In Plague Inc. for the Android & iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc.), Fungus on Brutal is probably one of the harder plagues in the game in my opinion. Fungus plagues spread so slowly, that you have to be extremely tactical and patient, unlike some of the other plagues where you can just pump up the symptoms and watch everyone die.
I have listed my gene setup below. I have all genes unlocked, which just requires winning 25 games. You don’t need to unlock all of the genes to win this one, but a couple that I typically use are unlocked near the end.
DNA Gene – Cytochrome Surge – Bonus DNA from popping Orange DNA bubbles, this one is great for longer games like Fungus
Travel Gene – Aquacyte or Aerocyte to give a bonus to your plague spreading by water or air
Evolution Gene – Patho-Stasis – Abilities don’t increase in cost but your plague is easier to cure, this one is important for this strategy
Mutation Gene – Creationist – Less symptom mutations, this one is critical
Environment Gene – Extremophile – Minor bonus to all environments, if you don’t have this use any other you have unlocked
The main strategy here is to infect the world without them knowing, and then kill them all as fast as possible. This is a long game because Fungus takes so long to spread, so you have to be patient.
One very important thing to remember is that you DO NOT want your plague to be detected until the whole planet is infected. The only way to make this happen is to keep your symptoms at zero for most of the game by devolving any mutations immediately, then pumping them up at the end to kill off everyone.
When I say that you need to devolve mutations immediately, I mean once the notification pops up that a symptom has mutated, do not close the notification first, go immediately to the symptoms list and devolve it, or risk your plague being noticed before you even get a chance. If the world detects your plague early, you might as well start over because you probably won’t win.
Stage 1
- Start in China
- Symptoms: None, devolve any mutated symptoms immediately
- Transmissions: None
- Abilities: Drug Resistance 1, Cold 1
Stage 2
- Transmissions: Air 1, Water 1
- Symptoms: Keep devolving any mutated symptoms immediately
- Abilities: A couple Spore Bursts if you like
Stage 3
- Transmissions: Air 2, Water 2
- Symptoms: Keep devolving any mutated symptoms immediately
- Abilities: Heat 1, Genetic Hardening 1, A couple Spore Bursts if you like (save a couple for the end)
Stage 4
- Most countries should start to be infected, but they still shouldn’t know about your plague if you devolved your symtoms immediately
- Transmissions: Extreme Bioaerosol
- Symptoms: Keep devolving any mutated symptoms immediately
- Abilities: Wait until there are only a couple countries left to infect before purchasing the last Spore Bursts
Stage 5
- If you played your cards right, everyone on the planet is infected and you should have around 70 to 80 points to spend to unleash hell
- Symptoms: Cysts, Hyper Sensitivity, Paralysis, Coma, Total Organ Failure – save any left over points for Abilities you may need
- Transmissions: None
- Abilities: Genetic Hardening 2, Genetic Reshuffle 1, 2, & 3 once the cure starts to build (don’t buy these until you start to get points from people dying)
At this point people should be dying by the masses. The cure level will rise quickly, but as more and more people die it will slow down. After you’ve purchased your last abilities, throw whatever extra points you get at more fatal symptoms to speed up the process, but it should be Good Game time pretty soon.
You won’t get many points this way, but I honestly haven’t found many ways to get a lot of points on the Fungus plague.
