It took me several games but I finally found a good strategy to beat fungus in mega-brutal difficulty. The main problem with this particular plague is that it, as the description says, struggles to transmit the plague through long distances. You'll have to rely on its unique abilities, Spore Burst and Eruption, to spread the fungus as quickly as possible. If you think you can spread this plague first then kill later, think again. Before you can even evolve a symptom, there's a high chance that it will be detected by random blood tests. It won't take long until that country starts a cure research which defeats the purpose of spreading it first.
After several failed games I have come to the conclusion that in order to beat this plague in mega-brutal you will have to rely on spore bursts and random symptom mutations. Spreading it fast is they key to beating this plague in this hellish difficulty. Genetic shifts will always be a problem but there's really nothing we can do about that.
Before I start with the guide, there's a few things I think I should warn you about. First, If your fungus plague fails to infect island countries such as Greenland and Madagascar and their harbors/ports are closed, you will have to start over. Second, Genetic Shifts randomizes the costs of DNA, there's a high chance that the costs would increase by a small amount or by a lot which is why it is strongly recommended that you evolve as soon as you can. Lastly, try to keep infectivity a lot higher than lethality until you infect the entire world, you won't want to kill infected people before they infect others, right?
Now onto the guide on how to beat fungus in mega-brutal difficulty. First things first, the gene setup:
- ATP Boost
- Teracyte
- Patho-Stasis
- Darwinist
- Extremophile
2.) Evolve the following in this order:
- Bird 1
- Water 1
- Bird 2
- Water 2
- Cold Resistance 1
- Drug Resistance 1
- Heat Resistance 1
- Drug Resistance 2
- Cold Resistance 2
- Heat Resistance 2
- Environmental Hardening
3.) After evolving everything above, move on to evolving Spore Bursts
TIP: It would be a good idea to evolve six Spore Bursts then popping the red bubbles first before evolving Spore Eruption. This is simply because the red bubbles would disappear if you are unable to pop them in time.
- Evolve six Spore Bursts then Spore Eruption. Do this twice then..
- Evolve Spore Hardening
4.) Evolve the following symptoms in this order:(Skip the ones that are already mutated)
- Rash
- Sweating
- Skin Lesions
- Necrosis
- Insomnia
- Paranoia
- Seizures
- Insanity
- Inflammation
- Paralysis
- Coma
5.) Before evolving the next two symptoms wait until the entire world is infected: (Not necessarily in this order, you can evolve whichever you want first)
- Total Organ Failure
- Hemorrhagic Shock
6.) Watch the world burn(or die from a fungus, whatever)
I played and won three games using this strategy. The only thing different with each game is the order which symptoms mutate. You'd want every symptom I listed to mutate to save some DNA but doesn't usually happen. The Cure completion would typically reach 50% on all my games, and it would take at least 700 days to eradicate humanity. On all three games I had only 4 out of 5 biohazards, If I ever find a better strategy than this one, I'll definitely update this one.
Alternate Strategies:
- Unknown Origin Scenario: Fungus Guide by Spicy
- Featured comment by Bulacan(Located below this post)
- Unknown Origin Scenario: Fungus Guide by Dr. Bulgaria
If you guys have any questions, tips, or other better strategies, please post them at the comments below. I'll include the good ones along with this guide. Happy Gaming!
Nope didn't work, I ran out of DNA points before I could make it deadly (or even insanity) never hit total organ failure even though %100 infected!
ReplyDeleteHi! The reason you might have not been able to have enough DNA are probably genetic shifts. These happen randomly and increase DNA costs by a small amount or by a lot. I'll try to update this guide as soon as I can with a better one.
DeleteRight on! I've tried again, and still no luck :( I came real close to beating parasite, just fall short on Fungus! Mega brutal is rough! Thanks for the walk throughs and tips ~MM
DeleteI think a key point is to watch the progress of the infection. If it looks like it's going to infect the whole world soon enough, then you can skip the last few symptoms listed under 4) and go straight to the serious ones. My whole world got infected when I reached "Insanity" the first try, so obviously I just made it as deadly as possible. Cure was ~50% but days over 700 so I only got 3 biohazards/stars. But it worked great. Thanks for the guide.
DeleteManaged it... Just about. Only got 3 biohazards due to genetic shift making it really hard to get the last lethal symptoms. I had to improvise with hemorrhagic fever instead of total organ failure.
ReplyDeletePlus the early symptom mutations didn't help... Just drew attention too soon.
I was able to complete using your guide, but not so easy. After Coma, i was without DNA and the Cure was reaching 100%. I had to devolve 2 simptoms to complete the 17 DNA points to get one Genetic Re-Shuffle.
ReplyDeleteCure became 100% in the same moment I bought the Reshuffle, going to 87%
Thanks for the guide, i'll try to improve it.
Followed this guide, didn't get any real lethal symptoms but I beat it in 1112 days with a 95% Cure Progress...whew too close!
ReplyDelete4 out of 5.
ReplyDelete554 days.
46% cure.
Evolved all spore bursts/eruptions first to get as many countries as possible. Worked fine for me.
Thanks for transmissions and symptoms to you.
This one was super Iffy for me, I got it after about 7 attempts...
ReplyDeleteworked for me on first try, took 888 days and was at 63% completion, got 3 biohazards
ReplyDeleteWorked perfectly! Thank you :) I was struggling with this one.
ReplyDeleteI must be really unlucky. The cure reaches 85% before I am even able to evolve heat 2. Then less than 30 seconds later cure is 100% and game over.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much to AllHailSpicy for making these guides!
ReplyDeleteI took a different approach that works pretty well. I was trying to get 3 biohazard using Fungus on the Unknown Origin scenario. I won in 330 days with 55% cure. This is a very loose outline of what I did. I did not take notes while playing, so the symptoms listed are not comprehensive. Hope for the best when it comes to symptoms evolving for you too :)
ATP Boost, Aquacyte, Patho-stasis, Darwinist, Extremophile
Start in any country.
Pop first bubble, evolve 6 spore bursts and a spore eruption. Quickly pop all of the bubbles.
Evolve the second set of 6 spore bursts, eruption, and spore hardening (if you have the DNA) Quickly pop bubbles.
Evolve Spore hardening if not done in above step
Evolve Transmissions:
Bird 1 & 2
Water 1 & 2
Evolve Symptoms (if not already evolved):
Rash
Sweating
Skin Lesions
Necrosis
Coughing
Pneumonia
Evolve Abilities:
Cold 1
Heat 1
Drug resistance 1
Cold 2
Heat 2
Drug resistance 2
Environmental Hardening
The world should pretty much be infected at this point. Wait for the last country to get infected and evolve deadly symptoms (Total Organ Failure, Hemorrhagic Shock, etc)
The biggest challenge with this approach is running out of DNA for the deadly symptoms. You will also probably need to either evolve seisures & coma (or genetic re-shuffle) to get the cure percent down before the end of the game.
Thanks for sharing your strategy! I'll be sure to include this in the upcoming fungus guide for the unknown origin scenario.
ReplyDeleteI've really been messing with fungus for the last few days and discovered that using all spore bursts/eruptions in the beginning isn't the best approach. Use one set (6 bursts/eruption) in the beginning, maybe 3 or 4 bursts from the second set, then save the remaining spore bursts and final eruption for later to infect the last few countries that aren't infected.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to beat mega-brutal with fungus on all scenarios with 3 gold biohazards. So far I have done it on everything except Global Warming, Golden Age, Ice Age, Shut Down Everything.
Another thing I'm playing with is using Metabolic Jump instead of ATP boost when using the Spore Burst start. You end up getting the DNA you would have had with ATP boost, plus additional for all the red bubbles that pop up later.
thx bulacan your strategy work great!
ReplyDeletethx a lot :)
Worked well. Earned 4 stars. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThank you, I was stuck at this mode until I found your guide
ReplyDeleteI tried yours and it mostly worked. But I didn't have enough for total organ failure. I finally managed to afford it, but the cure got really far. At the end, the cure was 85% complete and I got 3 biohazards.
ReplyDeleteIt kills so slow so I'm not able to get 5/5 biohazards, but still, thanks for the guide!
ReplyDeleteDone in 635 days with cure at 56%.
ReplyDeleteIm sorry but i tried your stratigey word for word five times and it never worked, maybe it was how the symptoms mutated or something, anyway i found i different stratigy. If anyone is having the same problem and would like a secondary stratigy contact me via email
ReplyDeletewoodroff.turner@gmail.com
My Stats
727 days
53% cure
4-5 biohazards (34140 points)
Well, on plague inc evolved this strategy does'nt seem to work for me, i did several tries... But that were a lot of thrilling (close) games in kill/cure ratio... :)
ReplyDeleteI simply can't kill enough people until i get enough DNA points to evolve coma...
no idea why, i had 50% of the world dead, but i still get no DNA at PLIevolved...
Still thx for that strat. was lotsa fun.
All hail spicy! o/
637 days, 48 % of cure, 44510 points & 4 biohazards.
ReplyDeletePerfect!
I tried this and won in 669 days but only got 4 out of 5 biohazards.
ReplyDeleteDidn't work for me the first time. I was able to infect everyone, but didn't have enough DNA points to evolve the symptoms so cure got to 100% before I could really kill anyone. I'll try again.
ReplyDeleteI somehow mixed up all your strategies and it worked pretty well.
ReplyDeleteSame gene setup.
Start by evolving Cysts and coughing.
Choose China.
Wait for 7 DNA then evolve all Spore Bursts.
Pop all the red bubbles and with the new gained DNA evolve Rash, Sweating and Skin Lesions (you may need to wait a little for some DNA to evolve the last one).
Then start Spicy's guide (Bird, Water, Resistance...).
Most of the time, at some point Necrosis will evolve by itself saving a lot of DNA points.
When you reach part 4) of Spicy's guide, evolve also pneumonia.
Then execute part 5) and enjoy!!
Kind Regards,
I'm jus thankful this worked! I tried the initial strategy about 5 times and I couldn't even get all the people infected. Yours at least got all the people infected. I waited until all my countries were infected and then I went through cough to total organ failure. I even had extra DNA for genetic reshuffle and for a few other lethal symptoms. I got 3 out of 5 biohazards so not the greatest score but I beat it lol. It took 725 days and the cure got up to 71 percent.
ReplyDeleteI tried this four times, and all times, the cure was completed before I could even infect everybody?
ReplyDeleteWas cured long before I could get through this strategy several times.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem: Cure + Carribean
ReplyDeleteProbably need to release a guide for the M-10 update. This guide works 4% of the time. I almost beat it but i got cured.
ReplyDeleteYeah...I plan to make a new guide for this plague soon. I think this has the lowest success rate right now because a lot of people have been very vocal on its ineffectiveness--simply stated, it currently sucks.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I understand it's very hard to make guides like this. :P
ReplyDeleteThis guide does not work. - 25 attempts, is cured before even half the listed symptoms can be evolved.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this guide is really outdated since the mutation 10 update. I'll try to make a new as soon as I can.
ReplyDeleteThe game may have been updated since this comment, but I couldn't get anywhere close to making this work after trying it 5 times...
ReplyDeleteYeah, the game has been updated and this guide(maybe even this comment) doesn't work as well anymore.
ReplyDeleteA more updated and recent guide will be posted as soon as possible. Working at it as of this writing.
This has a problem, the fact that there's no Genetic Hardenings or Re-Shuffles
ReplyDeleteYour strategy does not work sorry. But the people down below seem to have better strategies :)
ReplyDeleteHere's my playthrough on Mega-Brutal:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjcF-bz0P4U
Just did it in 367 days in the pic below. Took me 8 attempts, though 4 were similar, I got blocked off at Greenland, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the Caribbean and had to restart though I had the rest of the world killed at around 40%.
ReplyDeleteHere's how I did it.
Start: Saudi Arabia
- Water 1
- Spore Burst 1,2,3
- Water 2
- Complete first circle of Spore Burst with Eruption
- Use up the rest of the points in Rash and Sweating
- Finish Spore Burst circle 2 with Spore Hardening
- Skin Lesions
- Cold 1, 2, Drug Resistance 1, 2 (In that order)
*At this point a cure should just be starting, or start soon, and you should see a rapid mass infection on some continents
- Genetic Hardening 1, 2
*At this point, there are a few options.
- Option 1: If a government has found your fungus and you see the cure bar increase slightly, you need to move faster in symptoms
- Necrosis
- Cysts, Hyper sensitivity
- Bird 1, Bird 2
- Hemorrhagic Shock (At his point you're going to have point issues, and need to kill off more people at a faster rate in order to get more DNA points)
- Paralysis, Coma
- Option 2: If the cure bar has not moved, you want to invest in transmission first
- Bird 1, 2
- Necrosis
- Cysts, Hyper sensitivity
- Hemorrhagic Shock
- Paralysis, Coma
- Continuation from Both:
*At this point every country should be infected. If not look to see which countries are not. If there are countries that are not infected and their borders are closed (unlucky) then you may consider starting a new game. If you see a country that is not infected and they have their borders open selectively target them with transmission traits or symptom traits. *Not try not to spend more than 35 DNA points in this step.
- IF the country is: Hot (Insect 1), Urban (Rodent 1, Coughing), Poor (Blood 1), Rural (Livestock 1), Cold (Coughing -> Pneumonia)
- Total Organ Failure
- Genetic Shuffling 1, 2, 3 to decrease Cure progress to very low, though you may not even need it
Forgot, for the Genetic Codes:
ReplyDeleteATP Boost
Suppression
Patho-Stasis
Genetic Mimic
Urbophile
*While writing the guide I just posted above and following it with a new game, I actually did it with 39% Cure Progress within 371 days which is consistent.
worked for me at first try
ReplyDeletethanks))