Plague Inc. Simian Flu Mega-Brutal Guide: Spicy's Turtle Strategy

Mega-Brutal difficulty and Simian Flu together just isn't easy, I've tried so many quick strategies and all have failed, thus I've gone turtle. Yes, this is going to be a long and boring strategy, but if what you're aiming for is just to finish this special plague in mega-brutal difficulty, well it'll work. I think.

The main objective of this strategy is too utilize colonies to its fullest potential, and by that I mean collecting tons of DNA. If done right, you're going to be able to evolve a lot of things that'll make this difficulty so much easier. No more instant game overs with those pesky Gen-Sys labs. Seriously, Mega-Brutal boosts those labs effectiveness by at least 500%--this is not a fact.

Be prepared to change up the strategy if you think it's necessary, sometimes things go horribly wrong and I just can't be blamed for that. Blame the monkeys, it's their fault.

Okay, starting off, the genes:

• ATP Boost
• Aquacyte
• Ion Surge
• Together Strong
• Extremophile

If you haven't already guessed, the early to mid stages of the game involve a lot, A LOT, of devolving. So be prepared. Again, DEVOLVE EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM THAT MUTATES.

Let's begin. 

1.) Start your Simian Flu in the USA.

2.) Wait awhile then evolve Simian Neuro-Genesis followed by Ape Colonies shortly after.

3.) Build a colony in the USA. Then continue by evolving the following in this order:

• Social Cohesion
• Cognitive Shift
• Education
• Organised Travel

4.) This part gets a little confusing, so bear with me on this one. What you want is to move apes from Mexico, and only from Mexico if possible. Keep this in mind, move apes from Mexico to these countries, in this exact order.

• Caribbean
• Greenland
• Iceland
• UK
• Japan
• Philippines
• New Guinea
• New Zealand
• Madagascar

While moving monkeys, remember to always leave some DNA behind just in case a mutation shows up. Also while moving monkeys, try to micro-manage while evolving these abilities as well:

• Logistics
• Seafaring
• Horseback Riding

This shouldn't be too hard, but as an advice try to send monkeys to the Caribbean first before thinking about evolving these abilities. 

Sometimes your monkeys die when they reach their destination. I don't know if this is a glitch, but keep trying to infect the listed countries by sending apes from nearby countries(If your mexico monkeys fail to infect and die). They'll leave behind a green trail of smart monkeys, use those if they fail.

If done correctly, your map would look like this.

Disregard those colonies for now, that's the next part.

5.) Now that the mexico monkeys have gone and reached their new countries, it's finally time to build some colonies. This is my favorite part, build a colony in these countries:

• East Africa
• Central Africa
• West Africa
• Sudan
• India
• China
• Indonesia

The last two colonies will cost a lot, but just be patient, they will be worth it.

REMINDER # 1: KEEP DEVOLVING MUTATED SYMPTOMS

If done correctly, your map will look like this.

Also, by doing this correctly, you'll also be able to infect every single ape in the world. Hurray! No more stupid apes!

6.) Now that our colonies are all set-up and are ready to produce DNA, let's move onto more ability evolutions! Evolve the following in this order:

• Drug Resistance 1
• Genetic Hardening 1 & 2
• Genetic Reshuffle 1
• Hardened Reshuffle
• Genetic Reshuffle 2
• Ape Rampage
• Drug Resistance 2
• Heat Resistance 1 & 2
• Cold Resistance 1 & 2

Trust me, I've done two games of this strategy and was able to evolve all these without being bothered by Gen-Sys labs.

Your ability tree should now look like this.

7.) We're now moving closer and closer to the end stages, but right now keep on devolving all those mutated symptoms. Evolve the following in this order:

• Water 1
• Air 1
• Water 2
• Air 2
• Extreme Bioaerosol
• Hominidae Bridge

After evolving Hominidae Bridge, a lot of red bubbles are going to show up. You might want to pause the game just to catch up and pop all those lovely red bubbles. This is also the part where YOU STOP DEVOLVING SYMPTOMS. YOU. CAN. STOP. NOW.

You can also wait until the whole world's infected, but where's the fun in that? Seriously, though, I haven't tried it, but I think you can wait a while for more infection.

After Hominidae Bridge, quickly evolve these abilities as soon as you can.

• Ape Migration
• Scouts
• Path Finders

These abilities will concentrate all the worlds intelligent apes into your colonies, which will make it easier for you to move them and to crush Gen-Sys labs.

8.) We are now at the end stages of the strategy, and this part gets complicated real fast. If you're not able to react quickly to drones and Gen-Sys labs, all your hard work will be turned to monkey poo. So keep your eyes and ears focused on this part--Gen-Sys labs makes a beeping sound when they're about to show up.

This is what the late stages of my game looked like:

You're going to destroy labs and move colonies around a lot, so keep some DNA saved up when you're evolving stuff.

Now, aim on getting these symptoms first.

• Photophobia
• Subconjunctival Bleed
• Subconjunctival Haemorrhage
• Blindness
• Meningitis
• Coma

You might have some luck and not have to evolve some of these. These symptoms will slow down the cure some more and Meningitis will provide some much needed lethality. Meningitis and Coma will probably cost somewhere in the 100s, the game will show "..." which gets confusing, so just keep on checking if you can buy them.

At this point, you're going to want to evolve lethal symptoms. Total Brain Death sounds cool, but those Neuro-enhancements will boost the cure rate, so you might want to back-off from that one. Here are the most viable symptoms for more lethality, the top ones should be your priority.

• Hemorrhagic Shock
• Hypocoagulability
• Internal Hemorrhaging
• Hydrocephalus
• Pulmonary Haemorrhage
• Gastric Ulceration

If you notice, these symptoms are at the middle part of the tree, basically everything there is lethal.

Now all you have to do is sit back and watch the humanity die from monkey flu.

As an added note, if you're unable to infect Greenland, and ended up killing everyone, you're still going to win. This is because of the Film Fanatic achievement requiring this scenario. Greenland only has a population of over 50 thousand, if I recall correctly, and this number is much lower than the total number of apes in the planet.

As you can see from the screenshot above, there's still a spec of blue meaning healthy people are still alive when I won the game.

If done correctly, you'll be able to finish Simian Flu in mega-brutal difficulty! 

Here are the stats on the two games I used this strategy on:

I was still experimenting on this strategy on my 1st game, thus causing the cure progression to get a little too high. Instead of going after transmissions after I evolved abilities, I opted towards evolving transmissions first. Ended up not being able to completely infect Greenland, but still won anyway. Luck, I guess.

On the second game, I did exactly what I wrote in this guide and ended up getting a much better score. It took longer than the first, but was worth it because I faced no significant problems on this game.

Goes without saying, but you'll also be able to get the Simian Master achievement after successfully beating Simian Flu on mega-brutal difficulty. I was only able to get it now, because I am a noob.

There you have it, a guide on beating Simian Flu on mega-brutal difficulty. Thanks for reading and I hope this guide has helped, and as always, Happy Spicy Gaming.