Monkey Blood works. Here is a guide

[JVC]

I got Monkey Blood to work in Castlegar. I did a ton of tries in Spokane, but was missing one of the clues, but others have mentioned that it can also be done in Spokane. The wiki is mostly correct, but it fails to stress that you need *all four clues* to get the story.

Step 1, Preparation. No signposts. Make sure that a completely untouched motel exists outside of your base. Control at least 5 schools inside your base. Find a Cricket Bat.

Don't confuse the Cricket Bat with a Baseball Bat. You can find the Cricket Bat in trades with other factions, or by owning an 8-12 store, and getting a random event where a visitor asks for an ice cream. You can now *try* to give him an ice cream because you own the 8-12 store. As a reward, he gives you a Cricket Bat.

Don't research signposts before you've collected (preferably) all four clues. If you have the other three, but can't get Trashy Literature, now is the time to make a savegame and to be prepared to load it, if a ton of visits to the other factions don't give the last clue.

Step 2, The player needs to collect *all four clues*

So you need 4 clues and an untouched motel (in my game: not scouted, not scavenged, not claimed. It is ok that it borders your base).
* 1) a Cricket Bat [not a baseball bat]. I've both found it, and got it in a trade from St. Michael's. Give it to Gustav. I didn't add anything else to the trade, but I've seen his correct reply also if you trade other items. His reply is something about "ze game of ze gentle men".
* 2) a newspaper story about zombies. I sent an engineer on a random task between the fort and an approaching zombie army. The character begins reading a newspaper article about zombies. Press "continue" so he reads the second page of the article.
* 3) An unscouted mall. Send a level 10+ scavenger (yellow) to investigate it. He will finish early, and asks what to do. Send him to visit the pet store. He will notice that the monkey cages are empty.
* 4) Some fictional (trashy) literature. You need to control at least 5 schools in your base. I triggered it with 6 schools, and the dialog mentioned the correct number, so it is at least 5 schools. Talk to other factions, and eventually one of them will mention that you have a large number of schools, and will donate books for them. Take the *fictional literature* which will include a book about zombies. I got it from The Rotten. Others have got it from St. Michael's.

I only got the fictional literature *after* Gretchen had arrived, but others seem to have got it before she arrived, so that was something random. It is likely that you just need to have seen all four clues before she leaves.

Step 3, Research Signposts

Now research Signposts and Gretchen will arrive at your base, probably the next day.
She is a blond, white woman with her face covered in a white surgeon's mask. This is where the countdown begins. I did the 4 clues in the order listed, and Gustav was several hundred days earlier than the trashy literature, so I don't think there is any kind of countdown before that.

Step 4, Send one or more survivors to be hurt by zombies

Immediately after Gretchen arrives, send a number of low-level, unarmed survivors out on random tasks in spaces between approaching zombie armies and your base.They will be hurt by the zombies and sent to the hospital.

Notice: you need several of these patients, since your hospital may cure them before Gretchen notices them. Do not move Gretchen, the patients just need to be healing inside your base. I had between 6 and 10 people getting hurt outside the base, before one of them triggered her.

She will tell a story about one of the bitten people, and that character immediately dies. So don't use a good character on this.

Step 5, Gretchen leaves

Around 30 days after arriving, Gretchen will get into a fight with another character, and she leaves. I tried talking her out of it (having a high-level leader), but she will choose to leave anyway.

*This is where the story ends unless you collected all four clues.*

Step 6, Motel

If you collected all four clues, now is the time to scavenge the motel, you've set aside until now. It will immediately trigger a story about Van Nooten having lived there.

If that story unlocks, congratulations. This was the hard part. Save here, just in case.

Step 7, Hospital

The story in the motel will mention a hospital where Van Nooten worked. The game will find a hotel outside of your base, or - in my case - create a hospital far outside of the base. So make sure to have scouted everything, including the enemy factions' territories.

Just examine the patients in the order listed. Van Nooten was patient number three. Just click the options in the order listed.

Step 8, School

The story in the hospital will mention a university where Van Nooten worked. The game will find a school outside of your base, or - in my case - create a school far outside of the base. In my game, it took a tile away from a rival faction on the back of their territory.

Talk to Gretchen (Van Nooten) about everything. Try to stop her from killing herself, but she will succeed anyway. You will immediately look through her belongings, and the story mentions a flask falling out of her husband's book.

You've now completed Monkey Blood and unlocked the Origin achievement. Congratulations.

[Kunovega]

I'm just curious but how is this different from the other guides specifically?

I've followed the other guides AND done *all four clues* numerous times with no success. I've literally gone all the way through to step 8 of your guide:

Originally posted by JVC:

Step 8, School

The story in the motel will mention a hospital where Van Nooten worked. The game will find a hotel outside of your base, or - in my case - create a school far outside of the base. In my game, it took a tile away from a rival faction on the back of their territory.

This is the part that doesn't work for me. I do the story in the motel and it mentions the hospital where Van Nooten worked and that's it. No hospital shows up anywhere on the maps

I've spent hours reclaiming entire cities, rechecking every tile and no hospital

I haven't played the game in a while so I'm thinking of deleting all my progress, doing a clean install of the game and trying again from scratch. I know that I've done at least a dozen attempts at this in varying cities last year without success. I've been away from the game long enough that I think I'm willing to bang my head on this stupid achievement again

I'll try Castlegar this time, I don't remember if that was one that I'd tried before (I remember doing spokane and several others)

[JVC]

I followed the guide on the Gamepedia wiki, but had around 4 attempts in Spokane, but I couldn't get the motel event to fire (since I was missing one of the clues). So I wrote this guide instead, since I couldn't change it on the wiki.

Did you reveal every single part of the map? If you got the motel, that's the tricky bit. In my game, it tossed the hospital in a really, really weird corner of the map in a location that wasn't claimed. It is marked with an exclamation point, but I missed it the first 10 minutes.

The school after that was even worse, it was located on the far side of one of the other factions' bases.

I feel your frustration, I had the same feeling several hours yesterday. If you still have a savegame of the level you mention, I'd really recommend spamming scouts out to every single weird corner of the map. The hospital *ought* to be somewhere.

Edit: You write that you reclaimed entire cities. That might be the reason if it hasn't triggered. I my game, there was a big patch of land I couldn't claim, because I got stomped by zombie waves. And the hospital spawned on unclaimed land.

[Kunovega]

I mean I've done the entire sequence numerous ways at least a dozen times, I've been all the way through to the motel and then go looking for the hospital, reclaiming the entire map in the process of looking for the hospital each time and not finding it

I just looked through some of my saved games, I had step by step save points for each event in 3 different cities, spokane and 2 others, but not castlegar. I know ive done it more than that but obviously deleted them last year when i was cycling this over and over again

Anyway I've just deleted all of those save games and reinstalled the game clean, starting from nothing will do this one more time in castlegar. I know I followed the guides to precision numerous times to the point where I simply gave up because no one had any more suggestions and it looked like the game was straight up bugged because the hospital never spawned in any of the cities I did it in

It's been enough time that I'm willing to play it again from nothing, we'll see

[JVC]

Best of luck. Don't think the maps are randomised? In my game at Castlegar, the motel was located 2-3 spaces SW of the starting position, so it was really hard to keep away from touching it. (Zeds spawned there constantly. But electric fences help with that) :)

I expanded north till I met with the Ruffs and allied with them and west till I found the lab. I took over City hall and took the three tiles beyond that. I expanded north of the motel until I eventually bordered the Rotten. The hospital spawned due west of the Rotten. The School spawned on the western back side of the Church's territory. Best of luck again.

Edit: I'd scouted the entire map, before I visited the motel, and I played on "normal".

[Kunovega]

Clean install, deleted all previous saves just in case something was corrupt that was preventing it from working the many times I've done this before (and had no hospital spawn at the end)

Fairly routine game for the first few cities, have a pretty awesome group (2 super heros and a macgyver) and my leader started with pizza delivery and picked up real estate as his secondary so it's basically easy mode at this point

So I get to Castlegar, finish most of this and realize... there's no motel. Not a single one in the entire city. OK, reload previous city, change the random seed number and try again...

After 4 random seeds I finally get a motel to spawn using random seed number: 123

Everything looks good, I've got two motels and malls nearby and I've brought a cricket bat with me from a previous city and even if I hadn't there's an 8-12 mart nearby and you would get the bat for owning it (and offering the ice cream in the random event) so, seems like a good random seed

And... the first time gustav shows up he leaves the city forever, complaining about thieving zombies and just like that he's gone without a chance to give him the bat....

This chain of events is a ridiculous comedy of errors

And restarting Castlegar again.....

Originally posted by JVC:

Best of luck. Don't think the maps are randomised?

All maps are randomized, when you begin a city and it's asking you the difficulty, hit "more" and you can see the random seed (and change it)

If you've already started a story mode on a particular map you would need to reset it to get a new seed

[Kunovega]

378 turns later this finally worked. I left a hospital and a school both untouched so I wouldn't need to worry about the game spawning them, having tried this all before the issue for me was the hospital never existed or wouldn't spawn as I'd been through these steps before

Anyway, maybe I just hadn't tried castlegar (I know I'd done this in spokane and several others).

Originally posted by JVC:

* 1) a Cricket Bat [not a baseball bat]. I've both found it, and got it in a trade from St. Michael's. Give it to Gustav. I didn't add anything else to the trade, but I've seen his correct reply also if you trade other items. His reply is something about "ze game of ze gentle men".

Brought one with me, got several from the ice cream events in the previous maps

* 2) a newspaper story about zombies. I sent an engineer on a random taks between the fort and an approaching zombie army. The character begins reading a newspaper article about zombies. Press "continue" so he reads the second page of the article.

Pretty sure your engineer needs to be at least a few levels for this to work

* 3) An unscouted mall. Send a level 10+ scavenger (yellow) to investigate it. He will finish early, and asks what to do. Send him to visit the pet store. He will notice that the monkey cages are empty.

Your leader can also do it if scavenger skill is high enough

* 4) Some fictional (trashy) literature. You need to control at least 5 schools in your base. I triggered it with 6 schools, and the dialog mentioned the correct number, so it is at least 5 schools. Talk to other factions, and eventually one of them will mention that you have a large number of schools, and will donate books for them. Take the *fictional literature* which will include a book about zombies. I got it from The Rotten. Others have got it from St. Michael's.

I've had this trigger with only 5 schools before, but while doing it this time I waited 100 turns and didn't get the event, then as soon as I built a 6th school it triggered on my next visit to the last judgement gang (with enough respect to have an alliance, but no alliance formed yet, just a regular talk)

Step 3, Research Signposts

Now research Signposts and Gretchen will arrive at your base, probably the next day.
She is a blond, white woman with her face covered in a white surgeon's mask. This is where the countdown begins. I did the 4 clues in the order listed, and Gustav was several hundred days earlier than the trashy literature, so I don't think there is any kind of countdown before that.

I had all 4 events done before signposts, she arrived the very next day after signpost research completed

Step 4: send one or more survivors to be hurt by zombies

Immediately after Gretchen arrives, send a number of low-level, unarmed survivors out on random tasks in spaces between approaching zombie armies and your base.They will be hurt by the zombies and sent to the hospital.

I left about a dozen people with no combat skills, using them for just research or leadership then sent them all out alone on missions after gretchen arrived. Half of them died on missions before she finally got around to killing one of the injured.

Step 6, Motel

If you collected all four clues, now is the time to scavenge the motel, you've set aside until now. It will immediately trigger a story about Van Nooten having lived there.

If that story unlocks, congratulations. This was the hard part. Save here, just in case.

Step 7, Hospital

The story in the motel will mention a hospital where Van Nooten worked. The game will find a hotel outside of your base, or - in my case - create a hospital far outside of the base. So make sure to have scouted everything, including the enemy factions' territories.

Just examine the patients in the order listed. Van Nooten was patient number three. Just click the options in the order listed.

Step 8, School

The story in the motel will mention a hospital where Van Nooten worked. The game will find a hotel outside of your base, or - in my case - create a school far outside of the base. In my game, it took a tile away from a rival faction on the back of their territory.

You doubled up your instructions here, not sure why

I was worried the school wouldn't spawn the same way the hospital wouldn't spawn for me before, so I left one of each untouched. As expected this time the "!" quest markers showed up on an existing hospital and then an existing school

You've now completed Monkey Blood and unlocked the Origin achievement. Congratulations.

Finally done with this stupid achievement. I've completely lost track of how many hours and restarts went into it

Now if only there was a way to know how many zombies the game thinks I've killed. I have to wonder if deleting or restarting maps removes your zombie kill count because I feel like I'm way over 100,000 and don't have that yet either... I'm gonna start writing down my end of city totals and add them up....

[JVC]

Good thing that you got it to work. And yes, I did make a copy-paste error in no. 8.

Thanks for the info about the randomized maps. Unfortunately, I can't find the seed number on my Castlegar map. Might need to dig around a bit more for that one.

Some of the achievements here are really annoying. I'm below 100,000 zombies, so I still have that one to go, but the cannibals achievement is a pain.

I've several times bougt meat from the pig farmers containing a pacemaker. I've had the ice cream van, had a person disappear, talked to the Luddites and pig farmers and freed him afterwards. In another game, I sent a person to "work" there that never returned and bought the meat afterwards, but I can't get that achievement to work. I've also changed the penal system to allow cannibalism, but don't think I've seen anyone fall victim to that.

In one of the games, the game actually disabled the "we've never eaten people" dialogue option when talking to a stranger, but still no achievement.

[Kunovega]

It's not just "Eat people" its eat enough of them to be considered evil, pretty sure you need to eat like 30 or 40 people over the course of a game, it won't pop just from a couple of events

Read the last two posts of this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/257170/discussions/0/594820656446354742/?ctp=2

And I don't think eating corpses that die from starvation count since that's survival eating, it's the corpses eaten willingly, mostly through the pig farmer stuff

[JVC]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

It's not just "Eat people" its eat enough of them to be considered evil, pretty sure you need to eat like 30 or 40 people over the course of a game, it won't pop just from a couple of events

Read the last two posts of this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/257170/discussions/0/594820656446354742/?ctp=2

And I don't think eating corpses that die from starvation count since that's survival eating, it's the corpses eaten willingly, mostly through the pig farmer stuff

Thanks for the tip. Not completely sure if this all has to take place on the same map? I guess it does. I'd hoped that the "devolur the living" thing in Vancouver would have worked, but no luck there.

[Kunovega]

I don't know if it all has to be done on one map, but I personally did it all on one map simply because I don't normally allow cannibalism, so when I went for the achievement I just did the grind of pig farmer visits until it was done

[Beamer]

So do these steps to gain the monkey blood apply to the IOS version?

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Zero Down:

So do these steps to gain the monkey blood apply to the IOS version?

Theoretically. Does IOS version have achievements? That was the only reason to care here was for steam achievement.

[JVC]

I've only tried the Steam version, sorry.

[Qxami]

Originally posted by Zero Down:

So do these steps to gain the monkey blood apply to the IOS version?

These steps should work for all versions of the game. I've played on both the PC and android version. Not sure if that fully answers the question. I've generated multiple map seeds and change my leader because either the Luddies and/or St Michael's keep claiming the only mall/motel on the map or not even having either at all.

Your leader's appearance also affects the map seeds, I guess because of the game's coding. Also, monkey blood is possible on the first map.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Qxami:

These steps should work for all versions of the game. I've played on both the PC and android version. Not sure if that fully answers the question. I've generated multiple map seeds and change my leader because either the Luddies and/or St Michael's keep claiming the only mall/motel on the map or not even having either at all.

You can surround the motel / mall / hospital / whatever with your own territory without taking the building itself that you want to leave for later, this prevents anyone else from taking it and leaves it there for you to use whenever you get to it

Your leader's appearance also affects the map seeds

Map seeds are simply random every time you reset them, your leaders appearance is meaningless

Also, monkey blood is possible on the first map.

I don't think you can research signposts in the first map that would allow Gretchen to arrive and she's required to trigger monkey blood. It might be possible in the second.