I chose to make a guide in Brutal difficulty since any strategy that works in brutal works in both casual and normal. On the difficulty selection screen, the description on brutal states that people are compulsively hand washing, doctors never go home, and sick people are locked in prison - basically saying everyone is paranoid and will be hard to infect. In this difficulty infection takes time, cure times are faster, and the slightest severity will make your plague noticed by the entire world. Also remember that when you devolve in this difficulty, it will cost more and more. This means that when you devolve for the third time you will not get a refund and the following devolves will cost you more and more DNA.
If this is your first time playing, you'll probably have no genes yet. Genes are useful abilities you unlock when you win games. In total there are 30 genes, 25 can be unlocked by winning games with any plague type, the other 5 can only be unlocked on the Necroa Virus plague and can only be used on it. This post isn't about genes so I'll go on and start on the guide now.
Genetic Code setup:
None
*I won't be using any genes in this guide, but feel free to experiment when you unlock them.
1.) Start in China
Devolve any symptom that appears before infecting the entire world.
2.) Evolve Water 1 and Air 1 in transmissions
3.) Evolve Bacterial Resilience 1 and Drug Resistance 1 in abilities
4.) Evolve Water 2, Air 1, and Extreme Bioaerosol in transmission
5.) Finish the Bacterial Resilience tree, evolve 2 and 3
6.) Now wait for the whole world to be infected. This takes a while so make sure your speed is at fast forward
7.) Once everyone's infected, Evolve the following symptoms(I recommend doing it in this order):
Rash, Sweating, Fever, Immune Suppression, Total Organ Failure, Coma, and Paralysis
8.) People should start dying now. When you get enough DNA evolve the following:
Insomnia, Paranoia, Seizures, and Insanity
9.) You should still get some more DNA since people are dying, try to get these when you can:
Genetic Hardening and Genetic Reshuffle. Get more reshuffles if you can to lower cure percentage
10.) Now watch as your plague eradicates humanity.
The best stat I got running this setup is finishing in 1119 days, having cure at 42% of the cure complete, and 3 out of 5 biohazards.
As I stated before starting, I did this without genes so feel free to experiment with it to get higher scores.
Notice:
Dec.16,2013:
I will update this guide in the future once I get a good strategy going. I'll probably also make a guide with my recommended genes. Post some tips in the comments and I'll try them out.
