Is drug restistance needed before you're noticed?

[Bubba Fett]

I tend to start in the UK and unlock airborne and water transmission first. Once it makes it onto planes and boats, the disease spreads very quickly since the british seem to travel everywhere.

While I'm spreading I devolve any symptoms to stay unnoticed till everyone is infected.
Since they don't know I'm there, do I still need drug resistance to spread in wealthy countries?

[serebix]

Depending on the difficulty. With higher drug resistence the spreading is faster in wealthy countries. I think without it Canada would almost get impossible to infect completly

[Arci]

Drug resist will spread your disease faster in wealthy contries, so yes. Actually you want to spread yourself as fast as possible, so if you start f.e. in Europe, Drug resist is really important for you, cause there are many wealthy countries. If you start in Africa you do not need it until you reach some of the richer countries

[Bubba Fett]

So even though they don't know there's a disease and aren't using drugs to slow it's spread, their wealth causes higher levels of health in general that you need drug resistance to overcome?

So far, I've unlocked it every game, but mainly to get at genetic hardening and the dna reshuffle.
I also usually wait till after I've unlocked quite a few transmission abilities and only get level 1 drug resistance.

It's funny serebix would use Canada for an example of why I need it. I find Canada infects pretty fast and it's the USA that takes a while.
I guess that makes sense since in RL our medical system is pretty broken in Canada. I guess the game is accuratly modeling that disfuncition.

[Arci]

Canada will infect pretty fast with Cold Resistance 2, Pneumonia and Sweating. For USA as it is rich, humid country you can use drug resistance, rats, Hyper sensitivity

[mss73055]

The transmission perks appear to be A LOT more effective than Abilities. About a factor 3 to 4.

Water 2 and Air 2 appear to be 10 times as effective as their rank 1 counterpart. (But Extreme Bioaerosol is weak and quite expensive.)

Mosquito 1/2/3 appear to be borderline useless. I mean they're about as powerful as Abilities are :)

Abilities can't be shut down like transmission perks can. But if you get the zoonic traits you just get so much mutation power to start.

[mss73055]

Back to the OP question: wealthy countries are not resistant to diseases, but all diseases got a starting penalty in wealthy countries.

Hot and cold countries are just as bad as wealthy ones, but hot/cold penalties are compensated by the selection of your starting country.