I'm trying to get my disease to stay under the radar as much as possible, and would like to leverage the Deceiver trait to do so. However it would seem I need to achieve some mark before I am even allowed to unlock it. What's the mark?
According to GameFAQ, Deceiver is unlocked if you get to
50,000,000 with no deaths.
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When you start a new game, you can either play it casually or realistic
What are the differences between these two game modes? What does it mean that not all traits are available in relaxed mode? Why are games much shorter?
Traits are in the bottom right hand corner of the "Disease" menu, and they are either given when you start (either based on the first country you randomly infect, or the type of disease) or they're given as the game progresses, I believe for having certain combinations of other disease attributes or other random events. For instance, for starting in North Africa, you'll get the "Durable" trait, which gives you level 1 heat resistance to start with. You can also get "Durable" for starting in other environments, and it will give you an appropriate level 1 resistance depending on where you start.
I'm not sure how you obtain all of the traits, given that the game is so random. I tried forcing one in particular - "Bloody Vomit" - by taking a couple of attributes that seemed to combine to make that particular trait viable, (Hemorrhaging and Vomiting) but it wasn't given to me. "Durable" seems fairly common, "Cured" is the result of a successful vaccine, and "Immunity" for a failed vaccine, but the others I'm not sure about.
The easy answer for the difference between "Casual" and "Realistic" is that I think in casual more of the "random dice rolls" go your way - ie, countries get infected faster, and react slower. In testing the first 10 days of several attempts at both casual and realistic, I found that I had about 20% more evolution points on average when I played Casual, even if I managed to infect more people with my default randomized starting attributes on Realistic. This would seem to indicate that you'll have to be more strategic with your points in Realistic, since you'll probably end up with fewer overall.
There's also a guide for the game which goes into detail about the available traits and the differences between the modes. One thing they point out is that you can't save in Casual mode, but you can in Realistic. This is supposedly because Casual games are intended to be shorter. Personally, I found that both games took about the same time to play to competition, but I may just be gung-ho about being infectious.
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The country of Madagascar is only reachable through sea. This means that if the country closes its shipyard before I reach it there is no way I can possibly win… or is there?
How can I work around this?
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/Pandemic-2.html
Okay, so it's been a while since I beat Pandemic 2 and got Kongregate's President Madagascar Assassin Badge, but I'll try to answer with what I remember.
You can alter your infectious disease at will. Because infected people never become uninfected, it's a totally valid strategy to infect as many people as possible and then mutate into a 100% mortality rate disease.
You do have to be careful however, because even decidedly non-deadly diseases may spark airport / harbor closure, which may make Madagascar the human's best hideout. Don't go for the High Infection, High Visible symptoms, it's counteractive to your goal of INFECTING EVERY PATHETIC HUMAN ON EARTH. Remember - transmissions lead to closures!
The benefits of fast mutation far outway the benefits of the other vectors.
Or Canada, New Zealand, Cuba, Greenland, or West Europe. The point is, since these countries tend to be easiest to close, you may as well start there, to cut out on some headaches later. You can simply remake new games until you get one of these countries.
And finally, a TLDR from the Kongregate comments:
- Pick Virus.
- Start in Canada, New Zealand, Cuba, Greenland, West Europe, or Madagascar. If you do not get there restart.
- Sell the starting symptoms, and buy sneezing (unless it is what you started with, just keep it).
- Buy 1-1-1-0 resistances but no transmissions (they trigger closures).
- Once four countries are infected, sell sneezing to get rid of visibility.
- Wait until all countries are infected. If Madagascar closes its shipyards/borders or is not infected in 30 days, restart.
- Buy all four drug resistances AND sneezing, coughing, and vomiting.
- After a few days, unlock tiers 2-3, (do not buy tier 4 ever!) keeping whatever symptoms it gives you.
- Buy fever, fatigue, diarrhoea, pulmonary edema, and hypersensitivity. Then save for kidney failure and ataxia.
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