Plague Inc. Nipah Virus Scenario Mega-Brutal(3 Biohazard) Guide

The Nipah Virus scenario has got to be one of the hardest plagues to finish on mega-brutal difficulty- especially if you're aiming for 3 Biohazards. I have played a hundred or so games and was barely able to complete a strategy that works but on a very low success rate. The guide/strategy I'm about to post isn't a 100% win strategy, you will fail...a lot. That's just how Nipah is.

Before I get on with the strategy, here's a little background on the Nipah Virus scenario.

As the description box for the scenario says, the Nipah Virus mutated strain of Virus that originated from a fruit bat and cross-transmitted to a pig then to a human. The in-game description also says something about Nipah being "a disease worthy of hollywood", this is because the inspiration for this scenario was virus in the movie, Contagion(Check it out, it's a good film). This also explains why an achievement called 'Contagion Cancelled' is available only for this scenario.

The basics

I'll assume you already know the basics on Nipah Virus. If you don't, here are the basic things you should know:

1. You need to evolve Bat 2 or Swine 1 to unlock symptoms and transmissions unlocked by Cedar Traits.
2. Hendra traits unlocks Dog and two Horse transmissions, while Cedar Traits unlocks Fomites, and Air & Water transmissions. Upgrading all three to the maximum will unlock Extreme Bioaerosol
3. Respiratory and Encephalitic Shift unlock 4 symptoms each. The first two of these four symptoms only increase infectivity or severity, sometimes both. One symptom is infectious and lethal, and the last one is very lethal.
4. The "Gateway" symptoms for the shifts mentioned are: Pulmonary Oedema and Fibrosis(Either one), Tachycardia, Hallucination, and Fever. The first 3 are for Respiratory and the last two are for Encephalitic.
5. Finally, If you evolved Cedar Trait there is a pop-up event that appears randomly that says "Scientists exploit Cedar Traits". This pop-up will boost the current cure progress by at least 10%(Based on my experience.)

What I think you should know

I played more than a hundred games of Nipah Virus just to come up with a strategy that works. It took me weeks, and a lot of failed attempts, to come up with a strategy that doesn't even have a 50% chance of success. A lot of factors affect mega-brutal games and that's the best I could come up with right now.

While experimenting and failing a lot, I found some things that could potentially help you if you're experimenting with strategies.

• You need Environmental Hardening. Without this ability, Greenland and Iceland will be super slow to infect even if you have maxed transmissions. Maxed transmissions combined with two Cold Resistances still wouldn't be enough to infect Greenland and Iceland quickly.
• Without Air 1(maybe even 2), Kazakhstan will take too long to infect.
• Focusing on animal transmissions and hoping for mutations to carry your game is not a good idea. Tried it, doesn't work. Even with the Darwinist Gene and every animal transmission, you'll be lucky if you get one lethal symptom.
• Greenland and Iceland are the hardest countries to infect. This doesn't need explaining.
• Lethal symptoms from one Shift(Respiratory or Encephalitic) are not enough to kill fast unless you evolve them early. Which leads us to..
• Evolving Shift symptoms without transmissions and resistances will fail. Without Necrosis, the dead won't keep the infection going.
• Mutations are like your best friends. They can help you out or laugh at your failure. 
• Evolving Nausea at the beginning will help a lot, especially if a festival of love comes up
• Being placed on the WHO watch list will make countries close their borders, airports, and harbors sooner. I think it also boosts the cure progression
• WHO increasing your threat level will do the same but far worse.
• Awareness days will boost the cure
• If all three events mentioned above happens, game over.
• Finally, finishing at 365 days isn't enough. The cure completion has to be below 55%.

Spicy's Strategy

Current Success rate and some comments:

In the last 10 games I've played with this strategy, I've won 3 games. The main reason why I decided to post this guide, even though it had a low success rate, is because it's the only strategy that worked more than once in 10 games without making changes to the evolution order. 

Here are the reasons why I think I lost the seven games:

• Failure to infect Greenland
• Placed on Watchlist or Threat Level increase too early
• Pulmonary Hemorrhage mutated too early
• Nipah Awareness day boosted the cure
• 'Scientists explore Cedar Trait' happened as game was about to finish with 50% cure.

Requirements for 3 Biohazards

In my experience, finishing within 365 days will not be enough to give you a 3 biohazard score. The cure progress would also need to be below 55%. To give you an idea of the stats you should have at the end of the game, here are my stats on my latest wins.

The first 3 games were won while I was experimenting with strategies. Those strategies relied too much on random mutations.

Things to remember:

• Always be ready to change the strategy at any given point, some events may require you to react differently. Do not be afraid to experiment, losing is also part of the game.
• I can not account for the random events, country infection order, and mutations that happen throughout your game. Each game is different and this strategy might not always work.
• Don't get too frustrated. If you're failing consecutively, take a break and do something else. 
• I spent weeks finding a decent enough strategy for this scenario. I had more failed games than wins. That being said, be prepared to lose a lot. Just kidding, keep trying. You might just find your own strategy.

Gene Setup

1.) ATP Boost - Having 8 DNA to work with right at the beginning will help.

2.) Aquacyte - To infect island countries easier.

3.) Darwinist - Genetic Mimic is also an option, but the mutation of infectious symptoms, although random, will help out more than slowing down the cure.

4.) Trans-Stasis - We'll be focusing mostly on transmissions to spread the plague quickly

5.) Hydrophile - Extremophile is always an option here, but I chose this one to fully infect India earlier. I haven't tried this strategy with extremophile yet.

The strategy

1.) Before popping the very first red bubble, evolve the following:

• Bat 2
• Swine 1
• Nausea

2.) Pop the red bubble then continue to evolve the following:

• Swine 2
• Bat 3
• Bat 4
• Respiratory Shift

3.) Take a look at your mutated symptoms and continue to evolve in either of these ways:

Note: The main point here is to evolve Haemoptysis. Also, if given a choice between Pulmonary Oedema and Pulmonary Fibrosis, always choose Oedema.

• If Coughing and Sneezing are evolved, evolve Pulmonary Fibrosis then Haemoptysis
• If not, evolve Vomiting, Pulmonary Oedema then Haemoptysis

4.) Continue to evolve the following:

• Hendra Traits
• Cedar Traits
• Fomites 1
• Fomites 2
• Water 1
• Water 2
• Drug Resistance 1
• Drug Resistance 2
• Pulmonary Haemorrhage In my experience, having this symptom mutate earlier than this point will cause problems.
• Respiratory Failure
• Air 1
• Air 2
• Cold Resistance 1
• Cold Resistance 2
• Heat Resistance 1
• Heat Resistance 2
• Environmental Hardening This makes the infection rate on Greenland and Iceland super fast
• Encaphalitic Shift

5.) At this point in the game, the whole world is already on its way to complete infection. From this point on, you can decide on what you want to evolve.

In my games I prioritize evolving these symptoms, in order:

• Hallucination If symptoms leading to it are already mutated. If not I evolve the closest one to it.
• Coma Hallucination and Coma will slow the cure by a great amount. Remember that the cure progress has to be below 55%
• Seizures Although this symptom has low lethality, it'll still help in making kills much faster

You either have the choice to go full on lethal with your Nipah Virus or slow down the cure. Pulmonary Haemorrhage and Respiratory Failure will still take some time erase humanity, so evolving some lethal symptoms might be helpful, but keep in mind that you need the cure to be below 55%. If you're confident that the cure won't reach 55%, it might be best to go and get Meningitis. The symptoms I listed above are always the ones I evolved in the 3 wins I got.

Again, with this strategy I have won 3 games out of 10. It might not be worth mentioning, but in some of those games I was also busy working or watching TV that I might have missed a few bubbles. That about does it. Hope this guide helped!

Submitted Guides:

Guide by: wab

Spicy's comments: I think I've tried this strategy, I don't know if I was successful on it or not, but it's worth trying it out.

Here is how i beat itAtp boost,aqua,sympto,darwinist,extremophileBat 2,coughing,nausea,vomiting,sneezing,oedema,resp shift,haemoptysis,max bat and swine.Cold,drug 1/2,heat 1/2,env hardening.Hendra traits,horse 1/2.All rest cheap non highly lethal symtoms,except memory loss coma and hallucinations/you need them for later whe cure progress is high/.When all islands are infected /not fully infected/evolve pulmonary haemorrhage and watch kazakhstan cuz they tend to be with slowest inf rate.When half of people are infected go resp failure, menigitis and encephalitis.Memory loss coma and hallucinations/if you are lucky and they havent mutated yet/ plus reshuffles to get cure progress down.Won 2out of five with 345 days and 42% cure progress being my best.Would have better succes rate if i havent evolved the last three lethal symptoms too early.

Credits and closing remarks

I hope these guides have helped you achieve those sweet golden biohazards for Nipah Virus. If you have any tips or strategies you'd like to share, post them at the comments. I'll include the most up-voted ones along with this guide. HSG!