagascar, Australia, the Caribbean, the UK, the Philippines, and Japan (don’t worry about Indonesia as it shares a land border with S.E Asia, let Indonesia stay). You do not necessarily need to destroy all of these, but you probably want to destroy all the remaining island countries that do not have airports, namely New Guinea, Madagascar, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, since those are less likely to get infected than countries with both airports and seaports like New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Japan. It is up to your discretion how many island countries to destroy, depending on the difficulty level and whether you think you will be able to infect the countries that you do not destroy fast enough in Stage 4.
5. While doing these blood rages to destroy island countries, you will accumulate a lot of DNA. You will use this to finish up all of the Vampire traits and building all 6 Lairs mentioned earlier.
6. At some point you will get bored once you have hundreds of DNA and are trying to wipe out one of the higher-population island countries. Once you have 600 or 700 DNA, that is probably enough, and you will definitely get to that point before wiping out all the island countries if you do the higher-populations ones too. I would suggest you keep going and get even more DNA, like 1000 or more DNA, which will happen before you are done wiping out the island countries, and is more than enough to completely destroy humanity in the final Stage 4.
7. Once you have destroyed enough countries and have enough DNA, it is time for Stage 4 (and decreasing from fast-forward speed to regular speed).

Stage 4

1. Finally it is time to evolve the Shadow Blessing Symptom Trait (and also decrease from fast-forward to regular speed). After this, you will want to evolve as many Transmissions and Symptoms as possible. The other guides cover this in more detail but different ones have different suggestions... suffice it to say that there is more than one solution that works and all the other guides have working solutions for this.
2. It is up to you whether or not to evolve the Zoonotic Shift Transmissions... they speed up infection but they also make the cure faster so it is a double-edged sword.
3. Another thing that is up to you is whether or not to do Vampiric Awakening and how many times to do it. You can use this to create more vampires but it also wipes out a lot of the people who spread your disease. It is generally a good idea to do it at least once since your vampires not only are able to help spread the disease but can also destroy WHO labs.
4. Another thing you can decide is whether to evolve the Shadow Slaves Symptom Trait or instead avoid it in order to unlock the Sadomasochist achievement, which requires you to win without that Symptom Trait. It is best to get that achievement on Casual mode so that you are able to rely on Shadow Slaves in Normal, Brutal, and Mega-Brutal modes. Shadow Slaves are definitely something that makes beating this easier and the only reason to avoid that is to get that achievement, which you only have to do once.
5. Mostly you want to focus on having your vampire(s) go around the world as fast as possible and infect all the countries where you have Lairs (countries you can travel to instantly). Also infect any island countries that you did not destroy, by having your vampire(s) visit them. Once that is done, the world is on the path to destruction but you have one remaining obstacle.
6. There will be WHO laboratories that start popping up. They are much easier to destroy than Templar bases were but you want to destroy them really fast to prevent progress on the cure. Eventually after you destroy enough of them, the WHO lab initiative will fail. It is important to destroy them immediately after they pop up.
7. The disease will spread but some countries might not be infected, so visit them with a vampire and infect them. Also if the disease is having trouble spreading in a country, a vampire can help accelerate its spread.
8. You should be able to win without much difficulty if you got through the first 3 stages successfully. If you have trouble with this last stage, you can look at the other guides on this page for more details on exactly what symptoms to do, etc. - The_Overmind

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