Plague Inc. Virus - Infection Guide

Butcher79

January 27, 2020

If your preferred strategy for destroying the entire world is to succeed or go home, Plague Inc's viral approach is the way to go. Each of the different disease types has its pros and cons and appeals to different playstyles. The point of the Virus is to infect everyone as quickly as possible and overwhelm them with brute force before they even get a chance to develop a cure.

As a result, it's a high-risk/high-reward approach that praises quick thinking, experimentation, and effective management. There is no time to think long in this scheme, so get ready for it. We can also help, and this is where our guide comes in handy. We will go into detail on how Viruses work and how to best handle the play style on Normal difficulty.

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HOW VIRUSES WORK AT PLAGUE INC.

Before we start recommending strategies, let's take a quick look at how viruses work in Plague Inc. The biggest difference is the speed at which they can spread and infect the entire world, which is primarily due to the speed at which they mutate. Whenever a virus mutates, it gains a free trait, allowing you to potentially accumulate a massive amount of DNA points.

However, there is a downside to this, and that is a general lack of control over the perks you get. We'll look at the strategy in more detail later, but the trick to creating a successful virus is to spread it quickly, yet control the lethality until you infect the majority of the world's population. The more deadly it is, the faster humanity will begin to develop a cure.

VIRAL (COMMON) STRATEGY AND TIPS

Now that you understand how viruses work, you should have a good idea of the strategy you are going to use to win the game in normal mode and get a high score. Just in case there is any ambiguity, here is your goal:

♦Quickly infect 100% of the population
♦Keep lethality low
♦Save as many DNA points as possible

Given the random nature of the viral infection type, we can't just give you a simple set of instructions to follow to get through each difficulty with ease. Instead, we can only give you general tips to help you get through the task ahead.

First things first, you need to learn when you should and should not pass on a mutated trait. When you first start using this play style, you will be tempted to try and pass on every trait you get each time a virus mutates. Get that idea out of your head as it's impossible and unproductive.

Instead, you need to learn what traits to focus on transferring, and this is largely related to our point of view on reducing lethality. You can't hide when using the viral strategy because you never know what mutation you're about to find. Instead, you need to basically manage the priority of healing humanity right up to the point where you have infected everyone.

So what traits do we like? Well, anything with high infectivity but low severity and lethality is our initial priorities. Here's what you need:

♦Cough
♦Eruption
♦Vomiting
♦Sneeze
♦Sweating
♦Nausea
♦Anemia

There are many traits that won't have a very detrimental effect at this point, but are worth keeping an eye on. Ideally, you do not need several of these at once:

♦Insomnia
♦ Cysts
♦Pneumonia
♦Paranoia
♦Hypersensitivity
♦Abscesses
♦Hemophilia
♦Pulmonary edema
♦Fever
♦Inflammation
♦ Tumors
♦Diarrhea
♦Pulmonary fibrosis
♦Skin lesions
♦Paralysis

The following traits you should fully transfer as soon as they appear, unless you are getting close to 100% infection:

♦Immune suppression
♦Seizures
♦Systemic infection
♦Internal bleeding
♦Dysentery
♦Insanity
♦Necrosis
♦Hemorrhagic shock
♦Coma
♦Complete organ failure

The challenge is to manage our list of mean features. Chances are, you probably won't be able to pass on all of them, as well as our list of core characteristics, while still retaining enough DNA points for the final, so we recommend leaving a few - especially those that are highly infective, such as Diarrhea.

However, some seemingly innocuous traits, such as Insomnia and Paranoia, actually cause humanity to get on the cure faster, so we recommend using them with the same high priority as the main traits, unless you can afford points.

PROBLEMS

Now that we've gone through the basics, we wanted to highlight a few issues with the virus type. To make it easy to understand, we will cover them in paragraphs:

♦Transfer costs DNA points
♦ Mutations happen randomly and you can lose a lot of points by passing on deadly traits
♦You need to find a balance between lethality and infectivity, which can be difficult due to the random nature. Ideally, you keep the lethality low until you infect 100% of the population

VIRAL STRATEGY

Now let's take a look at the strategy of playing the virus in normal mode, again with the help of points:

♦Choose a country in the middle of a huge continent
♦Spend your starting DNA points on transfer - especially Water and Air
♦Let the viral mutations deal with your symptoms for the most part - only spend DNA points here if you don't have 1st or 2nd level symptoms
♦Then spend DNA points on the ability to help spread the infection. Colds, drug resistance and genetic curing are very helpful at the moment
♦After you've infected every country and you're happy that the virus continues to spread, focus on getting the rest of your abilities - starting with the ones that delay healing. Save genetic permutations and viral instability for last
♦ As humanity begins to crumble due to the plague, you really have to deal with it. If you're not 100% infected but your lethality is high, transfer some of the more deadly traits and spend on abilities and transfers.
♦ On the other hand, if everyone is infected but the mortality rate is low, get all three levels of viral instability. At this point, you will quickly gain mutated traits
♦If everything is going according to plan, but the healing is close, ask Genetic Reshuffles to slow it down