Strategy Guides/Virus/Catalogue 1

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 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

Strategy 1

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The following is a complete gameplay guide to the Virus plague type, created by the strategist Mack. Below will be many tips on how to play it:

Abundance of DNA points

The obvious distinction between Virus and the other disease types is its ability to rapidly mutate. This, of course, can be obnoxious, but when it is harnessed effectively, can be used to one's advantage. When a disease mutates, it gains a trait without players needing to spend DNA points to acquire it, therefore saving one points that can be used later. Assuming that the mutated trait isn't doing more harm than good to a player's attempts to destroy the world, they can quickly stockpile these saved points to upgrade whatever they'd like.

Also, because a quickly mutating plague is unavoidably going to kill and infect people much quicker than a plague where one must upgrade every trait themselves, they're usually going to acquire a flood of DNA points.

How To Win

You need wipe out the entirety of humanity in order to win. To do that you need to evolve your plague or make it fatal. If you don't do that you will lose the game. You lose the game when everyone is cured from the plague.

Cure

When a player begins to try games on Brutal or Mega Brutal difficulties, they soon discover that subtlety is no longer an option. Humanity will quickly discover a player's disease even if it has no traits via 'Mystery Plague' riots or just anomalous blood tests, so they must overwhelm them before they can develop a cure. Virus is ideal for this. Within just a few hundred days, a quickly mutating virus can infect the entire world and bring it to its knees, killing off everyone before they can finish a cure. When the strategist beat Virus on Mega Brutal, the mutations that made his disease lethal were quickly key in his victory.

Disadvantages

Inability to control and hide

If you are a Plague Inc. player who likes to lurk, undetected, until the entire world is infected, then you wait until every last person in Greenland is unknowingly sick and you have one hundred DNA points until you leap out with every lethal trait the game has to offer. Well too bad, you're playing with a virus now.

This plague type mutates so quickly that it's nearly impossible to keep it undetected. Unless players willing to burn all their DNA points devolving, they're going to have to let some mutations be. And that means humanity will find you, hunt you down, and mercilessly slaughter you. Unless they get the pace perfectly right, viruses will either kill all of their hosts before the entire world is infected, or be cured faster then one can say "Plague Inc."

Possibility of severe DNA loss

When one is dealing with the virus, they can either have a surplus of DNA points or not enough. It all depends on how they react to random mutations. One cannot devolve all of their mutations, unless the gene Creationist is added at the beginning of a game, or if Translesion + is used to neutralize the escalation of devolving costs. And now that the advantages and disadvantages of Virus have been listed above, it is time for the how-to of making use of advantages and avoiding the disadvantages.

Some of this may not work for you, but Plague, Inc. is unpredictable, so what works one game may not work the next. So instead, what the strategist is going to try to do here is lay down some general rules to follow, that should be useful in all virus rounds. But again, Plague, Inc. is unpredictable, so players should do what works for them. And without further ado, here it is:

Traits

I plan to keep this section as short as possible. Why? Because every game is a little different, and I'm never going to cover all the bases. Even if I somehow wrote down every single possibility as to what could happen in the game and how to solve it, nobody would want to read it. That would be boring, and take all the fun out of the game. And so I'll just give you some very rough outlines as to what you want to do.

Start at Saudi Arabia. Get Water 1 & 2, Air 1, Tier 1 & 2 symptoms, Cold Resistance 1, Drug Resistance 1, Genetic Hardening 1 & 2 in that order. After every country is infected, get Skin Lesions, Viral Instability 1, 2, & 3, get all cure delaying symptoms, and save the rest for Genetic Reshuffles for the end.

Strategy 2

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Note: You need to play extremely aggressively to win as a virus, which means success is often determined by luck. The main determining factor is whether you can get island nations, particularly Greenland, before they close their ports. So it may take a few tries if you are unlucky.

Genetic Code

  • Catalytic Switch - Honestly, this is not very important. Any of the DNA genes will work, you will be drowning in DNA with this strategy regardless of your choice.
  • Aquacyte - You want this to get those pesky island nations (I'm looking at you Greenland).
  • Sympto-Stasis - Even though you will mutate many of your symptoms, this is helpful since you will still be evolving many symptoms on your own. Feel free to replace this with any of the other "stasis" genes.
  • Genetic Mimic - Research is insanely fast on Mega Brutal, so you want to slow it down as much as possible.
  • Urbophile - This is helpful for infecting Europe, which you need to do quickly so you can get Greenland before ports close.

Gameplay

  1. Start in Saudi Arabia. It's airport goes to several different countries, and it is nestled nicely between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
  2. Evolve Air 1 and Air 2 as soon as possible, as they help spread your disease through the airport. Also, Saudi Arabia is an arid country, so it will help your disease get a solid foothold. Right after that, evolve Rash, Sweating, and Skin Lesions. This will double your infectivity, helping you spread even faster.
  3. You might mutate Necrosis, since it is connected to Skin Lesions, but don't worry about it. In fact, you shouldn't devolve anything with this strategy, except for possibly Total Organ Failure since it has a tendency to kill off people too fast. Being discovered early isn't a problem; your primary concern should be infecting as many countries as possible.
  4. Once you have Skin Lesions, you have some options in how you continue. You need Europe to get infected as soon as possible, so I recommend Drug Resistance 1 and Water 1. You can hold off on these until you infect Europe, but they should be high priority as soon as you infect a European country. After that, Rodent 1 and Cold Resistance 1 are also good for getting Europe infected.
  5. During this time, you should also evolve Anaemia, Haemophilia, Coughing, Sneezing, and possibly Pneumonia. With Sympto-Stasis, none of these should cost more than a few DNA Points. Increasing Severity is actually a good thing in this case, as it will get you more DNA Points.
  6. Other important symptoms are Insomnia, Paranoia, Seizures, and Insanity. Hold off on these until cure research starts. Don't get them all at once, just get them whenever you feel cure research is getting a bit too fast.
  7. By this point you should be infecting countries very fast, and you should have a constant stream of DNA Points. If you haven't evolved Water 2 and Drug Resistance 2 yet, do so. Also get Extreme Bioareosol, Cold Resistance 2, and Rodent 1 if you haven't yet.
  8. This is the critical point in your playthrough. If Greenland (or any other island nation) closes its port before being infected, you've lost. Go ahead and start over. Otherwise, you should be able to win. Keep evolving symptoms to increase your infectivity; Necrosis is a good choice. Focus on cheap symptoms, such as Cysts, Nausea, Vomiting, Abscesses, etc. and let the more expensive ones mutate. Cheap symptoms also tend to increase infectivity without too much lethality, which is helpful if your worried about killing off your carriers. The main symptoms to avoid are Dysentery, Hemorrhagic Shock, and above all Total Organ Failure. Don't worry if they mutate, just don't evolve them on your own. Necrosis is OK since it increases infectivity just as much as lethality. You want to have some lethality, as killing people slows research.

Once you infect every country, get Viral Instability 1-3 and watch the world crumble! Evolve whatever you need. If cure research gets too high, get Genetic Hardening or Coma. Honestly, once you infect every country, you have essentially won as long as your infectivity is greater than your lethality.

Conclusion

Guys and gals, I really hope this strategy guide helped you. What it all really boils down to is get out there and try whatever the heck you want. With a bit of luck, you could beat the virus with any strategy. This strategy guide is merely one option.

That being said, I hope that you'll check out my soon to come strategy guides. I'm thinking that the Prion or the Neurax Worm will be next (after all, they're the only other ones I've beaten on Mega Brutal!). In the meantime, thanks again for reading, and I'll see you around.


Strategy 3

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Note: You need to play extremely aggressively to win as a virus, which means success is often determined by luck. The main determining factor is whether you can get island nations, particularly Greenland, before they close their ports. So it may take a few tries if you are unlucky.

Genetic Code

  • Catalytic Switch - Honestly, this is not very important. Any of the DNA genes will work, you will be drowning in DNA with this strategy regardless of your choice.
  • Aquacyte - You want this to get those pesky island nations (I'm looking at you Greenland).
  • Sympto-Stasis - Even though you will mutate many of your symptoms, this is helpful since you will still be evolving many symptoms on your own. Feel free to replace this with any of the other "stasis" genes.
  • Genetic Mimic - Research is insanely fast on Mega Brutal, so you want to slow it down as much as possible.
  • Urbophile - This is helpful for infecting Europe, which you need to do quickly so you can get Greenland before ports close.

Gameplay

  1. Start in Saudi Arabia. It's airport goes to several different countries, and it is nestled nicely between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
  2. Evolve Air 1 and Air 2 as soon as possible, as they help spread your disease through the airport. Also, Saudi Arabia is an arid country, so it will help your disease get a solid foothold. Right after that, evolve Rash, Sweating, and Skin Lesions. This will double your infectivity, helping you spread even faster.
  3. You might mutate Necrosis, since it is connected to Skin Lesions, but don't worry about it. In fact, you shouldn't devolve anything with this strategy, except for possibly Total Organ Failure since it has a tendency to kill off people too fast. Being discovered early isn't a problem; your primary concern should be infecting as many countries as possible.
  4. Once you have Skin Lesions, you have some options in how you continue. You need Europe to get infected as soon as possible, so I recommend Drug Resistance 1 and Water 1. You can hold off on these until you infect Europe, but they should be high priority as soon as you infect a European country. After that, Rodent 1 and Cold Resistance 1 are also good for getting Europe infected.
  5. During this time, you should also evolve Anaemia, Haemophilia, Coughing, Sneezing, and possibly Pneumonia. With Sympto-Stasis, none of these should cost more than a few DNA Points. Increasing Severity is actually a good thing in this case, as it will get you more DNA Points.
  6. Other important symptoms are Insomnia, Paranoia, Seizures, and Insanity. Hold off on these until cure research starts. Don't get them all at once, just get them whenever you feel cure research is getting a bit too fast.
  7. By this point you should be infecting countries very fast, and you should have a constant stream of DNA Points. If you haven't evolved Water 2 and Drug Resistance 2 yet, do so. Also get Extreme Bioareosol, Cold Resistance 2, and Rodent 1 if you haven't yet.
  8. This is the critical point in your playthrough. If Greenland (or any other island nation) closes its port before being infected, you've lost. Go ahead and start over. Otherwise, you should be able to win. Keep evolving symptoms to increase your infectivity; Necrosis is a good choice. Focus on cheap symptoms, such as Cysts, Nausea, Vomiting, Abscesses, etc. and let the more expensive ones mutate. Cheap symptoms also tend to increase infectivity without too much lethality, which is helpful if your worried about killing off your carriers. The main symptoms to avoid are Dysentery, Hemorrhagic Shock, and above all Total Organ Failure. Don't worry if they mutate, just don't evolve them on your own. Necrosis is OK since it increases infectivity just as much as lethality. You want to have some lethality, as killing people slows research.

Once you infect every country, get Viral Instability 1-3 and watch the world crumble! Evolve whatever you need. If cure research gets too high, get Genetic Hardening or Coma. Honestly, once you infect every country, you have essentially won as long as your infectivity is greater than your lethality.

Conclusion

Guys and gals, I really hope this strategy guide helped you. What it all really boils down to is get out there and try whatever the heck you want. With a bit of luck, you could beat the virus with any strategy. This strategy guide is merely one option.

That being said, I hope that you'll check out my soon to come strategy guides. I'm thinking that the Prion or the Neurax Worm will be next (after all, they're the only other ones I've beaten on Mega Brutal!). In the meantime, thanks again for reading, and I'll see you around.
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