screenshot TheMoniker plays Plague Inc. Evolved

[TheMoniker]

Okay, sorry about the wait on updates. Fire Emblem Fates+Extreme Business...I'm sure you all know how it is. Anyways, it's time for...

Moniker's Multiplayer, Part 3: Co-Op: It was all his fault!

With the release of Plague Inc. 1.0, no longer do we have to say that this feature is coming in the future: It's here now!

I'm still named "Dominator"... while we're waiting, notice the difficulty selector down there. Sadly, it only works playing with friends, which is honestly super disappointing. We're stuck on Normal for now.

The progression for genes and disease in Co-Op is the exact same as for Multiplayer, but with the "Safe House" gene removed. Ah well.

Joining me as our special helper for this episode is Tersidre with his disease "Ihavenoideawhatsgoingon". Cooperation with him will be vital to our victory, since we've both played this exactly 0 times.

Surely, humanity has no chance! ...Right?

Giving us more tips, we can see our partner's statistics at any time, and their starting countries. Hmm, where to start?

This is me, trying to communicate with my partner. I had the BRILLIANT idea to try to attack two continents at once. Clearly, this plan can't possibly go wrong, unless SOMEONE fails on executing it.

And we've started. Showing we're allied against the world, the top now shows us attacking the blue bar of the world from both sides rather than us attacking each other. The cure currently isn't trying to cure anybody, but that will change.

Note that we still get DNA from our starting countries here. The DNA lasts until we kill everyone in those countries, which is going to be a while from now.

Let's begin our spread. For the most part, transmissions work exactly as in competitive multiplayer.

Since the left side of the world is generally a richer place, we want this too. Note the abilities around. You already know what the plane one is, but I'll explain the others shortly.

For one thing, we have this. It's very cheap, and it unlocks some reshuffle evolutions, but there's no real reason for it to be there as far as I can tell. Weird. It's probably to make using Genetic Reshuffle things harder.

This also reveals the "Sacrifice/Raid" options ("Gift" and "Steal" for the other ones around), where we can, for a cost, take some of our allies stats (their cure resistance, their infectivity, or their lethality) and use it as our own-or we can give extra stats to them, if we want. This seems like a simple "Be nice or mean?" choice, but if you work it out with your partner beforehand, you can use these as part of good strategies.

Huh? Heat Resistance is surrounded in yellow, and it costs a TON to buy... what?

Okay, here's what that is. Whenever my partner evolves something, it gets more expensive for me to buy. This is supposed to encourage you to specialize, and it does, but it can get annoying for all-purpose upgrades like heat resistance.

While we're at it, let's get Bird 2. This is still one of the best transmissions.

I'd like to get Livestock, but I guess it isn't happening.

While all this was going on, we were spreading and talking. You get a lot of DNA in the earlygame, but everything is so expensive...

Symptoms are the least expensive thing. It's okay to draw some attention to ourselves, right?

Now we're a lot more severe, but the infectivity is definitely worth it! Probably!

This is me, realizing my partner's been making my life harder, and also pulling very much ahead on the people infected front. Probably all of my attention-attracting symtpoms are working!

What! The world discovered me? How could that happen! The cure tab is now active, and is going to ONLY target me, since I'm already killing people, and nobody has even discovered Ihavenoideawhatsgoingon yet!

So, getting discovered first has the world cure me twice as fast. But there are other problems too, which we'll see in a moment.

But hey, at least we have Brazil totally infected! That's a plus!

Let's get more symptoms, and attract more attention to ourselves! Let's go aggressive! Our partner will follow suit so I don't have to fight the cure alone... I hope.

Wait, what? A cure lab? It's for the other disease, thankfully, but it still needs to get taken care of.

Cure labs, thankfully, aren't the ridiculously fast ones used in the Simian Flu, but they still very much speed up the cure until destroyed. You can only destroy them by sending a country into anarchy, which sounds difficult, but really isn't.

We need to travel to Central Asia, but I definitely can't afford this... I'll have to hope partner guy can handle it for now.

They create another lab for the other disease. Despite all this, he's still being cured slower than me because he has more cure-slowing upgrades.

One thing to note, Infection Theft is EXTREMELY cheap. So tempting...

I save up, and get enough money to start sending planes! Which is good, because more labs are getting created.

And now, there are 2 labs for each disease. We need to move faster, or get cured!

This will help, but I'll want something else too...

Now THIS sounds good! With this ability, we can boost infectivity in any country we want for a small price. This lets us spread much, MUCH faster, and target specific countries resisting us directly!

Central Asia! BE INFECTED!

Oh good, it works really well.

I keep spamming the ability, and together, we begin to spread incredibly fast! It's working! Yes!

See that red/yellow bubble in the center? That's a Total Infection Bubble, granted to us for infecting 100% of a country's population with both diseases. Go team!

In retrospect, it might have actually been a bad idea to start separately.

I'm 25% cured, and the world thinks my disease is the greater threat! But I also have tons of cash... what will I choose to do?

NOTHING! MY MOST BRILLIANT STRATEGY! I'm letting my partner do stuff. Looks like he managed to infect Iceland.

Okay, the cure is becoming a serious problem, we NEED to stop it! Maybe I should... steal some complexity? No, not yet...

For some reason, people are dying off incredibly slowly. Maybe it's because my disease has very little lethality and I should get more of it.

Past Moniker, unfortunately, was too worried about short-term cure stopping to realize that.

Sorry, buddy! I need it more than you!

Fantastic news! We've almost infected the entire world! Terrible news! I've been cured, because I failed to eliminate the cure labs fast enough!

Right before going out, I do this. Can my partner win alone?

He's halfway cured, and with me getting cured, much of our progress on the left countries has been undone. I wasn't even able to finish Brazil...

Something to note: If you use a plane on a country infected only by your partner, you'll send THEIR disease over, rather than your own.

Which I do, to all the countries that had previously been infected only by my disease.

So, before the world finished off ihavenoideawhatsgoingon, we have to help it win! Let's go!

(At this point, we help the other disease by using active abilities for them, gifting them stats, and popping bubbles for them.)

We'll need infection bubbles! We'll need planes! It'll be a lot of effort, but WE CAN DO IT!

*cut forward in time 1 minute*

NO! BOTH OF US HAVE BEEN CURED! DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS!

:C

Man, I guess I shouldn't be expecting a victory on my first try... if only I had been granted a better partner, THEN I would've won. Stupid ihavenoideawhat'sgoingon! This is ALL YOUR FAULT!

Next time... NEXT TIME... Humanity WILL die!

NEXT TIME: Attempt 2#

I'm going to post the last update for this let's play tomorrow, so stay tuned, and safe from diseases!

[Merc Ee]

If only I had been granted a better partner...

Every Co-op player in a nutshell

[TheMoniker]

Every Co-op player in a nutshell

It was the other guy's fault. ALL of it. Clearly.

Time to unleash one last plague in...

Moniker's Multiplayer: Episode 4: Co-Op Part 2: Teamwork II: Team Harder

After a long period of soul-searching, I've managed to return to the world of the living after my recent crippling defeat. How, partner? How could you perform so TERRIBLY and make us lose and it was all YOUR FAULT?

Anyways, we're playing with maverick and his disease, "canttouchthis" today.

I think this was actually my third try, so I might not have taken as many screenshots in the early game as I should have. I start in Brazil, and I think my partner starts somewhere in Africa.

Brazil is rural and humid, so I specialize my transmissions specifically to infect Brazil faster.

Cold, heat, and drug resistance are a must, even if my partner will suffer getting them later. Partners can't be trusted! In this world, it's evolve or BE EVOLVED.

With my specialized infectious disease, I immediately outpace my partner by a mile.

Before long, this happens! Go me! Now to work out from here.

Just some more preparation, since it looks like I'll be attracting the brunt of the cure at the start.

It seems canttouchthis started in India, and is spreading quite quickly.

Last time, i got too many symptoms, so now we're going with more transmissions first.

I've been spotted! Just as expected, of course. My partner is only out-infecting me due to his high-population starting country, I'll spread more soon....

A cure lab... in GREENLAND? Come on!

I mean, really, it's not anything we can't handle, but it STILL seems like a mean thing to do.

Oh, Bolivia... why would you do that? You're already MINE, fools!

I'll start showing my strategy for actually taking care of the cure labs-something I failed to do last time (but it was still my partner's fault we lost, of course)-shortly, but we still need to take time to prepare.

I'm making good progress, but the USA is slowing me down. My partner is spreading very rapidly across Africa and Asia, but he seems to be having trouble in China for some reason...

It costs money, but it's worth it! We need to start going aggressive!

More symptoms! More! We must infect ALL!

Ah hah hah hah! At last, I finally got a partner competent enough to assist me! So many infected!

China's still holding out though... somehow...

I spend my DNA points on a TON of symptoms, most of them focused on cure-slowing and lethality. Those are the ones you want, the others can be mostly ignored.

We're getting TONS of total infection bubbles, but I'm nearly cured! I need to do something!

And we've still BARELY got a foothold in China. How?

The world map is a giant collage of colors right now. Just thought I'd show it, it's so pretty.

Okay, if you look up at the world screenshot earlier, you'll notice we have no less than SIX cure labs. However, we're severe/lethal enough that the countries will soon be in anarchy and taken care of. We COULD use lethality boost to speed it up, but we don't need to. We need to use Infectivity boost to clear up those last few areas.

Then, we infect the countries that have cure labs, and countries we're struggling in (LIKE STUPID CHINA-we're both struggling there! HOW?).

See all those healthy people? Most of them are coming from China. But with the power of Infectivity Boost...

We no longer have to worry about any such thing.

90% cured, and the last few healthy losers are holding out in Japan. Off we go!

Boost! Boost! Boost! Come on, Japan!

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT EXPORTING FE12!

I have extra cash and decide to be a generous person.

They were never actually doing cure research on me, but they needed to go anyway.

My starting country has been totally killed off, meaning no more DNA for me.

Hmmm... is there anywhere else resisting us?

NEW ZEALAND! Sorry, New Zealanders, nothing personal, but I need you dead. It's just business.

Over 99% of Spain is dead, and they're STILL outputting cure research. It's really quite impressive.

Some of the cure research totals are really weird. I guess Iceland is putting all its cure efforts against the other disease?

There are no healthy people left in the world.

Looks like we win! Good thing too, we were quite close to getting cured.

Have you guys been looking at the "city cams"? Some of them are pretty interesting.

And once again, humanity's lights go out.

The End.

I killed 97% of the world, as you can see by this totally accurate summary.

Clearly, I was the greater contributor. My partner didn't GET IN THE WAY AND RUIN EVERYTHING like last time, but without my careful assistance and guidance, we NEVER would have succeeded! It's a good thing Maverick had a great partner like me to guide him(her?) along!

And thus concludes this LP.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Though this LP has been one of my less popular ones, I had a lot of fun making it, and I hope you guys have all enjoyed watching it. Plague Inc. is definitely a fun game, and there's a lot of stuff I didn't cover, so if you want to see it, do definitely pick it up yourself.

As far as more non-fire emblem LPs in the future go... well, I'm not sure. It depends on the game, and if I can find one that has a better format for screenshot let's plays than this. For now, I want to start working on clearing my back-list of FE games I need to play (Requiem, Midnight Sun...).

So, see you all next time!

[Merc Ee]

Ayyy, it's over.

Plague Inc. was pretty good overall and I wished you could do another PC game LP, like XCom.