Plague Inc. Simian Flu Normal Guide: Let's Use Apes!

After farming for the much needed genes on Casual, It's now time to experiment with various strategies on Normal difficulty in preparation for mega-brutal. In the Casual Strategy, we barely used apes, now, we're fully utilizing them to boost the score--which we totally neglected on the casual guide.

This is just speculation right now, but I think that the final score of the game is somehow affected by the number of intelligent apes who have. Basically, the more you infect and manage to keep alive, the higher your score is. I say this because, in one game I had, using this strategy, I let drones destroy my colonies. Even though I finished faster than my previous games, the score was significantly lower.

This strategy relies mainly on Ape colonies for DNA and Apes, in general, for global infection. The DNA costs for transmissions, symptoms, and abilities increase overtime and having Ape Colonies generating ape bubbles help negate this. I have no idea what affects the increase of DNA costs, I think it's affected by the total infection count of humans or the number of intelligent apes.

Using this strategy, I was able to successfully finish 4 consecutive games with 5/5 biohazards. The final stats for each game is as follows:

As I mentioned above, I had one game where drones appeared and destroyed my ape colonies. It finished with a score of 316,790 although it finished within 498 days, compared to the previous games that finished above 500 days but were able to get scores above 500,000.

I highly encourage people to experiment with this guide, and evolve more, or less, symptoms, transmissions, and abilities as they see fit. A lot of variables affect the success of each game, and may require you to change the strategy midway.

Some people are suggesting to devolve some symptoms immediately if they mutate. This strategy does not require any devolution, we'll let the mutations do what it wants.

I guess that's enough of the introduction, I'll explain other details I've noticed as the guide goes on. Let's start with the guide.

Recommended Gene Setup:

• ATP Boost - Lot's of possible alternatives for this gene, but I chose this one for the early DNA advantage.
• Teracyte - We'll be starting our plague in a country without an airport or a harbor. I think Native Biome is also an alternative, but I've never tried it with this strategy
• ATP Overdose - Combined with ATP Boost, you'll have 23 DNA to spend without even starting your plague.
• Leadership - This gene reduces the increase of active abilities with each use. Great if you're planning to put up multiple colonies.
• Extremophile - Minor infection rate boost in every climate. 

Let's make apes the ruling race

1.) Before selecting a country to start in, evolve the following:

• Simian Neuro-Genesis
• Inter-Genus Dissemination 1 & 2

Then start in Central Africa.

2.) As soon as you have enough DNA, evolve Ape Colonies. Wait for the pop-up about apes breaking out of a Gen-Sys lab, this signifies the start of ape infection. As soon as you can, switch to ape-infection view(the ape head icon at the lower-left side of the screen) then establish an Ape colony in Central Africa.

Ape View. Countries with intelligent apes are colored green.

Then, evolve the following in this order:

• Social Cohesion
• Cognitive Shift
• Education

These abilities will boost the DNA gained from colonies and increase ape-to-ape transmission

3.) Establish ape colonies in the following countries as soon as they turn green(intelligent apes present).

• East Africa
• Sudan
• West Africa

Having a lot of colonies will help us gain more and more DNA overtime. The cost of everything seem to increase over time, so having a lot of colonies early on will help negate the costs--plus it helps us evolve several abilities early on because of ape bubbles.

4.) After establishing 4 ape colonies in the African continent, continue by evolving the following in this order:

• Hominidae Bridge
• Air and Water 1
• Air and Water 2
• Extreme Bioaerosol
• Drug and Cold Resistance 1
• Drug and Cold Resistance 2
• Ape Rampage

After evolving Homnidae Bridge, Apes will now infect humans which will allow the disease to spread farther than apes can without migration abilities--apes can't ride ships or planes.

5.) At this point, we'll want to evolve every possible infectious symptom we can. Evolve the following if they have not mutated yet.

• Pharyngitis
• Coughing
• Pneumonia
• Haemoptysis
• Sneezing
• Rash
• Epistaxis
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhoea

Next are cure-slowing symptoms, evolve the following that have not mutated:

• Photophobia
• Subconjunctival Bleed
• Subconjunctival Haemorrhage
• Blindness

Having the symptoms above will help make the infection rate faster while slowing down the development of the cure as well. 

In the following steps, remember to use Ape rampage on countries that have Gen-Sys labs. These labs are the Simian Flu's unique cure bubbles.

6.) Establish ape colonies in the following countries, as soon as possible(when they turn bright green):

• Indonesia
• China
• India

Adding the already established colonies above, you should have a total of 7 colonies now. These colonies will generate a whole lot of DNA that we'll use shortly.

What my game screen looked like during this step.

Now, we wait until the whole world is completely infected by our Simian Flu. Remember to use Ape Rampage on countries that put up Gen-Sys labs. Also, there are times when drones appear while using this strategy, they appeared once in the 4 games I've played using this strategy. I didn't really do anything to counter them, I just let them destroy my two colonies and because of that I had a much lower score than usual.

7.) As soon as you get the 'no one healthy left' pop-up, it's finally time to evolve lethal symptoms. Evolve the following if they haven't mutated yet.

• Neuro-Enhancement 1, 2, and 3
• Total Brain Death
• Meningitis
• Hydrocephalus
• Hypocoagulability
• Internal Haemorrhaging
• Haemorrhagic Shock
• Gastric Ulceration
• Pulmonary Haemorrhage
• Dysentery
• Coma

In all 4 games I've used this strategy in, I was always able to evolve everything above except for Coma, which required me to wait for a little more DNA.

Remaining DNA should be used to evolve Genetic Reshuffle 1 & 2, Genetic Hardening, and Hardened Reshuffle(if you can)

That's all that's required. All you have to do now is to wait for humanity's extinction and the apes' rise to power.

This is what my transmissions, symptoms, and abilities looked like just before the final pop-up.

Hope this guide has helped you successfully finish Simian Flu in Normal difficulty! Watch out for our Brutal and Mega-Brutal guides on Simian Flu to come out soon!

Alternate Strategies

None yet. Submit your own written guide to us now!

Credits and Closing stuff

Thanks to everyone who has posted their guides and some tips on our Casual Guide, you guys have helped tremendously in the development of various strategies! Your guides will be posted on the appropriate guides as soon as possible!

If you guys have any other guides and tips for Simian Flu, submit them to us via our submit section or comment them below. Guides/Strategies with the most up-votes will be included with this guide or where appropriate. Thanks for reading this guide and HSG!