Strategy Guides/Virus
| General Information | Strategy Guides Main Game - Cure Mode |
 |
The following are strategies for the Virus 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. |
General Guidelines
Casual
Most Plague, Inc. players serious enough to go to this wiki will have already beaten the Virus on Casual. If you are, however, struggling to beat the Virus on Casual, I'm here to help you out. I'm guessing that you don't have many genes to modify your genetic code with at this point. That's okay, you can beat it without them. (I'm not, by the way, just saying this while I have all my genes maxed out. To make this article I removed all of my genes just to see how I'd do). We've already gone over some possibilities of where we might want to start your disease. Pick whichever one you feel is best.
As for the actual gameplay, it should be fairly simple beating the virus. My first rule of thumb for all attempts to beat the virus is to let it mutate. At the casual level, people aren't going to notice a little cough and some nausea for the first part of the game. Let it mutate, save your DNA points, and use them for something other then devolving every mutated trait. At this level, I'm not going to tell you to necessarily evolve Viral Instability right at the start. After all, you don't want to mutate your virus so much that it evolves Total Organ Failure before a billion people are infected. Let it mutate, but don't let it get out of hand. Although humanity may not notice a cough, they're definitely going to notice a rash, cysts, or vomiting. Keep it under control.
Humanity will find your virus sooner or later. Luckily for you, they won't do anything about it quite yet. Once they find your virus, my advice is to allow those symptoms to spread. Infect as many people as possible, though try to keep it at a low lethality. for now. Once humanity starts to freak, however, my advice is to pull the trigger. If they start getting close to having the cure at maximum priority, your only chance is to wipe them out. Feel free to go wild at this stage.
However, every once in a while you're going to get an island nation uninfected with its ports closed. My strategy for dealing with this is to keep killing off the rest of the world, until cure research is severely crippled. Then I devolve most of the lethal traits, and wait for Extreme Zoonosis to infect them. When I beat the Virus on Mega Brutal, I needed this strategy. I don't insist you do much in this strategy guide, but I am going to implore you to get Extreme Zoonosis.
With any luck, following these guidelines will give you success within a few tries. Feel free to let me know if you have any improvements on this strategy in the comments below!
Normal
For me, my strategy with Normal is about the same as my strategy with Casual. Again, don't try to devolve every mutation that comes your way. In the early stages of the game, I do tend to devolve certain symptoms that will attract a lot of attention (such as Cysts), but besides that I recommend letting Coughing evolve. It is nearly impossible to hide a virus disease type while still keeping your DNA points up, so don't try. "Let it go but keep it in check" is the new motto of the day. Remember it.
As with Casual, let your disease have more mutating freedom when it is discovered. They've already spotted it, so it won't attract too much more attention if it's patients start breaking out into cysts. At this stage of the game, still keep it on a leash; people will notice if their fellow humans are dying in droves but then you have to go eat bitch. Save complete death and destruction until 90% of the population is infected and humanity is already pouring it's money into curing you. Once they do, you have no choice but to knock them out. As for uninfected island nations with closed borders, refer back to my "casual guide."
Normal and Casual are almost identical to each other in difficulty. Brutal and Mega Brutal, however, are in a league of their own.
Brutal
By the time you get to the Brutal difficulty, you're going to need some tweaks to the genetic code of your disease.There is really only one DNA gene that I consider absolutely vital in this game, and that would be the Catalytic Switch. This is helpful right from the middle of the game to the end. When humanity starts to freak, you have a reliable source of DNA to help you keep evolving traits. When you pull the trigger and people start dying in droves, the extra DNA points it gives you will be helpful in evolving a couple more lethal symptoms or slowing down cure research. When it's near the end of the game, and your flood of DNA points from dying people has turned into a trickle, then the Catalytic Switch is whats going to give you the points you need to fend off humanity for a few more days while you wait for their governments to fall.
As for the rest of the genes, I honestly don't think they're game-changing. Sure, they're nice to have and all, but I honestly think that you could beat the game on mega brutal without any. Except maybe Catalytic Switch.
While making this guide, I'll have you know that I did play through and beat Virus on Brutal without any genes. Don't you worry, first time Plague, Inc-er. You'll be all right.
To be perfectly honest, beating Plague, Inc's Virus on Brutal isn't too bad. In fact, in general, your strategy is going to be similar to beating it on Casual and Normal. Again, you want to let your plague mutate, but stay away from symptoms that will make your disease noticeable in the beginning. In the meantime, work on transmission and abilities.
Once people discover your plague, let some more symptoms mutate, but stay away from the lethal ones. After all, you don't want humanity focusing their research on you when only a billion people are infected. Speaking of which, now might be a good time to upgrade Genetic Hardening. You might also consider buying some Viral Instability at this point to help your disease along. This is a bit of a gamble, of course, but you'll need to get used to Viral Instability if you want to beat the virus on Mega Brutal. That's all I'm saying for now.
As with Casual and Normal, start killing people off as soon as humanity starts to pour money into curing you. Even if you have a few places that your disease hasn't taken ahold of yet. After all, even if you do kill off all the infected in said not-very-infected place, you can always re-infect them later with Extreme Zoonosis after cure research is crippled. Also as with Normal and Casual, take away lethal abilities when research speed has been severely crippled, if some island nation is still uninfected. Then just wait for Extreme Zoonosis to work it's magic.
My friends, whether you're an experienced Plague, Inc-er or a complete newbie to the game, you should be able to beat the Virus on Brutal, even if it takes you a few tries. Mega Brutal.
Mega Brutal
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if it was skill or just luck the two times I beat the virus on Mega Brutal. When I did beat it, it came down to a nail-biting (for me, at least) wait for Greenland to become infected while the remaining infected people slowly died off.(everyone hates Greenland, Madagascar, etc.) And that wasn't even as intense as beating Mega Brutal with a Prion, which came down to waiting for people in Iceland to start being infected quicker than they were dying off, as the cure became 98% complete. What I'm trying to say is, Mega Brutal is no joke.
However, having beaten Mega twice in a row now, I feel that I can give you some useful advice. The first rule for beating the Virus on Mega Brutal; throw caution to the wind.
Seriously. I'll tell you the only way I know how to beat the Virus on Mega Brutal, and that is by letting the virus go wild with it's mutating. The first thing I did both times I beat it was evolve Viral Instability to the max. Before I evolved any transmission trait, any drug resistance or temperature resistance, any anything, all three Viral Instabilities were purchased. And then I just let it go. I evolved the transmission and most of the abilities, while mutations took care of the rest. I only devolved two things during the first half of the game (these were, if you're curious, Cysts (I didn't want them finding my disease too early), and some super lethal trait (I forget exactly what it was, but humanity would've freaked if it had been unleashed too early)). And it worked like a charm. For some reason, they let it spread without worrying about it too much, and by the time they did half of them were dead already (remember "potential to overwhelm humanity before they can develop a cure"). Very soon every country but Greenland was infected. After that it was a simple matter of decreasing the population to 500 000 000 and then devolving all the lethal traits. Greenland was infected five minutes later through Extreme Zoonosis, I re-evolved one or two more lethal traits, and voila. That exact same storyboard happened both times I beat the Virus on Brutal.
And that is really all the advice I can give you for Mega Brutal. Go for it, and I know you'll soon get it.
Q&A
- Q: How many DNA points does it cost to devolve a trait?
- A: It initially costs 2, but will increase by 1 every time you devolve a trait.
- Q: What is the most lethal symptom?
- A: The most lethal symptom is Total Organ Failure.
- Q: Do I need genes to win the game?
- A: No, but genes make it easier.
- Strategy
- Virus