Is it possible to beat Brutal or Mega-Brutal with a Bacteria starting from China, on a fresh game?

Question

I'm trying to create a disease like the trailer, of a Bacteria coming from China, as my first win...

So I have no Genes, no Cheats, nothing but a plain Bacteria, PAX-12, coming out of China.

And for super-extra difficulty, I tried for it on Brutal. I keep getting close, trying for Walking Dead and other helpful combos... but it seems I need to be really lucky to get everywhere infected...

Perhaps with some amazing luck I could do it. But possibly not, given just how hard Brutal is...

Is it actually possible? And if it is, could I do the same thing, but on Mega-Brutal?

Note to Self: RNG exists. Can save scum for DNA bubble appearance and points. Got 10 Points on 13-2-2020. But can't do it for China Doctor Discovers Virus. That just seems to trigger at 80% China Infection or something...

Answer 1

The answer is yes, it can be done.

I played with bacteria, removed all Genes, played without Cheats, started in China and tried to beat Brutal (forgot to name it PAX-12, oops). I got pretty lucky and managed to clear it on my first try. Of course, this wasn't my first win on Brutal with Bacteria, so I had some prior experience with this mode. Still, it was a close game:

Of course I also tried the same thing on Mega Brutal a few times, but didn't manage to win. My closest game was this:

I'd say Mega Brutal is still possible to beat without Genes and Cheats, but I didn't have the right strategy or luck to do so. I also am a bit rusty on this game.

Anyways, I'll explain at least how I managed to beat Brutal.

• China is probably the best starting country, which makes this challenge easier to beat. It has the largest population and high infectivity even without any transmission upgrades.
• Bacteria has a huge advantage compared to other diseases: if you happen to get a random mutation, you can devolve it and get DNA for it. So if you get random mutations early on, do devolve the symptoms so that your disease isn't severe and doesn't get cured yet.
• To infect China quickly, upgrade Rodent I and Rodent II as soon as possible to speed up infecting China
• Then, upgrade Air I, I find it as the best transmission upgrade for spreading to new countries.
• Around here your disease will get discovered and a cure effort will begin.
• Upgrade Drug Resistance I and Cold Resistance I, which helps you infect some of the hardest countries to infect.
• If you feel like you're not infecting enough, upgrade your transmission further (I think I went with Air II, Water I and Blood I in this specific game). You can also go for Heat Resistance if you have trouble infecting Africa and South America.
• Now, you hope you'll infect enough people before the cure goes crazy. Meanwhile, you should be saving DNA for later.
• Keep an eye on these countries, since they are the hardest to infect and often are the only reason for a loss: Greenland, New Zealand, Carribean
• Once you have around 50-60 DNA, go evolve the symptoms that lead to Total Oragan Failure and evolve it.
• Now that you have high lethality, make sure you don't get cured. Upgrade Genetic Hardening, do Genetic Reshuffles or evolve Coma - all of these slow down the cure.
• Once everyone is infected, you can devolve resistance abilities and transmissions for extra DNA, you won't need them anymore. Instead, you can go crazy on symptoms to kill as fast as possible.

I hope this little guide makes sense, it's probably best not to follow it precisely step-by-step, because every game is different and the actions you take depend on what situation you're in. Good luck!

Answer 2

I don't have any screenshot to illustrate my answer, but beginning in China is by far easier than any other countries : there isn't any climate restriction, a lot of people, some land borders and there are harbor and airport.

The little walkthrough that I will give can be done with these diseases in Mega-brutal :

• Bacteria
• Fungus
• Parasite
• Prion

Only Fungus special ability is worth to be used, Bacteria special ability is the worst one to use because it makes your disease by far easier to discover.

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How does it works?

• Just infect the whole world passively, so while you don't have infect every human on the world, devolve your disease asap when it get a random mutation.
• To faster a little the game, you can evolve your disease infectivity in the 2nd tab, (Air/Water 1 infection, Rodent 1, Bird 1 are usually the best one)
• Because Cold and/or Wealthy countries are pretty annoying to infect (but helps a lot to infect the rest of the world, just give Cold and Drug Resistances to your disease

Be careful : 1st random mutation will give you DNA points, but each time you devolve it, next time you will get -1 point each time (if I remember well, you get 6 points for devolving the 1st mutation, so after 7 devolved mutation, you will have to pay next devolutions).

This method is really long to play, because in Brutal/Mega-Brutal gamemode, disease circulation is slowed down hardly by the difficulty, but with that method, if you have still enough DNA points to get severe lethal symptoms like Total Organ Failure (which can come with Coma, which slow down a lot cure research progress), then you can get your Pop-corn and eat a few because the whole human population will die really fast.

While you don't get any symptoms ability, you will be able to infect every human without having been discovered!

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Now, here are some warnings :

• Don't start too soon the killing part, a country which have less than 5% infected population will try to kill every infected of his inhabitants, and you won't be able to destroy that country
• Also, don't buy too many or too few transmissions, because you won't have enough DNA points to get main lethal symptoms
• The longer the game, the less DNA points you earn
• Island countries are really boring to reach, Greenland is by far the more annoying because you need to infect pretty much Russia or Norway, and ships frequency is pretty low; another country that is hard to reach is Angola; but as I mentionned it in he list, Fungus can help to reach faster these isolated countries thanks to his Spore Burst ability (but as I warned you before, don't expend too much DNA points in this ability or you will pay it at end)
• When you don't have luck, more than 60% of countries labs stay active even with less than 10% inhabitants alive, so the cure can be done faster than expected, so you can decrease his progression with Coma, Insomnia, Paranoia, Paralysis and Insanity, but these symptoms don't really helps to kill people; also, you can use Genetic Hardening/Reshuffles, but these one are usually temporary and cost a lot of DNA
• You can have a lethal bug (usually come with a natural disaster), where each day an inhabitant die, which can result to kill every infected inhabitants (because healthy inhabitants aren't hit by that) and slower and/or destroy the infection of this country; also, with some bad luck, a natural disaster can kill all of your infected inhabitans

Answer 3

It took a few tries, if you count save scumming as repeated tries, with Quijibo's plan sorta, with my own tweaks, but I managed it on Mega-Brutal!

I went for Drug Resistance 1 first, and went for Bacterial Resilience 1 instead of Cold Resistance, then Water 1 as ship preparation for Greenland and Madagascar.

Probably should've gone for Bacterial Resilience first, then Water, then Drug, for the widest range of infectability first...

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Avoiding the "animal" transmission traits to keep mutations down, since devolving them costs points, so I want to avoid them as long as I can. I got Insomnia, so I decided to buy Anaemia immediately after in hopes for Walking Dead to trigger.

I made saves often, and reloaded when "Plane / Ship Cleaning Improved" events triggered, and avoided them through enough scumming. That might actually be the thing that saved the run.

Can't save-scum past the Chinese Doctor discovering the virus, and a good idea is to focus on Genetic Hardening immediately after, making sure to save up enough points to buy ReShuffle when at 99% Cure.

I focused on Cold Resistance, then Heat Resistance, to get Environmental Hardening. That likely wasn't a good idea, because I thought that helped me with Arid climates. Wiki says it doesn't, so those points might have been better spent on Heat Resistance to get into Africa, where my last holdouts were.

On Symptoms, I stored up my points until 90 and rushed Insanity. Should have went for the Coma line from Inflammation onwards instead of trying to go from Anaemia to Necrosis and stalling at Hemorrhagic Shock.

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Note that the Cure ETA is sometimes inaccurate. It made jumps from 99%, 229 days until completion, and 206,647 Infected, to 100% cure in a few days, all with just the resources of Angola. That's some crazy Dark Horse Victory.