Fast Fungus Guide – Plague Inc.

FastFungus Guide - Plague Inc.

Plague Inc. by Ndemic Creations

There are some people who find Fungus to be difficult, so here is our guide for using Fungus on Megabrutal to eliminate humanity before 1 year. We have repeated this strat many times to refine it, there is always some variance, but our current record is 11 months.

11 months you say? How can such a slow pathogen do it in 11 months?

Plague Inc. – Fast Fungus Guide

Also why is a shroom female? Well, the same way hurricanes are women…

Pre Game

You need certain genes to attempt this mission, not gonna lie. Maybe the rest can be fudged, but definitely Patho-Stasis (freeze ability costs). If you don’t have the genes, farm them by beating ten or so games with bacteria on casual. You get a new gene unlock for each game you win.

  • Patho-Stasis: Ability costs don’t increase as you evolve more, therefore making Spore Burst cost only 1 DNA
  • Darwinist: DNA is scarce on megabrutal, the free mutations will help although sometimes the wrong thing happens
  • Urbophile: Heaviest resistance is expected from rich countries, and they’re mostly urban, so we prep for that
  • ATP Boost: Fungi is way too fast for any of the other genes to generate significant DNA advantage. ATP is not just DNA, it’s DNA exactly when you need it – the start of the game.
  • Aquacyte: Greenland is not a problem for this guide (you’ll soon see why). But there are still quite a lot of island nations which all have to die.

Before we move on, we have to mention genes that got rejected, and why.

  • Extremophile: A popular choice (who doesn’t like a boost for all environments?). But who cares about a higher performance in Libya? We need the boost where it matters – urban.
  • Genetic Mimic: Cure percentage is irrelevant unless it’s 100%. This is a speed guide, not a score guide.
  • Creationist: We do not fear the mutation. We do not fear killing too early. We embrace it.

Opening

Okay now we start the plague and we’re starting in Greenland.

Greenland you say? Are you sure this is a speed guide?

Greenland is normally a bad place to start a disease because infection spreads so slowly and we’re in Megabrutal. But Greenland has many advantages in Fungus mode, it is to be preferred over Saudi Arabia, India, or China.

  1. Because fuck Greenland
  2. Automatic cold bonus. Most rich nations are also cold
  3. Greenland is very hard to infect unless you’re already in Greenland

Now we evolve our symptoms. Immediate Rash, then Sweating. This is our preferred symptom tree because the highly infectious Skin Lesions is underneath. With the last DNA point, pop the first Spore Burst.

The Spore Burst costs only 1 DNA, but it infects a new country, which immediately gives back a red bubble for 1-3 DNA (the exact amount depends on the current Severity). Like a pyramid scheme, we have twelve Spore Bursts and two Spore Eruptions, which means it reaches 23 countries from the very start of the game.

Unlike many players, who like to hold back and keep spores in reserve for “the last few countries”, our guide says you don’t be a coward but you release everything at once. We need to reach the final ability, Spore Hardening, which will help a lot more than being a coward, you gotta let go and trust in the Spores.

There is still some nuance to this.

  1. To get bonus DNA from a higher severity, you evolve some symptoms in the middle of Spore Bursts.
  2. Keep releasing Spore Bursts and taking DNA back to do more Spore Burst.
  3. Do not fear releasing more than 1 Spore Burst at once. The probability of double-selecting any one country is very low.
  4. Unlock Skin Lesions as soon as you have 10 DNA. Severity goes up, infectivity goes way up
  5. Do all the Spore Bursts before you do Spore Eruption.
  6. You will soon have the DNA to unlock Fever. This kills people, yes. Fungus don’t care.
  7. Release the first Spore Eruption. It should hit 5 countries, each returning 2 or 3 DNA.
  8. This gives you enough DNA for Immune Suppression. Killing even more people, and also increasing mutation.
  9. Then release the second and final Spore Eruption.

We embrace death and mutation, we don’t fear it.

A quick note on Spore Hardening – it does not mean the plague will cross closed borders / seaports, but just increases base transmission by x 100. The description is a lie. The Fungus still needs to travel via the normal air / water / land routes. Spore Hardening boosts the ultra-low Fungus spreading rates by a lot but it still ends up being less infectious than bacteria.

Middlegame

This is where play starts to diverge and you need to make choices based on your map. It is not good to follow a cookie cutter routine because your spores select random countries and you need to tailor to them.

Your final Spore Eruption should have netted you a very hefty haul DNA because your disease is already lethal. Now you open the infections list and take note which countries got spored.

  • Island nations like Madagascar, New Zealand, Iceland and Caribbean hit by spores is very very good
  • Take note if your spores snagged a “super spreader” like Saudi Arabia, China, or India. If you do, you evolve to the temperature (heat resistance) and the arid (air) / humid (water) of that country.
  • Take note if you have a lot of rich countries. If you do, give higher priority to drug resistance.
  • If you don’t have super-spreaders or rich countries, you immediately move to Birds.

Most guides only tell you what to do. (And they mostly be unhelpful like – do everything, and you’ll win.) But DNA is very limited on Megabrutal and more importantly we’re going to tell you what not to do.

  • Nearly every player knows about Air 1, Air 2, Water 1, Water 2, this is just out of habit and may not actually give good performance
  • Fungus hates travelling on any kind of vehicle so Birds are actually the most reliable way to carry shrooms.
  • The final ability, Spore Hardening, multiples transmission x 100. Costing only 5 DNA, you need this one first before any transmission.
  • It is often correct to start Drug Resistance or Heat Resistance before doing a single transmission, and sometimes, even their 2nd upgrade before doing transmission.
  • Your plague will not spread unless you have infected most of the natives already, so forget what you know about bio-aerosols. You have a lot of base infectivity from the symptoms.
  • You only do the Air Water thing after your disease has conquered several countries.
  • You do not need Cold Resistance, not even level 1, because you inherited all that from Greenland.

Battle

They’re going to notice you and say it’s a worrying disease, because you started killing people from Day 1.

But shroom don’t care, because they still gotta waste time “upgrading threat levels” and “increasing awareness” before the whole world starts working on a cure. Most rich countries only have a few hundred / few thousand infected at this point so they won’t bother with serious research.

Before the big fight get Genetic Hardening 1 and 2, while these things are still relatively cheap. Genetic Drift on megabrutal will make evolution cost more when your population is high. Then complete your pre-battle preparations by finishing with Drug Resistance 2. If you havent gotten Heat Resistance 2 yet, you should also get it.

As the world starts speeding to a cure (and they’re pretty fast), now is the time to do Water 2, Air 2 and then Bio-Aerosol. If you already have transmission then you probably gimped your plague by sticking to habit instead of reading your map like we told you to do. It is only correct to do Air and Water if you have a big, sick base, at least one super-spreader, and the correct temperature resistance of that spreader.

Birds are cheap for the Fungus plague and are very helpful for land spreading.

Mutations will be happening and you love it, but if Organ Failure or Necrosis mutates before the last island nation, devolve. Those big guns will make everyone close their ports.

As soon as the Plague has reached all islands (land holdouts Fungus don’t care), activate Order 66…we mean, Organ Failure. Do not wait for 100 or 1000, 1 sick is enough, trust in your spores. As your infectivity is near max and boosted by mutations – no country can resist except Greenland, which you wisely yeeted from the start of the game.

Endgame

Genetic Drift is expensive at this point, in fact, expect Organ Failure to cost more than 60 DNA. So you shall wait for most people to die before evolving more symptoms.

Since you have Birds and Immune Suppression, and the Darwin gene, mutations are on their way to unlock symptoms without investment in DNA. You’re a lucky shroom if they unlock Necrosis by themselves, that’s 50+ DNA without spending and the Birds already paid for themselves several times over (something Air and Water will never do).

The cure is going to speed way up but you do not panic. Once the cure is almost complete (10 days), block the humans with Coma or Genetic Reshuffle.

Since this guide is all about the speed, do not further invest in any other blockers (Paralysis/Reshuffle 2) unless they almost get to the cure. Instead, evolve or mutate the Hemorrhagic Shock family to amp lethality to the max. Do it when the costs have been lowered from many people dying.

The last few (million) people will die very fast and you should get the victory before a year is up, or sometimes a few days carryover. Depending on how lucky you were with mutations and spore burst, your score will be three or four stars.

We’ve never gotten five stars on Fungus mode, don’t really believe it’s possible because you need cure percentage to be low for that, and due to megabrutal difficulty, cure will always be above 50% even with max anti-cure measures. Also if you do a lot of anti-cure, you don’t kill fast enough to murder the researchers, so they’ll end up negating your anti-cure. You might as well forget about it and just focus on speed, like we do.


More tips and tricks for Plague Inc.

Do you have more Tips and Tricks for Plague Inc.? Then please get in touch in the comments. We will then steadily expand this article, to offer a comprehensive guide to the game.

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