Just when things get good, it comes crashing down.

I return to Plague Inc: Evolved to take on the Brutal difficulty. I had already attempted this before. But I knew it wasn't easy. Given how long it took me to beat normal difficulty.

For my first run of the night, I started in West Africa. I do for the most part make a plan on how I want this virus to be as strong as it can be. Like focusing on the strongest transmissions, symptoms, and abilities. If this things needs to be strong, it needs to be able to hit land and air, spread through coughing, and fight through the cold and heat. Already in my first run, I was getting a shit load of infections but little to no deaths. But by the time I did start getting deaths, that infection count was dropping. Now yes I know that is what is supposed to happen. But by then it was too little too late. I did get well over 7 billion deaths but sadly, Canada and Greenland were essentially untouched. I don't know how the hell they stayed safe. But I believe this was my only run where the virus wasn't killed but instead faded away on its own.

My 2nd run somehow was worse. Perhaps I had weaker symptoms. Plus I had little to no rodent or blood transmissions. And the cure was developed much faster and so my virus only took out 6 billion people. My 3rd run, I had a lot of active symptoms. But once again I didn't do so good on this one. And still didn't get to 7 billion deaths. I think one of the key components to a successful Plague Inc run is where it starts. I had someone recommend I start in Norway so that's what I did. They told me to focus on drug resistance, cold climate shell, water travel, and rodent travel. They told me don't do any coughing symptoms. But that made no sense to me. You'd think that coughing symptoms would be the best ones. Regardless, seems like this dudes advice worked like absolute dog shit. Because now my death count was less than 3 billion before my virus was eliminated. Starting in Central Europe for my next run, I wanted to go back to doing things my own way. Very quickly I was getting billions of infections but that cure development was going fast. It was already past half way done before anybody started to die. And yeah this was another poor run. I think the lack of a few transmissions hurt me. As I only killed 4 billion people here.

Maybe starting in Angola will give me better luck? I do rack up some good DNA points early and I really do focus on trying to spread out the transmissions and symptoms. But sadly the research team is too damn good. I seriously need to break them. I do a little better but it's just over 7 billion people killed. Another go into Egypt. At this point it's just hoping for the best. Someday one of these combinations between symptoms, transmissions, and abilities will work. I don't have nearly as many symptoms this time but I still do kill over 7.8 billion people. Was that enough? Nope. The virus was eliminated. Brutal difficulty is no joke. Maybe I should go back and focusing on grinding casual mode where you can essentially win every time. Since each time you win you get a... virus gene or whatever you can attach to your main virus. I think I do need that. I probably won't end up getting away with what little I have now.

It's also an excuse to make me feel good about myself beating this game.