screenshot TheMoniker plays Plague Inc. Evolved

[TheMoniker]

Domination did not dominate. At all. It ate a cure. That is the opposite of domination.

The most embarrassing part of playing an online game and naming yourself something really cool is when you turn out to be bad at the game and then you fail.

Okay, I've decided: The name for our Bio-Weapon will be Hugepox. Like smallpox, but huge. Also, I'll show Nano-Virus before my second attempt at going online.

Plague Inc. Episode 8: Nano-Virus: The Bananovirus strikes

I like the Nano-Virus design. It looks really cool.

We STILL have no genes for that middle category. We'll get some eventually! ...Probably!

(I removed the typo afterwards)

Let's all imagine that this virus originated in bananas.

And was initially intended to be a simple disease to help control China's population, released by the communist overlords.

Alright! Wait, what does it mean by kill code?

Already? But we just started!

China is already working 100% on the cure?

The USA too!?

So, that's the disadvantage of being a Nano-Virus: Every single country has maxed out cure work, straight from the start. Our normal strategy, lay dormant and strike when the humans least expect it, WILL NOT WORK. The cure is a constantly ticking time limit, and the only way to stop it is to DESTROY.

But first, we need to use the special abilities to help stop it. This basically acts as a SUPER genetic hardening.

This helps too. Somehow, the Nano-Virus is 100% capable of hacking the cure broadcast, despite not having sentience.

Or... is someone controlling it?

Wait, the someone is us.

Another advantage to being a Nano-Virus is that lots of things are discounted, and by "lots of things" I mean the symptoms related to the brain. Insomnia and Paranoia are both free.

Since we have Sympto-Stasis, let's get all the other basic symptoms while we're at it! Aggressiveness!

Yes, I can see that! But wait, why would doctors run the radios?

Super abilities are no, it's still going fast, and we only have 39 people infected! We need to keep slowing it down!

The regular Hardenings and Reshuffle have also been discounted a lot, which is really nice. The game isn't just saying "the cure is going super fast, deal with it" it's giving us the tools we need to fight it!

Patience is still required with the Nano-Virus, despite the clock we're working under.

We can't forget our crucial transmissions!

We've spread a bit, but the cure is almost complete! How to stop it?

Get the other tree of exclusive abilities!

These act as super genetic reshuffles, taking the cure back to below 50%.

It originated and bananas, and soon, humans will become bananas... wait, no. My puns are off today.

We've got enough symptoms by now to be deemed "worrying" and identified by a diagnostics team instead of a doctor, even though we aren't lethal. Seems odd, since normally we can make people crap out their organs we're still "minor" when discovered. In fact, if the world was broadcasting the cure, wouldn't they have known about us already?

Really, a lot about the nanovirus doesn't make sense, but it's my personal favorite regular disease, so it's forgiveable.

The world might be working on the cure, but we still have to worry about them closing the borders. We need to spread to as many countries as possible while we still can.

No comment.

Case in point. If we don't spread fast, all the borders will close and we'll be trapped. Remember, we're still on a super-high difficulty!

New Zealand! Madagascar! Iceland! Yes, a lot of countries that normally give us problems were just claimed!

What are you gonna do, world? Work harder on the cure?

With all our cure resistance, work is happening slowly and lots of countries are being infected! We can do this!

This is the second level, disabling even more cure work than the first!

I think now is the right time for this. One of the reasons the Nano-Virus is interesting is because it basically has active abilities, this being one of them.

Spread! Spread to everyone! Take over the entire world!

NONE SHALL SURVIVE!

With all the DNA from those red bubbles, now we get Drug Resistance 2, which segues straight into us getting...

Drug Immunity! Our disease no longer differentiates between "rich" and "poor" countries. Everyone gets hit equally.

Again, what are you gonna do-work on the cure?

Oh, I guess you really WILL do that. This is a random event that adds a bit to cure progress. Nothing major, thankfully.

Why Iceland? What makes THEM so special?

All island countries are infected, and the land ones always come on their own. We're good to get lethal!

Insanity!

Paralysis!

Coma!

Notice they're all incredibly cheap. Again, benefits of being a Nanovirus.

We're not quite ready for Total Organ Failure, but soon...

Aww. I guess it couldn't last.

DEFINITELY the beginning of something terrible.

Right away, our disease starts destroying a lot of countries. Once you start becoming lethal, the cure is no longer a threat-you have so many things resisting it that the world can barely get work done, despite its best efforts.

Environmental Hardening! I don't think we've gotten this before, but it's the ultimate version of Cold and Heat resistance. We can infect any countries we want, however we want, regardless of temperature!

Is this really appropriate right now?

We win!

Honestly, for such a lategame disease, it's actually really easy.

Still, it's really fun. I'm sure you're all getting tired of these regular diseases. Don't worry, we're almost through!

Stupid, stupid bananas. Who could have predicted they would have done this?

Total success, and in record time too!

NEXT TIME: Dominator V2 returns to the internet! Will it win this time?

Now, we have names for all but the last disease: The Simian Flu, which is basically going to be the backstory for Dawn of the Apes in Plague Inc. form.

[Darrman]

Now next time my family try to make me eat a banana, I could show them this. (they'll still make me eat it anyways, most likely.)

[Serranade]

But bananas are delicious...

Anyways, good luck with the Simian Flu. Makes me wonder if you're going to use your typical strategy of hunker down before going ape.

Names... I dunno. Plagorilla? As in "plague" + "gorilla"?

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

clearly if its monkey related it should be expand dong.

[RandomSwordmaster]

Anticreationism?

THE APES ARE INTELLIGENT, CLEARLY WE ARE DESCENDED FROM THEM!

[X-Naut]

Kingmaker Virus shall decide the master race!

[TheMoniker]

But bananas are delicious...

Anyways, good luck with the Simian Flu. Makes me wonder if you're going to use your typical strategy of hunker down before going ape.

Names... I dunno. Plagorilla? As in "plague" + "gorilla"?

Hunker down before going ape isn't the correct strategy to take, usually. The best strategy for me was to go ape ASAP. But we'll see when the time comes!

Kingmaker Virus shall decide the master race!

After much deliberation, I think this would be the best name! Who shall become the kings of the world? Or, will the apes usurp or not? But, for now...

Last time, on Moniker's Multiplayer...

A critical defeat was suffered. Moniker's disease was pounded into the ground, not because of overconfidence, but because little stupid PAX-98 was a cheating, hacking noob who should be banned from the internet.

But Moniker rises again with a new, powerful disease! In...

Moniker's Multiplayer Part 2: Moniker Strikes Back

Today, our enemy is "mail". Without a profile picture to his name, it is clear who the victor shall be!

Okay, let's begin!

I might have not mentioned this earlier, but you start with 100 infected in your country, to skip the early boring parts of the game. Also, Saudi Arabia will give us a heat resistance boost, and is connected to many very important countries.

Now, we need to find out where "SPREAD" has started. There are a lot of good targets, of course.

(Saudi Arabia isn't rural, not sure why I went for Livestock...)

We'll start with transmissions, as normal.

This will help us spread faster by land.

(I didn't need these, I could have waited...)

Let's get these next. We want that steady income when we start killing people.

While all that was happening, I've been spreading at a fast rate. But the other guy evolved Auto-Immune support! I can't infect his carriers at all!

Nothing we need to immediately worry about. Let's focus on spreading faster.

You can view the world map from the other person's point of view. We haven't discovered anywhere with SPREAD in it yet. To be honest, it really isn't living up to its name.

More transmissions. Keep going!

Hey! Suddenly, he's catching up! Probably because I maxed out Saudi Arabia...

Since your disease grows exponentially in each country it infects, once you've started to grow in your starting country, you'll suddenly experience rapid growth, and then when you infect everyone in that country, you'll suddenly stop growing. SPREAD just started to hits its stride in their country, and is now catching up to me.

(We also mutated Nausea. All notifications are delivered through the bar at the bottom.)

They're still going... the good news is, once THEY slow down a bunch, we can use the rough population of their country to know where they started!

We want Opportunistic Infection too... They're still growing...

Found them! SPREAD started in the UK, which is a good place to start to spread to a lot of countries, since their airports connect to so many places. Of course, the UK being extremely rich slowed them down at the start, and... 20,278 dead!? And he HASN'T evolved Corpse DNA? What's the guy DOING?

Our new DNA windfall will let us infect his country. Go, Dominator! Go, and destroy this fool!

Looks like he's getting Genetic Hardening. Since he apparently wants to kill people already, that's probably wise.

Now it's time for us to resist him! ...Or her. The .00000001% predicted odds of them being a girl.

They're keeping ahead of me, but only just barely. We need to keep moving!

The world has started Cure Research on me. As far as I can tell, though, the opponent's strategy is "use symptoms to aggressively infect everyone", but they aren't pulling it off very well... we can win this!

I get Cold Resistance, and Genetic Hardening too. Things are speeding up, and every move we make is important.

Yikes! They're already getting the USA, and Canada! Maybe I underestimated this guy!

I'm taking control of the bottom-left, he's taking the upper-right. This is kind of like the "red and yellow world" illustration at the start!

Since he's killing people, the world curing him-or, him being worried about the cure and being forced to dedicate DNA points to not suffering it-would be good for us.

He's spreading fast. but not fast enough. He's killed about 500,000 people, and STILL hasn't bothered to get Corpse DNA, the entire point behind killing people.

That is, of course, something we can take advantage of.

Oh come on! He found my starting country somehow. Well, our bonus DNA flow is gone!

We need to focus on spreading more. Remember, infecting every person in the world is what we're SUPPOSED to be racing towards. Let's go to Greenland!

(Notice that he's made me easier to cure. The thing is, I have Epitaxis, Insomnia, and Nausea, and he's killed almost a million people.)

If you look at the image above this one, you might notice that Greenland had "17 dead". This is because HE WAS THERE ALREADY. The jerk!

We do of course want to deal with the "easier to cure thing".

With our next batch of DNA points, we get this. Now, we'll be able to infect people with his-THEIR, I mean- disease a lot faster. Since most of the uninfected people at this point are infected by him, this is what we want!

If he were to get Auto-Immune Support 2 right now, this would all go away. But he hasn't, so we get to enjoy it!

Oh, and he still can't really touch the people with our disease. Why is he focusing on getting stuff to make me "easier to cure" when it's CLEAR there are better things to focus on?

Not that I'm insinuating that "mail" here is stupid or anything. No, I'd say it's more like... "intelligence challenged", "brain dead", "prime example of a nincompoop"...

Soon, there will be no healthy people in the world. If the other guy isn't cured first, that is.

With most countries at least an itty bit infected, all we have to do is let ourselves finish infecting the world.

And just to be sure... Oh, what's that?

The last upgrade gives an infectivity boost, especially to people who are infected with other diseases. I find it interesting that the "stop/infect the other disease" ability tree ends with an upgrade that lets you infect the other disease more, instead of the other disease infecting you less. This means the game will never be locked in a stalemate because you just can't infect the other guy.

I mutated Tumours, and now I'm a murderer. The world is still way ahead on the other guy's cure research, but despite killing way less than him I'M actually using the upgrades I need to benefit from it.

The last people not infected with me are down to 2 pathetic slivers of the world.

To help even more, we get "orange symtpoms" which help us infect/kill people with the other disease, or make it harder for the other disease to infect/kill us.

And then the cure was released.

YES!

ABSOLUTE VICTORY! TOTAL DESTRUCTION! COMPLETE WINNING! WE HAVE HAD VICTORY OVER THE HORRIBLE FOOL THAT WAS mail, AND SHOULD CELEBRATE APPROPRIATELY!

...BY SHOUTING A LOT!

Okay, I think that's enough multiplayer. I think we're just going to stick to singleplayer for the rest of this LP.

NEXT TIME: Rapid murder!

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

much much better

[TheMoniker]

Sorry again about the wait. IRL stuff, and I've been trying to push through GhebFE too. But, there's another update now!

Time to kill everyone in...

Plague Inc. Episode 9: Bio-Weapon: A minor case of Hugepox

Bio-Weapon is a giant, spiky ball. It looks kind of weird.

We want all our normal stuff, and Trans-Stasis, because transmissions are more important than symptoms here.

And here we had eradicated smallpox, except now something even worse is coming!

We want to start in someplace where we can spread very quickly.

And thus, Bio-Weapon's special ability is revealed. As time goes by, it slowly becomes more lethal. If you aren't constantly spreading, you'll just kill everyone and have nowhere to spread from! This is why transmissions are so important.

But as usual, the game gives us tools to deal with the challenges it puts in front of us. There are three types of upgrades here: These ones, which slow down the rate at which you become lethal. And then-

The Festival of Love!? No, that's not it at all!

This doesn't really help, but it's not like we can go unnoticed for long.

Trans-stasis will let us very quickly get transmissions, which we need if we're going to spread fast. India is a rural country, hence the Livestock.

Oh, great. Now they're even harder to infect than they already were!

Okay, this is the next type of gene. It gives a flat reduction to lethality. It hasn't been long, and already we're a good bit lethal! You can't stop maintaining the bio-weapon's lethality for too long or you're dead.

Symptoms that give infectivity are okay to have here. We just don't want extra lethality.

Drug Resistance+Genetic Hardening is what we need now, since we'll be discovered right... about...

Yup. When you're killing people, you can't stay hidden.

We don't want too many deaths, so we'll evolve the last level of this.

(Also, I didn't end up using it, but that hourglass on the bottom resets the lethality totally, but it regenerates fast. And, I've never used it before, but looking on the internet, if you get all three levels of all three gene types, you unlock an "Annihilate" gene that's the most powerful in the game, giving loads of all three stats. I wish I'd gone for that now.)

Thankfully. cure research hasn't started yet and we're spreading excellently!

Not too much I can do about either of those things. But we're halfway to full infection!

We mostly want this to get on all the ships and planes before countries start shutting things down! We don't want to end up locked out of Greenland!

Oh, great. I think this is the first time it's been done, but when you only have a FEW symptoms, and the world is only doing an itty bit to stop you, people will hold an Awareness day, which will cause the world to start taking you a lot more seriously.

I guess this Hugepox can't be vaccinated.

We only need to get everyone infected! Then, they shall feel vengeance!

Come on, Greenland! Not you again!

They're start to close their borders, and of COURSE Madagascar is the first one to do it!

Ignore the coughing thing, and instead focus on US HAVING GREENLAND!

We can't wait much longer, but we don't have everyone infected QUITE yet...

Almost... notice despite our efforts we've ended up killing a lot of people.

Looks like we can't wait any longer.

What do we do now?

Simple! Devolve everything we've done to restrict lethality!

This gives us all that lethality we took away back!

Any last people who weren't working on the cure are now.

But it's okay! They're all dead anyways!

Come on, come on! Don't complete that cure!

Are we going to make it!?

Okay, this should be the finishing touch we've been needing!

From here on out, we just have to wait!

This is what "Overview" looks like in the endgame. We're winning!

And once again, we are the victors! The last disease, however, is one of the hardest in the game. It will require our best efforts to beat it.

Wait, "Unlock Cheatmodes"? I'd better have a look at those...

Only THREE Bio-Hazards? Surely I deserve more!

This gene gives us a small infectivity boost in ALL environments. Probably the best of the "infectivity boost" genes.

And THIS is our "reward" for beating all diseases on Brutal! Cheats that make the game pathetically easy, now that we've proven we most definitely don't need them! If we were to back on Mega-Brutal, we would unlock Lucky Dip and Shuffle. "Lucky Dip" starts you with 5 random things, and "Shuffle" randomizes all evolutions. I'm not too sure what it does, but I think it's kind of ironic that the ones you get for winning on Mega-Brutal can end up making the game HARDER.

(Yes, there's an achievement for winning a couple times with Shuffle.

A preview for next time: This... thing...

Basically, Plague Inc was updated with some new multiplayer features... but in the process, the regular black background surrounding the game in the screenshots has been replaced with... that shimmering glitchiness. Is it... moving? It's not a GIF...

Well, you'll be seeing a lot more of it next update!

Okay, once all the main diseases are finished, we can do Scenarios, or special situations or diseases the game gives us. The first one we can do is "Santa's Little Helper". Evil people have taken over the world and outlawed happiness, and it's gotten so bad that the Neurax worm has had to step in and team up with Santa to stop them!

What do we name it?

[Upside-DownFish]

Red Nosed Ringworm

[Darrman]

Happiness. Since the world has none of it, if people get mind-controlled by it, then sadness won't even be possible!

[Fateborn]

_{tiny dick}

[X-Naut]

Springtime 4 Hitler makes a Merry Christmas for any dystopia.

[RandomSwordmaster]

Internet Memes. (this will all make sense later in the Santa's Little Helper symptom line)

[TheMoniker]

Okay, back again! Today, we have for ourselves a war between humans and apes.

Happiness. Since the world has none of it, if people get mind-controlled by it, then sadness won't even be possible!

Really, this seems like the best name. We don't always need to go with a pun. Also, I'm not naming it Tiny Dick.

Plague Inc. Episode 10: Simian Flu: Part 1: Breaking out and Setting Up

As you can probably guess by the side tab ("OFFICIAL CONTENT"), this entire disease is pretty much a blatant advertisement for the Dawn of the Apes Film... which is weird, since it was released in 2014, and it's 2016 now. Did the devs forget to remove it in an update?

Regardless, this is one of the most difficult, most complicated, and most FUN disease in the game. It makes for a very nice final.

So, we have not one but TWO of our normal gene categories replaced with special genes that we don't have. ATP Boost and Extremophile is all we get to help us out here.

Kings we shall become!

Why start in Africa, of all places?

Because our strategy requires it.

The Simian Flu's theme color is yellow, and you can probably guess what's going to happen...

Huh? That's right, this time around we get a backstory for why we exist! We were created by Gen-Sys. Until we start doing stuff, they won't progress, but some of the normal news ticker events are replaced with stuff relating to them.

Okay, I'm going to zoom in a little. That cure-bottle building is the Gen-Sys lab. It's not doing anything right now, but that will change.

So, some people advocated waiting to do this in the comments, and normally you might want to spread the disease in humans a little first... But this is why we started in Africa! We're doing it now!

This unlocks these green ape-to-ape transmissions. We want to get all the apes in the world infected quickly, so we need this. I'll show off all the other transmissions soon.

Now we wait a bit and...

The Gen-Sys lab has been destroyed, way ahead of schedule! Notice that the world now has a grey bar and an "Ape" tab above the normal human tab. That shows how many apes we have infected. Unlike with humans, the Kingmaker Virus only gives Apes positive effects-specifically, intelligence! Our job is upgrading them and coordinating them to help take out the world.

Almost immediately afterwards, this happens. Remember this.

In West Africa, there about 30,000 apes. That's not nearly as many as there are humans. Let's zoom out in scope a little:

In the entire WORLD, there are 644,344 apes, as compared to ~7,000,000,000 humans. The war will be mostly fought using the disease, but we can't do that yet. We have to develop our ape army before the world reacts.

Annnd this really isn't helping. Kingmaker virus, and the Simian Flu as a whole, is indeed a virus above all else, and it mutates CONSTANTLY. It costs a lot to devolve, too, so we can't stay dormant too long or the disease WILL get itself discovered.

The headache symptom is a weak one, but it's right next to Fever, which is lethal...

Now, see this upgrade? Colonies? This is why going Ape first WORKS. When it says colonies "Generate DNA", what it means is, every now and again, it gives us a bubble that gives DNA points. The thing is, unlike all the other diseases in the game, where DNA was of varying abundance but ultimately limited and you couldn't spend super-frivolously, this DNA supply is theoretically infinite. We want to tap into this ASAP, and then later on, we'll have enough DNA to do whatever the heck we want!

Okay, well, that's weird. I didn't know Africa was into that kind of thing. We don't have Nausea, so it doesn't mean anything.

We're infecting more apes... let's place that colony down! The first one is 5 DNA points.

And we have a colony! Right now, it would only gives us 1 point per bubble. However, as we infect more apes, we'll get more DNA out of it, maxing out at 10 (though we will increase it with more upgrades).

It's already giving us money! ...And mutating new symptoms! Stop it, disease! We want to stay hidden right now!

Okay, let's buy Primal Awareness next. We want to keep apes away from the humans right now, as this helps delay some events that we don't want to happen.

And next, Organised Travel. This is VERY important.

Remember Neurax worm travel, and how it was one plane to anywhere in the world very quickly? And Necroa travel, and how it was one group of zombies to one nearby country? Ape travel is different again. You can move apes from one country to anywhere in the world... but almost all the apes will travel with them, and they have to travel slowly by land. However, they take care to infect ALL countries they pass through along the way, meaning this travel won't just start infecting apes in China-it will spread Kingmaker Virus to apes in Central Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, and anywhere else the apes pass through. Doing this is VITAL to spreading the virus around.

No, that was the symptom I wanted you NOT to mutate. Now people will start dying! Bad disease! Bad!

Oh, and putting Travel on a country with a colony will move the colony... that's okay, I guess. The colony is going to China now!

But, we definitely can't have this active. Devolve costs 4 points (more for a certain symptom tree) and 1 more for every devolution. We might have theoretically infinite DNA, but we can't afford to devolve every symptom.

Oh, perfect. This is just perfect. Of course.

An update on the human side of thing, we're moving extremely slowly. This is a GOOD thing.

SERIOUSLY?

Fine. FINE. KEEP IT IF YOU'RE SO DARN DETERMINED.

Skipping ahead a bit, the apes have arrived at China, and in the process, we're extended our reach by a LOT! Why do we have such a large percentage of the world infected? Because about 8-9/10 of the world's apes are concentrated in Africa, where we started! Most of the countries in the New World only have about 20-100 apes in them.

Probably doesn't mean anything.

NO! Are you TRYING to ruin me??!

Okay, we officially need to start keeping a closer eye on how our disease is progressing in humans. It's time to start spreading things faster.

Why don't we also get a colony placed down on... hmm...

Central Africa! Where 2/3 of the world's apes are located!

This is now our central base of operations.

Okay, this really isn't helping.

Here's what Neuro-Enhancement does. It slightly increase research speed, and gives a sliver of severity. That's it. That's all it does. Totally useless, for now that is. Aside from getting more lethal, it couldn't have picked a worse thing to mutate.

I think the game hates me.

(Remember, I said totally useless... for now.)

So, each colony gets more expensive than the last. This third one is costing all 13 of our DNA points. The 5th one costs around 32 DNA points. After that, they become so expensive getting more is counter-productive. We can't just slap ape colonies everywhere for massive DNA.

This is a worse version of Photophobia. It decreases research speed, sure, but we don't want more severity.

I think it's time we get this. This allows apes and humans to infect each other. And now...

All countries with apes have the infection start spreading in the human population! Ha!

Now it's time to start moving ourselves to the other half of the world!

We put another colony in East Africa, another country with a very high Ape population.

Perfect! Now that we're going full-force on humans, we can't afford to be crippled.

I also get a new transmission type-Fomites, which help in wealthy environments.

As you might be able to guess, we've been officially discovered! Now, things are going full swing. We're all set up and it's time to really begin!

This is our fifth and final colony. Turns out it actually costs around 40 DNA points. Still, that's a ton.

With that done, we need to keep boosting them! Go! Go!

Pharyngitis! I wish it had gone for this earlier, instead of stupid Fever and Coma...

We've almost got the entire right half of the world infected! Wait... why is Morocco is marked as "Destroyed"?

Oh, it's because all the apes moved out when I had them travel to Argentina. They're still alive, just drowning while trying to swim across the entire Atlantic ocean. Not too sure how they're managing it.

More! Faster!

And now Gen-Sys is back in action. They'll set up another lab soon, and I'll explain when that happens.

To help the poor apes I'm forcing across the ocean, these travel upgrades will make them speed up a little. Without them, this takes a LONG TIME.

At this point, we want Ape Migration. It makes apes automatically move out of countries that don't have colonies set up into ones that do. This will be important soon.

This reduces infectivity and slows cure research.

Time to start getting our normal abilities! With so many ape abilities bought, the cost is being driven up...

This is okay, as long as we have apes we don't have to worry too much about Greenland deciding to close their only port.

And now, the world is being scared by apes. Soon, they will classify us as a threat. Why are they being so cruel to the poor apes? They're only helping to spread a virus that will destroy all of humanity!

As usual, "this is where things get serious".

So far, "Migration" is really working! All the apes are still alive, and are congregating where our colonies are. We want apes together, not separated!

And here's why! Gen-Sys set up a lab! In Peru!

Here's what Gen-Sys labs do. They start killing the apes in the country... however, in doing so, they gain more cure research for the world. A LOT more cure research, at a rate that increases linearly. Towards the end, if there's a lot of apes dying, they will start gaining 2% per day! You CAN'T leave them alive, or you lose. There are two ways to stop them. The first is letting them run out of apes to experiment on. Not very efficient.

The second, meanwhile...

Go for it, guys!

(My screenshots don't show my cursor, which is a pity.)

And we'll end it here. Gen-Sys labs rarely survive an attack, particularly from upgraded apes. When you destroy a lab, they'll lose most of the research they gained. However, if they get to 100% cure progress, then destroying them won't matter a bit. You've still lost. Because of this, we HAVE to keep spreading Kingmaker virus to the world's apes, or Gen-Sys will take advantage of an unintelligent population of apes. If they aren't infected, we can't make them attack the labs...

NEXT TIME: Apes vs Gen-Sys, and drone attacks!

[RandomSwordmaster]

NOW MY APE BROTHERS! RISE! WE SHALL OVERTHROW THE BOURGEOIS PRESENCE OF THE SAPIENS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PROLETARIAT!

OI! CHARLEY! WHO SAID YOU COULD COME OUT OF MY IMAGINATION!?

...sorry master...

Edited January 26, 2016 by RandomSwordmaster

[TheMoniker]

Plague Inc. Episode 10: Simian Flu: Part 2: VICTORY FOR APE BRETHREN

We need to start by moving our apes to infect New Zealand over there before they give us trouble. Remember, we have all our colonies set up, and Gen-Sys is putting labs everywhere around the world!

This came... really late. We evolved that YEARS ago!

This final upgrade will maximize the DNA we gain from colonies.

Uh oh... Let's hope the lab in Norway is vulnerable to the number of the devil!

I set the apes to fight the lab, and then check on West Africa. Apes are migrating to other areas where we have colonies, but the government is using new ape events, that will increase the rate at which apes in the area die. The "stealth" upgrades keep the death rates down, which is good for us.

Our last Fomites upgrade!

Okay, that DEFINITELY wasn't what we wanted. We don't to kill too many quite yet!

At the same time, I don't want to devolve it, so we'll compensate by evolving cure-slowing symptoms.

Blindness in particular is very effective.

Greenland and Iceland have this far remained mostly safe. No longer!

Sweden! Die!

Keep in mind, the world is still working on the cure even without Gen-Sys's help. It takes a while to cure the Simian Flu, but we can't forget about the normal cure progress.

And now things will get more difficult. This allows another event to happen, which we will be seeing soon.

Almost all of the apes in the world are infected, with the exception of a few islands. Also, we've kept our Ape deaths very low, which is good.

Gen-Sys really likes those upper countries, don't they? Take them out!

We're getting a LOT of income, so I think it's time for this to help more with the cure. Towards the end, abilities get very expensive!

Now you're undoing the work I've done to slow the cure! Come on, stop it!

We've gotten a very large portion of the world infected, but it isn't enough!

Hmmm?

Uh oh. See that red circle? It's attacking our poor apes in China! If we don't stop it, the colony will be permanently destroyed, with no DNA refund. Thankfully, all we have to do to stop it is make our apes move around a little.

Great, they have one set up and running in the US. I don't like to attack it, but it needs to go!

Wow, what a great mutation choice.

It's important that we keep spending our DNA points as they come in. We want this cure going as slow as possible.

I have apes in Greenland now! Hopefully, we won't need to do anything special for the human population to die.

This is because we launched our attack on them, isn't it? Well, it's too late to stop things now.

A Gen-Sys lab in the middle east? Well, we still can't leave it to it's own devices.

As usual, they're super late.

We want more infectivity above all else. Our hosts are dying, and even with so many apes, if they all die before everyone gets infected, we lose.

Another new symptom that doesn't do too much.

Okay, I didn't ACTUALLY miss this one. The thing is, with the apes having "stealth" upgrades, Gen-Sys couldn't find any. They left with our ape population totally untouched.

With a drone targeting the colony in Russia, I make them move to the Baltic States. Colonies increase human transmission too, so we should keep them where more transmission is needed.

I did this mostly for infection rates. Severity maxed!

Most of the countries resisting us are cold, so this will help too.

Greenland? Really? They're getting desperate! Take them down!

With most of the apes infected and around half the world dead now, hopefully we won't have to worry about the cure too much any more. But, one un-destroyed Gen-Sys lab could still spell the end for us.

No. Bad Norway. Bad.

(Note the drone with the blue circle. That means there aren't any apes it can hit. We don't need to worry about it.

Okay, looks like our disease is totally ravaging every single area except for three places: Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. There is only one solution to avoid losing the game. Since we can't rely on the humans spreading there on their own...

We move our ape colonies to those countries! They'll do it for us!

Perfect. The cure is almost a non-issue at this point.

But it won't stop reminding us it's there!

Oh, great. Now we have to counter this somehow.

Maybe this will help with those stupid cold countries!

One last Gen-Sys lab in New Zealand. Die!

Sheesh, Norway! You're getting desperate! Won't save you, though.

Our colonies have arrived at their destinations! Here's the problem, though. We're infecting humans, but at a very slow rate. What happens is, we infect 1-10 humans, and then they die to our lethal symptoms before the disease can start spreading and growing! There's still some living people in other countries, but if our infection fails totally even for one day, even if we're perfectly capable of infecting more people, we'll still lose.

Maybe this will help infect people faster??

No, I know the real solution. If we're killing people slower, they'll stay alive longer and infect more people!

Now we wait...

It's still slow going, partly due to all the actions Canada has taken. All of that stuff hurts our infectivity.

In retrospect, getting this was a bad idea. It still helped max infectivity, though.

Despite their best efforts, Norway is 100% infected. Now, we will use them as a safe haven while we wait for that stupid drone to leave. This delays us getting Greenland infected.

Maybe this will help with those drones! It's another stealth upgrade for us.

Their progress is slow, but we don't have unlimited time here.

Devolving this will make our lethality even less.

NO! AGH!

The drones are still active, so I move us back to Greenland.

Most of the remaining infected people around the world are dead. We want to gain a hold in these countries before they all die.

Oh, good. Looks like we have Iceland! Though they don't know yet...

There! Finally! Infectivity maxed!

Hypocoagulability gives us a big lethality boost that we don't want.

Spread! SPREAD!

These drones just won't let up! This is the final stealth upgrade. HOPEFULLY they'll go away for good.

Looks like Canada is doomed now. It's too late to stop the infection!

As you can see, we have Greeland as well. And the game gave us Neuro-Enhancement 3... Oh right, I almost forgot to show why those are useful!

Neuro-Enhancement is a disease tree. A tree that ends with THIS. The second-most lethal symptom in the game! And now, everyone really will die!

Not sure what brought this about, but it unlocked an achievement with a funny icon.

We win!

And now, the last few struggling souls will leave us...

AND APES SHALL RULE THE WORLD!

Too little too late!

But I might as well show off this ability. It's the most expensive thing in the entire game (I think), but it's quite effective at slowing that cure.

This comes as a result of Neuro-Enhancement and Blindness. It doesn't totally cancel out Blindness, and it's too late to save the remaining 31 million people.

Victory! The conditions for the movie are all set up!

Phew... well, that's really it. We win! All normal diseases: Done! That just leaves us with scenarios... hmm. Now I have to ask you guys a question.

Okay, now that that's done with, I have a question for you guys: When should this LP be done? Like, done done? There's a lot of content in the game, and I'm wondering where you'd like to see me stop. I don't want to do every single scenario, but after I've done the special scenarios, should we stop there? Or should we move onto player-created scenarios, a hole that quite potentially has no bottom?

Also, the Santa's Little Helper scenario is done and recorded. After that, we'll be doing "The Black Death" scenario, where we revive the Black Death from the Dark Ages and kill many people once again! What should we name it? Will 'The Black Death" suffice, or should it be something else?

[RandomSwordmaster]

The Liquefier!

(cause you basically start leaking every single bodily fluid out of every orifice when the virus is maxed out, along with your entire body basically melting)

Edited January 28, 2016 by RandomSwordmaster

[Fateborn]

Racism.

No I'm not being racist, I just thought it'd be a nice irony situation.

[Life]

Religion.

[TheMoniker]

The Liquefier!

(cause you basically start leaking every single bodily fluid out of every orifice when the virus is maxed out, along with your entire body basically melting)

This one is the best!

Okay, finally I have found time for...

Plague Inc. Episode 11: The Takeover of Love and Joy!

So, this is the Scenarios list. The two at the top are actually some of the most intricate and content-laden scenarios-the rest tend to just be the main game with minor changes. Some of them are really cool, and if you want to see them... well, the game is on sale for the Lunar New Year, I think.

We've recently gotten a new gene, Teracyte, which increases our chance of spreading by land, and so FINALLY we can use all five gene types!

We will now bring happiness into the world!

So, things have gotten SO BAD it's going to take a parasitic worm to make them better again. It's the only way!

Where best to begin bringing fun back into the world?

China, as usual. I'd like to favor the USA or some other country, but on Brutal we can't afford that.

Okay, look at that world map again. ALL the ports, airports, and land borders are closed. ALL countries have "Travel Banned to Reduce Happiness". Why? Because the Happiness disease works in what is essentially the reverse of normal gameplay-our effects are beneficial, and infecting more people makes them want to stop curing us rather than cure us more, and we can re-open the ports and airports instead of closing them off!

Because of this, it would probably be best for us to start with transmissions. Memory Lane and Radio Worm help in Urban areas (which China is).

Next, these replace heat and cold resistance, so we'll want them too.

In the time it took us to get those, we've already spread a lot and have started veeeeery slowly moving out of China. The borders won't re-open on our own, but how can we influence it? Maybe it's time for some symptoms...

Oh, great. We've been found by an anti-fun team. I wonder what it would be like to work for one of those?

We were found even though we didn't have symptoms, so any sort of stealth approach just won't work here. Time to break into the brain...

(Notice the differences in the bars at the bottom of the screen. "Severity" is now "Happiness" instead, and it's impossible to gain lethality.)

Now that we have those things, the first thing we'll want is Sloth. This reduces happiness, which seems bad, but it slows the government's efforts to stop us down, which is good.

Gluttony is the follow-up. I was cured in my first try on this, so I'm paranoid about cure research being started too soon.

Next, we'll want this. These symptoms are our means of re-opening the borders-once we have them, the borders will slowly start re-opening on their own!

Might as well get another one. We're sending Happiness viral, guys!

With 100% of the country infected, China automatically stops cure research and re-opens its borders. Now, they can serve as our home base of operations!

With the borders opened, other countries immediately start getting happier.

Looking around the world map, I can spy two non-China open ports-looks like things are improving worldwide already!

More transmissions! Stocking Filler acts as our substitute for Drug Resistance.

We're making people more and more happy. The thing about this disease is, since you can't lose due to not infecting Greenland anymore, the cure is now a much more serious threat than usual. We have to spread before its complete, and this will buy us time.

We're not being researched right now thanks to China being happy, but its only a matter of time.

We need to start our spread worldwide!

Now we can use Trojan GIFT planes!

While normally I'd want to go for island countries like Greenland or Iceland, we want to go for centers of cure research instead, like the UK and USA.

This will speed up infectivity in those countries, so we can stop their cure research ASAP.

Yeah, okay, nobody's actually researching us right now, but it'll start soon!

Luckily, they were way too late and the UK is entirely infected.

But we get this anyway.

And it's a good thing we did! I've had it way too easy so far. Nobody researching me while I advance my goals... but now, the forces of sadness and hatred will be going full force against me! I have to step things up!

They're only doing a little work, and already we're a year away from being cured! We need to do something about this!

We'll have to mind-control them to stop cure work! These symptoms are interesting-they make infected people want to work on us less, but uninfected people will try harder to work on the cure. Still, we don't have any straight-up "takes longer to cure" symptoms, so we have to use these instead.

While we're at it, we should get Indulgence too. Infectivity is our most important stat right now, and symptoms make it go up just as well as transmissions.

Partying! Come on, guys! A parasitic worm is infecting the world, but it's okay because it's STILL better than how things are right now! LET'S PARTY!

This is the "falling into anarchy" message. A lot of the world's top cure places are being taken out, but it's not enough!

I'm doing this mostly to help with Canada. They have just as much cure-power as the USA does, they need to go.

And this will help with the African countries.

Of course, I try to make it sound as if I'm some master strategist, but I'm looking at these images in retrospect. While I'm playing, I tend to just grab random stuff.

Halfway there, but we have less than half a year until the cure. Can't slow down!

Great. Of course.

But, we have planes on our side too! Planes can be used to speed up infectivity in countries that are being infected slowly, not just infecting new countries!

Why don't we take advantage of that?

Hmmm... that tactic bears a resemblance to a certain someone...

Of course he would be experienced in delivering large amounts of presents! Now, any country we send a plane to has tens of thousand infected at once, whereupon they'll take over the country in short order. Gift planes are an incredibly powerful force!

More transmissions! More happiness! WE MUST MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY!

We're destroying more cure, and we have almost all of the world's countries infected. Almost everyone's borders are wide open, too. We just have to get those last people!

We're more than halfway to victory! We're winning, right?

Sudan! Don't be slow!

Did I say tens of thousands? Sorry, I meant MILLIONS. This is after 1 gift plane.

I don't think we have to worry about people working harder to cure us now, so let's splurge on happiness! Joy has been restored!

And we can't forget about our last symptom tree, Friendship, Affection, and finally Love! The world will be restored to normal once again!

Oh, and with our last few DNA points, we get Harmony, too. Down with the cure! Why would ANYONE want the Neurax worm cured?

Almost everyone's borders are open, but I guess this can persuade the last few people.

Well, the cure did reach about halfway, but except for those poor sad people in the Caribbean, it looks like we've about won!

Intoxication comes after Partying reduces happiness and increases infectivity, I think. Not bad.

Central Asia has held out too long... it looks like they need a bright little orange worm in their day!

Poor Afghanistan... surrounded by happiness, and yet they choose to remain sad!

Jealousy is officially the last symptom. We now have restored all of humanity's emotions (which the previous rulers somehow took away??) and are set to win!

Why the heck not?

GO! GO AND CURE THOSE AFGHANISTINIANS!

Getting Intoxication and Jealousy will reduce your happiness by a little extra. In the endgame we don't really need it, but it's there!

Instead of Widespread disorder, we have "widespread happiness". Why can't we have that in real life?

Victory! Like in the "worship" path of the normal neurax worm, you only need to infect everyone to win. The world is happy once again!

"world is happy"

For once, we won by making things better, and not worse.

Okay, after insignificant consideration, I think it's time we approached the end of this LP. There are 2 things left that I want to do: The Black Death Scenario, and Co-Op Mode for Plague Inc-coming out on February 18, with the official update to 1.0! Those will be the 2 final updates for this let's play. There's more we could do, I guess, but this LP has proven a bigger time sink than I was expecting, and it's not as popular as GhebFE either. Maybe I'll choose a different game to do after this.

Also! I need a name for our disease in Co-Op mode. Remember, we're trying to help our online teammate, not hurt them... what should we call it?

[RandomSwordmaster]

What? Evolved doesn't have stuff like the Frozen Virus, Smallpox, etc.? Such a shame, those are fun plagues, namely the Frozen Virus (TAKE THAT CREATIONISTS!)

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

[Darrman]

And the world is saved. We did something good for once in the world!

[TheMoniker]

What? Evolved doesn't have stuff like the Frozen Virus, Smallpox, etc.? Such a shame, those are fun plagues, namely the Frozen Virus (TAKE THAT CREATIONISTS!)

It does have them, I just think that this LP has gone on plenty long enough and we don't need to do them. Co-op seems like a good final note to end the LP on. I would like to once again advocate buying this game yourself and playing it.

And the world is saved. We did something good for once in the world!

I know! Finally, we can feel good about ourselves!

LET'S UNDO IT ALL!

Plague Inc: Episode 12: Liquefaction of all

Welcome to the Black Death scenario. The "More Information" tab you see there links to an article on the Black Death (here's a Wikipedia link). It really was a terrible thing, and now it will strike again, with the power to mutate at will and constantly, and the ability to travel on planes and ships across the entire world, not just Europe.

Our basic disease type is a simple Bacteria with no special abilities. We don't need to worry about constant mutations, thankfully.

I have a confession to make: I played this disease on Normal. I tried it multiple times on Brutal, and I just could NOT win. This scenario is very difficult, for reasons we'll soon see.

The world is no longer in the Dark Ages, though that will ultimately work against it here.

Start in Saudi Arabia INDIA like normal. We want to spread around the world FAST, and Saudi Arabia INDIA has the airports that can allow us to do so.

(Some of my screenshots were mixed from different runs, okay?)

In some scenarios, we start with free stuff evolved, like "Flea 1" here. It doesn't contribute much, but it's free!

Flea 2 costs barely anything and gives plenty of invectivity-which is good, because we NEED infectivity ASAP. Why? Let me show you...

We start with Symptoms evolved too. We have Bubobes, which gives infectivity and lethality, and a few other things too. We get Cysts, and-...what's that over there?

Necrosis!? One of the most powerful symptoms in the game? At the START?

This symptom right here is the main reason the disease is so challenging. It gives TONS of lethality and severity, meaning we will be discovered and the world will be up in arms to cure us INCREDIBLY quickly. We need to move fast, and infect faster!

Less than 100 infected and we're ALREADY discovered. For perspective, in a normal run, you can get many millions infected before discovery if you only have a few light symptoms.

China first? That seems like India's job! That's where this all started!

Great, I was hoping to get more planes off before that happened. Stupid Necrosis, you've made everyone hate us!

I've been doing some work while that was happening, getting Heat/Cold resistance, and now we get Pneumonic Plague. It doesn't seem to do anything immediately, but that's because it unlocks stuff.

For example, Air and Water transmissions, which we need if we want to spread before all the borders shut down.

(NOTE: Getting Rodent 1 unlocks Bird and Livestock, which I'm also getting.)

Oh, great. I might as well keep it, since it makes me harder to cure. India and China are having a severe outbreak of The Liquefier, and soon it will hopefully make it back to Europe.

(Keep an eye on my DNA tab-one of the results of being so severe is that we get a LOT of DNA to work with.)

We'll definitely need this.

Normally, I don't do for Environmental Hardening, but here, we need it to take over certain countries (*cough* GREENLAND *cough cough* MADAGASCAR *cough cough*).

Well, when everyone's skin is peeling off, it's not hard to imagine why.

Now their skin is peeling off, AND they have a cough!

Countries like Canada are starting to shut their borders, but we are spreading FAST and getting a whole lot of new countries! Look at all those DNA points! LOOK AT THEM!

Time for Septicemic plague, which will give us even more upgrades to choose from!

One of those things being Blood 1 and Blood 2, which we'll need to get Extreme Biohydro, uh, something-o-sol.

We want the infectivity bar maxed, there are still healthy people out there!

They're way too late. Just look at all those red dots!

We have all the island countries, leaving JUST Germany and Sweden. I have absolutely no idea how they're still holding out.

Now their skin is peeling off, while they vomit, and sweat, and have cysts.

And STILL so many people worldwide continue to work on the cure! How do they manage it?

Pre-emptive anti-cure strike!

Sweden is infected! Not that they ever had a chance.

Oh, NOW you place it on the watchlist. 85% of the Old World is GONE, and NOW you place it on the watchlist?

Maybe the people who run the watchlist lived in Sweden...

Iceland, a disease-riddled country, has been chosen to lead the cure effort, while the mostly-uninfected USA was passed over.

I really don't get it.

With all countries infected, we can afford to keep this!

Too late! All of you will die!

I imagine the looters are finding it hard to bunker up with all the dead bodies and rotted flesh around. I mean, anarchy wouldn't even be fun if it was one caused by disease.

Getting Drug Resistance 2 and Genetic Reshuffle 1 lets you get Drug Resistance 3, which further boosts us in certain rich countries and acts as Genetic Hardening.

And getting THAT lets us get Hardened Reshuffle 1 and 2, but they're so prohibitively expensive it's not worth it.

I like that this disease gives you new ways to fight the cure, but it would be nice if we had some Fungal Spore things too. Having 1 or 2 countries close their borders on you is way more of a threat than the cure.

We've pretty much won.

But I mean, this can't hurt, right?

So close, yet so far! That's gotta hurt. I mean, emotional pain, on top of fatigue, sweating, skin peeling off, and projectile vomiting.

And for the finisher, the organs can melt too.

Goodbye, humanity! Nobody will miss you.

VICTORY!

This is quite good to see after all the failed attempts.

NEXT TIME: We work with another player, and destroy the world once again!

Co-op doesn't release until February 18th, so don't expect an update until a bit later than that.