How to Necroa Lava God

This guide shows a consistent method in order to earn 3 biohazards on Normal for the Volcanic Ash scenario. It is reccomended for players who have experience beating Mega Brutal scenarios already, particularly Necroa and Fungus.

Introduction

Hello all, and welcome to my guide. As stated in the original description of this tutorial, this document is intended to provide a framework for a competent player to be able to complete the Necroa Virus with three Biohazards on Normal for the Lava God Achivement.



Some key concepts that will be used involve general Necroa Virus tactics which the ability to complate Necroa Virus on Mega Brutal is sufficient as well as aggresive Fungus tactics that are viable in Mega Brutal which will be elaborated on. This strategy is not greatly dependent on RNG but save states can be used when useful symptions mutate. As a demonstration of this method, I will be playing a run with no save states using this method and printing the results.

Note: This Strategy is also proven to be applicable for both Super Sparrow and Mr. President as well.

Setup

The primary challenge of this specific disease type is that conventional methods of beating Necroa often take upwards of 500-550 days while the challenge demands that the scenario is beaten in under 400 days in order to earn a high score. This is compounded by a lack of air travel that prevents a large initial spread from countries like Saudi Arabia which has the best airport in the game and as such is a very popular starting country. Two areas that are not of great concern however are cure progress and disease complexity given the facts that Necroa on its own is very symptom heavy and the fact that zombies cant be cured and destroyed countries cannot cure the disease.

The strategy that will be used in order to ensure that the time deadline is met is to get zombies as fast as possible and use those zombies in order too facilitate spread rather than the infection itself. The genes that would be necesary for such a build would maximize infectivity in an initial country and set up conditions where zombies can move as fast as possible to other countries. What I will be using is shown below:



For all of the non-Zombie genes, the reasoning for these selections is as follows:

• ATP Boost: Initial DNA needed to speed up zombification, DNA provided in norrmal sufficient enough to not require Metabolic Jump (feel free to experiment with that).
  
• Darwinist: Lack of use of Genetic Mimic and can potentially save a lot of DNA.
  
• Native Biome: Increase initial spread of disease, disease spread in other countries is not a concern. Lethality (AKA Zombies) is dependent of the current infected population.
  
• Xerophile: Depends on starting country, boosts initial infectivity for same reasons as the prior perk.

Spliced Activation is the primary tool used in order to achieve a steady and DNA profitable spread of zombies. Referring back to why it was initially stated that Mega Brutal Fungus experience was reccomended for this, a common Fungus strategy utilizes the Trans-Statis gene. The idea is that your disease is able to infect a new country via a Spore Burst for only 1 DNA at a time but being severe enough so that a newly infected country would retun about 3-4 DNA (often done using Skin Lesions or Abcesses), giving a steady DNA stream over time. Horde Instinct is effectively our Spore Bursts, but instead of hoping for good luck, every new infection is directly dependent on the player.

Note: Feel free to call this the Cordyceps method.

Gameplay

To start off, the ideal region to propogate the spread of zombies would allow access to as many continents as possible while having tightly packed and interconnected land borders so that zombie spread through a variety of ways can travel far and generate lots of DNA along the way. This region for our purposes will be the Middle East (not the listed country, but the subcontinent in general). The concentration of countries in this region can be shown in the zoomed in map below with the normal game map used as reference:





The key is to exploit the map as much as possible. Whether it be first infecting countries with many bordering states and using that as a springboard for infection such as Pakistan to China, or exploiting the land mass of a country to travel massive distances like Russia, map knowledge makes a successful run.

As far as a starting country, any zone that suits your starting perk would work best and there is a degree of flexibility in the possible selections. I personally chose Egypt as my starting zone because the dual ports may infect another country and any country with both infected and zombies can spread zombies faster in addition to possibly rewarding some bonus DNA.

We'll be going down the left zombie tree for this strategy because it's cheaper and we will be spreading our disease with zombies instead of infected.

Note: As soon as you select your starting country, immediately pause and evove Insomnia before the first red bubble for a chance at an extra DNA point at the start

For transmissions, we will never evolve any transmissions for the whole run, done. For symptoms, evolve Insomnia and Fever. then save 18 DNA to get Photophobia and Delerium at the same time. Then get Cytopathic Reanimation and Anarobic Resuscitation. I had about 4500 infected when I got my first zombie and this took exactly 145 days. At this point you are spotted, but that doesn't matter. If you get any events which slow infection in your initial country before this point, feel free to restart.

At this point, I immediately evolved Enhanced Motor Control, which is where I will be swithcing away from symptoms for now. The following shows my progress 155 Days after the initial infection. This can be used as well as a visual representation of the overall evolution path taken.





Begin, moving twoards evolving Engorged Quadriceps by gettng Structured Travel, Dyskinetic Movement and Echopraxia respectively, which costs 5 DNA in total. After this evolve Horde Mentality. This is necesary as it causes the ammount of zombies that leave a country to be around 40% of the current zombies in a given country until after it surpasses about ten thousand. This means you can move 1-2 zombie hordes out of a country at any particular time. The more zombies are moving the faster transmission takes place. This comes at the risk of depleting zombies in any given country however, so caution must be taken when moving zombies. At first 30-ish zombies is enough to move if initial zombification is slow, but this must go up to about 2 to 3 hundred to prevent depletion.

By day 190, I first moved a horde of zombies to Lybia. At this point, run the game at the slowest possible speed so there are less time gaps. One trick to further decrease travel time is to zoom in on the map and make as short a line between borders and islands. The less distance travelled, the faster you can use the newly entered zombies to travel to more countries.

The next goal is to become as immediately severe as possible, because combat advantage only applies to 1 or 2 countries at most, severity is a higher priority because it's needed to convert healthy people to zombies at a faster rate. Once you reach about 22 DNA, evolve Masticatory Tension and then use the rest of the zombies to move and earn DNA. I reached this Point 210 Days from first infection, and at this point, I no longer have any infected and control 170,000 zombies.

A little while after, at about 5-10 days later, you should have 10 DNA, at this point buy Drifting Fermentation and start infecting the Western Hemisphere from Brazil. I reccomend using West Africa because Moroccan zombies are most likely going to be used to infect Spain.

Even with ZCOM starting to strengthen, the next symptom to be evolved is Anabolic Boost once you reach about 30 DNA because of the massive severity boost it provides, allowing defenseless countries to be zombified quickly. Generally, try not to overuse countries that have massive populations, because even with high severity, they take longer to reach a critical mass of zombies. In addition, first infect countries that you know you're goiing to use to infect other areas. An example is first infecting Venezuela after Brazil in order to have more zombies on hand to attack central America and the Carribien.

After you earn about 21 DNA, unlock Peptide Surge and prepare to start speccing into the bottom combat tree. By day 265, Egypt has been destroyed by the infection, now the DNA of countries being destroyed rater than DNA from travelling to new countries will be used for purchasing. The following is a timestap on the current plague's progress:





Because all other countries are currently Infected and current zombies have little combat advantage, Acid Reflux and Naja Mortis must be purchased minimum before any zombies are moved into the original ZCOM base. At this rate however, people will start dying very quickly, so DNA will start to come pouring in from deaths as well as from Countries being destroyed. If zombies are not dying faster than they're forming after first entering the original base, that's a good sign. Evolve Autothysis and Dermal Calcification once the DNA is available immediately after to retain a foothold in the ZCOM base. If Zcom is still a problem, instead of going twoards bone Dysplasia, instead evolve Regenerative Activation, Ambush Predation and Liquefactive Necrosis and resurrect a horde of zombies once. Not only iis there a passive combat advantage given for these skills, but resurrecting also boosts it as well, making it a more targeted and cost efficient option.

Now that you have a ton of zombies at your disposal, now it's time to move them around. Evolve Horde Vocalization and Horde Pheromones when the DNA is available. Use these zombies to rush into any zcom or not destroyed countries, using multiple countries at once if possible. The following is a timestamp of day 320 days from first infection. Most common strategies are timed to win in approximately 375 Days, giving this plague about 55 days to destroy humanity.








Humanity ultimately fell 362 days after the first infection in this run. The final timestamps with the full end results shown.

Video Evidence

The following is a sample runthrough of a succesful run with an added challenge of ZCOM beginning in Russia. In addition, the game was not played in slow mode as to allow for a shorter upload time.

This caused the score to be lower, but it proved even with odd game behavior, the strategy is reliable.

Results and Conclusions

The overall run was remarkably fast in the speed it took to consume all of humanity. This run was preceeded by two other runs which used a very similar strategy and both also got three biohazards as well. This run was also the highest scoring as well. The scores and times of each run are listed below.

• RUN 1: Biohazards: 3, Score 77604, Time: 392 Days
  
• RUN 2: Biohazards: 3, Score 82480, Time: 373 Days
  
• RUN 3: Biohazards: 3, Score 83703, Time: 362 Days

This run had several factors going for it in regards to timing of several key events, even though movementment might not be perfectly optimized, but was more than enough to secure the achievement. The lack or reliance on outside modes of transportation of the infection also makes it applicable to the Super Sparrow and Mr President achievements as well.

In closing, this strategy serves its intended purpose well and allows for enough flexibilty to be repeatable. The impact this stragegy might have on the community can aid in making the godly achievements more accesable to a wider playerbase because of a lack of stringency. An emphasis to develop more flexible strategies is overall healthy for the community because it can aid in inspiring origina and optimized solutions to scenarios.

Hopefully this helps. Thanks for your time, and have a nice day.

TL;DR: Play Necroa Like Fungus

Addendum: Shout out to rjdimo(afk) for including this guide into the Complete Achievement guide. Thank you so much for the referral

UPDATE:: I have re-tested the contents of this guide on August 20th, 2021 and achieved a score of 79390 on my first attempt. Some notable changes were that I evolved the resurrection perks before Autothysis and randomly mutated Lumbrical Hypertrophy. The contents within this guide, in my assessment, are applicable within a margin of safety that would still deem it relevant to anyone seeking to acquire the Lava God achievement. Happy Hunting!

[Alvaro3111]

thanks man

[theheap]

honestly i only won because a glitched happened and i suddenly got 100 dna points

[CABBAGE_MEDAL]

Also, I am well aware, the prices of several of the symptoms have changed and I'll need to revise accordingly. I will make an effort to do so in the coming months and will list my revisions thoroughly.

[S_Bahn_Berlin]

This doesn't seem to work AT ALL for me: first, when evolving Cytopathic Reanimation, it takes up to 14 days for the first zombie to rise. Then, once Z Com pops up, it sets up new camps EXTREMELY QUICKLY until my whole map is littered with them just one month or two later. This makes the game nearly impossible to beat with this tactis, and impossible to get 65,000+ score

[Psycho 龍Ⅺ]

Thanks!

[RealGuy]

So far, this is the only guide that has helped and even this took me a few tries.

432 days, 72% cure, 68206 score. Gosh I need a rest.

[WolfTooth]

I still cant beat even the basic Necroa Virus.I only get 1 DNA most of the time for destroying countries and then theres only Z com countries left and cant invade them
\

[witherpiggy]

Those timestamps are the most bullshit thing I've ever seen tbh

[indieopium]

Thank you SO much!
I've been struggling with this one - I found your guide on the other steam guide "Plague Inc. Evolved - COMPLETE Achievement Guide (v.1.15.0)
I read your guide, watched the video to get an idea of what you did.
Started in Egypt and then I just followed your evolution history and it worked!
408 Days, 75% cure progression - 71527 points.

[Silver]

I found it on the Steam guides page. It was one of the top guides.