Timescale tips and dna point spend tips

[sunscreemer]

Which are the best tips/guides (and do you have any tips) for timescales: when you should try to infect globe by and when to start making illness fatal-

also-

any tips for balancing your DNA points spend

as I think both are critical and key to winning/losing (and it may be a fine line)

After badly losing my first game (I named this Nosferatu20- a vampire themed attempt) I did well on second game (I named this Snackterium- a bacteria game- don't eat the food :) ) - approx half the globe resting in peace and zero healthy- even got Greenland fast (starting in Russia actually proved very effective for quick disease spread- was worried it would backfire with starting somewhere so prominent but it went very well), one country even began to break down (but didn't progress beyond the first breakdown message- curious about this too).

My big, obvious in hindsight mistake was going lethal too late or/and not lethal enough I think- by day 831 they'd found the cure (even with me slowing it down to the max and getting all the blue bubbles, and this is on easiest setting) Once there's a cure I don't think you can win, very soon the infected are all healthy again, you'd have to have a very high death rate indeed to luck out if you even can. It's a shame there's not a bit of a delay on the cure- even once there is one realistically you wouldn't cure billions in a short timeframe. The game deems to give you just a few days grace (it may be possible to do a close shave win!) But it works for albeit challenging gameplay.

Along with this I don't think the 436 dna points I got (spent all but 3) were used on enough symptoms- as a newbie of course I didn't know how many I'd have to spend, so ended up very infectious, a little dangerous but not very lethal at all, but didn't have the new points after that to go much more lethal, even with trading some less useful traits in to add some late symptoms.

So what's the best way to still infect fast, still get the best total dna points (I don't know if my 436 game total is low, mid or high) possible on balance and the best number approx to save for symptoms and deadliness, basically tips for balancing these things out and not going too lethal too fast- mainly tips on the balancing act though.

I'm also wondering if the best option's play longer - rather than my after-game thinking I needed to move faster. Should I have in fact moved slower and got more dna and saved up the lethality for even later to delay the cure gaining momentum? I'd infected everywhere with 0 Healthy globally by day 440, but the low remaining dna meant deaths only built up slowly, so although impressively fast (tens of millions a day) it still didn't beat the cure- was this too early or too late, or was it just that I had rather weak lethality (I'll check the symptoms I had so you can feed back and add to a reply)

Thanks, such a clever game- one of the most enjoyable challenge your strategy games I've played, really enjoyed it, which is weird under current global circumstances- I think it's the uniqueness of being on the other side of the equation that you don't think about so much irl- makes it quite different, and it's a good puzzle/ strategy challenge.

Plus thanks for any help and tips feedback, I'd like to win with my Snackterium bacterium on-theme so stomachy type stuff (or stuffing!)- food theme choices win?

[Kunovega]

This covers pretty much everything or has links to other guides for specific diseases or scenarios to cover even more depth and specific disease tips

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=583661612

[sunscreemer]

Thanks, any other good tips welcome.

Some feedback on my symptom and timing choices would be good. They found the cure (hit 100%) 1-9-22, I lost on 13-10-22 (day 831) having rewatched it post-final-save - so it may actually give you approx six weeks after the cure to win, although the infected are becoming healthy I wonder if a close shave where a cure is found is possible if almost everybody's finished off? Probably not as I guess just one healthy person would make that impossible. So depends how soon the first infected still-living person is cured once a cure is found as that's gotta be game over.

I rejected a few free early mutations but kept some later ones once I made Snackterium 'lethal', here's the final symptoms I ended up with- the game hinted at one pair not matching too well as it gave me the oh no achievement suggesting it had drawn attention to the illness- hence some combos may not be good. Think it was sneezing or coughing and diarrhoea it hinted at being bad (drawing attention to illness), but it liked a couple of other odd combos (some can also amplify each other which is good).

BACTERIA

Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhoea
Sneezing, Coughing, Pneumonia (added near end), Pulmonary oedema (added near end)
Fever
immune Suppression
Insomnia, Paranoia
Tumours
Seizures (added near end)
Inflammation (added very late)
Anaemia, Haemophilia

This did bump off lots of peeps very fast but not fast enough! Maybe day 440 (when I'd got 100% global infection) was too late or too early to start making it lethal? Maybe I needed to have dna points ready? (I didn't have many so was slow adding symptoms that were lethal, like I say I didn't know how many dna points you can get and by when so couldn't budget them ahead of time- still don't as only game two). Don't seem to get many once reached full infection- is this right or can you keep earning them to go more lethal?

I'm pleased I got to genetic compexity: complex though (better than game one!), how high does this go?

Good thing with this game is it's still fun even if you lose- some games aren't fun to lose as it also scuppers the gameplay as it becomes unenjoyable until your 'failed' moment but this is still fun to watch unfold so I , like that you can have fun failing with this :)

[sunscreemer]

Uh Oh
Discover the Oops symptom combo

was the achievement I got for an unusual combo of symptoms with patients experiencing some unusual consequences bringing the illness greater attention (which in the case of Snackterium attempt one would be quite yucky for those patients :) ) , basically implies you've put your nasty more on the global radar making it more noticable- yet more attention you'd rather it wasn't getting!

[sunscreemer]

Achievement guide is useful but seems mostly about how to tick off each achievement, are there any guides that best answer my questions (did see one bit that suggests you can, at least sometimes, maybe play a slow game as I saw a mention of thousands of days briefly scan-reading it, can you delay a win to super-evolve your nasty by delaying the various cure research trigger points to the max?)

Does link some useful other guides like you say though.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by sunscreemer:

Achievement guide is useful but seems mostly about how to tick off each achievement, are there any guides that best answer my questions (did see one bit that suggests you can, at least sometimes, maybe play a slow game as I saw a mention of thousands of days briefly scan-reading it, can you delay a win to super-evolve your nasty by delaying the various cure research trigger points to the max?)

Does link some useful other guides like you say though.

Read the guides linked within it for each disease, they go into order of evolution and timing where needed

[sunscreemer]

Thanks- and I guess some of my questions would be answered in a 'that could also be useful for this...'way, as once you know about timing/dna points etc you'd be able to use that knowledge in other play-throughs. Browsing the achievements suggests the game has plenty of longevity as there's a lot to 'beat' and a lot of differences of missions and ways to play to explore.

Once you master it you can probably find ways to win with some of your own choices as you'd be better at formulating an overall strategy for a paticular aim you might want to try out. Ah, I could work round the world this way, give my entity this set of building blocks so it has that kind of genetic personality and these ways of being deadly at just the right time...... :)