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[Jools]

(An infection-by-infection account of a successful game of Pandemic 2)

This is crazy. My airborne virus with no other symptoms than KIDNEY FAILURE has managed to infect people across the whole goddamn world and yet no-one has died yet. Not even the first guy infected. Looks like dialysis is cheap and readily available in this universe.

I thought I had lost it when Madagascar, uninfected, shut its shipyards (shouldn't they be docks, not shipyards? Or are we in some parallel universe where an ocean-going vessel is only used once and then discarded?) but fortunately there was a ship already in transit that managed to infect them.

I went for a low-profile approach, airborne transmission but only one point in each resistance, so it wouldn't be too virulent initially. I got rid of my initial symptom of sneezing, being too visible, and plumped instead for the low-profile one of kidney failure. I think no symptoms is for some reason treated as a worse threat than having one low visibility symptom.

Then when a vaccine started being developed I bought into full drug resistance... just as they started shutting hospitals. Nothing can stop me now, I'm just saving up points for heart or liver failure so I can start turning infections in to deaths... of course I could probably cause deaths by adding in vomiting and diarrhoea with the points I have now (or maybe fatigue and pulmonary edema) but that's not my sort of approach. I just want to go straight for the kill, none of that messy stuff first.

Damn. The world has a healthy population of only 34 million, but I still can't afford heart failure. There's no chance of them developing a vaccine before I infect everyone, so I'll give it a while longer, see if I can get 3 more points from those 34 million healthy sorts. If it doesn't look like I'll get them, I'll have to plump for encephalitis or liver failure.

Hooray! I have heart failure! And I immediately get spammed with messages about deaths, governments burning bodies, and everywhere from Canada to New Zealand shutting down everything that wasn't already shut. So *now* they're taking me seriously, after I rack up a billion and a half kills in a few short hours. Too late, my friends, too late... there's only one hospital still open, with an estimated three years until the vaccine is ready. And I'm wondering what other symptoms to chuck in for laughs now I've obviously won. Annoyingly there's no necrosis available to me, which is one of my favourites, but I could just save my points and shut down the liver as well. After that there's not much more damage I can do...

The world now has a healthy population of 69,222 while I've racked up over six billion kills. Even better, the vaccine, the last hope of humanity, is now forever beyond reach because the last hospital researching it, in Greenland, is somewhat understaffed. By virtue of Greenland being devoid of life. I'm tempted to celebrate by giving my victims boils or something, but (a) I'm *so close* to being able to afford another big deadly symptom, and (b) I don't want to go overboard with lethality until everyone's infected.

I spend points on Moisture Resistance II and Waterborne instead. Better to try and up my infection rates just to make sure than have the satisfaction of shutting down an extra major organ or two. Obviously everyone starts handing out bottled water supplies, but I'll still be effective in floods. I also put sneezing back in - I'm really starting to worry about these last few thousand people. I need to up my infectivity through symptoms as well as transmission methods.

This starts to have an effect. Healthy people, 6,562, Infected population 806,325, and I've added in coughing. I'd have preferred vomitting, but I doubt I'll get the points at this stage.

Everyone is infected or dead! I have five points to spend in triumph. I doubt I'll get many more, I've only got 124 thousand odd people left alive. I'll see if I can at least raise a laugh with my last evolution... by giving them depression. Well, *I'm* laughing at least.

New Zealand has become devoid of life. I'm expecting this to swiftly become the fashion, as there are only 69 thousand people left.

Surprisingly, I get another couple of evolutionary points. I decide to use it to make my victims sweat (as if the fact that they're infected with a virus that's caused 6.3 billion deaths so far hasn't made them sweat already) and wait for the end. Cuba and Canada fall, soon followed by our old friend Madagascar, then Australia. More evolutionary points are given, so I invest in dementia. It seems appropriate for the last days of the human race. I'd have preferred insanity, but despite this sudden rush of evolutionary points I still don't believe I'll get another 7 to make that affordable.

The Americas are devoid of life now. Only 4 regions left, with 177 people divided between them. Now 96 people spread across 3 regions. I think I'm being given points for each region I clear of people - this means that with my 4 remaining points, I can get another two from two more regions, and then make the last few survivors in the final region experience vomitting before they kark it.

Balls. I don't get the points for clearing the regions. Only North Africa is left now - the placed believed to have been the cradle of humanity will now become its final grave. And I have four points to spend, to inflict the lives of the last 29 people left.

I plump for blindness. Allegedly it makes infected people more noticeable. However, given that they're all infected, I'd expect the opposite to be the case.

I get one more evolutionary point, to my surprise, but before I have time to check the symptoms to make sure I can't do anything more, I've won. Goodbye, humanity!

Now, how to celebrate victory in this game of spreading dangerous diseases across the world? I know - cheesemaking...

[Keiseth]

Madagascar just closed its borders, being the only place uninfected. Damn it all to hell.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh heh. Anybody know if anybody is making Pandemic 3?

[Aqizzar]

I remember Pandemic (1) from a while ago, and the mechanics, especially visibility, seemed pretty broken.  This has it's own problems, but it's certainly improved.

I jumped straight into Realistic and took a parasite, planning to up resistances and infectivity with no symptoms to try and infect the whole world quick.  Apparently I boosted infectivity too much (raced for moisture resistance and waterborne to infect water supplies), because on day 36, not one person has died, but China (my start) all in one damn day decided to exterminate bugs and rodents, enforce curfew by martial law, and hand out water, since 130 million people are infected there alone.

I'm not spreading fast enough across Asia, and will probably lose.  I imagine the plan should be low visibility, high resistances, and wait for ships to carry my bug abroad before worrying about infectivity.

EDIT: Day 36 was just the start of worldwide Freak-The-Hell-Out week.  The whole damn planet closed it's borders/ports/docks and started making a vaccine.  The whole Eurasian-African landmass was already infected though.  Out of spite, I added Sweating, Vomiting, and Dementia.  Four billion people divided into the Mad and the Dead.

Does anyone else think it's weird that the Alive number for each region fluctuates by the hour on it's own?  I know it's supposed to represent a living world, but demographics don't shift by tens of thousands every afternoon.

[umiman]

I think it also represents the people moving between countries.

[Cthulhu]

Hey, whoa, lame.  There's another Pandemic 2 available, but it sucks.  I didn't play this because I thought it was the other.  This is really well-doen.

[Aqizzar]

Trying again with a virus, no symptoms, maxed resistances, then vectors.  Just my nemesii Greenland, Madagascar, and Australia are uninfected.  42 million healthy people, 62.8 billion infected, zero deaths.  Now the fun begins.

Strangely, only New Zealand and Cuba, my starting point, never closed their ports.  There's a constant stream of travel between them.

[Jools]

I thought that the fluctuating numbers were related to natural population size changes, i.e. births and deaths not related to your disease... but no, I think you're right. The fluctuation is too large to be that, it has to be migrant populations.

Also I think there are some odd conditions kicking around for governments doing things - if the disease starts in a region, that region never shuts it's ports or airports until *really* late on, if at all. I think that's unrealistic but in there to try and ensure a good chance at infecting the rest of the world. Also, has anyone ever noticed Greenland close it's hospitals? I've only ever shut them down by killing everyone in Greenland. I think the condition is if # of people infected > 100,000 or something, shut down hospitals... but with Greenland having a low population, that never happens.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The hospitals are only shut down if they're not making a difference. Since Greenland is so low on population anyways, and hospitals have a fixed operation rate, they keep "making a difference" until the end.

[Kagus]

Well, that was fun.  Cuba and Madagascar get to repopulate the world after the Marabella Worm finally played itself out.

Is it even possible to get into a locked-down country?  Or do you just have to say "good game" and restart if Madagascar shuts down that damn shipyard?

I don't know why everyone panicked.  My parasite was a fun fact, not a health hazard.  "So and so in a hundred people are unwittingly infected by the Marabella Worm".  Asymptomatic, utterly harmless, and not particularly tough or infective.  But noooo, everybody has to start isolating themselves from the rest of the world because there's a new fad-parasite on the loose.  Like anyone would try shutting down an airport to prevent tapeworms from getting into the country.

[olemars]

Is it even possible to get into a locked-down country?  Or do you just have to say "good game" and restart if Madagascar shuts down that damn shipyard?

GG and restart. Apparently, once they hear about this new rash that everyone is getting that has no other ill effects whatsoever, they build a huge wall around their country and aggressively delete every record and memory of the outside world.

[Aqizzar]

What blows my mind is the Closed Borders thing.  You're telling me that all of sub-Saharan Africa got to together to close off half the continent from overland travel and not one damn person is getting through?  Not only is my bug not killing anyone, but it's apparently the secret to world peace.

Had a game where only Argentia and Peru had open borders left, and one healthy guy kept migrating back and forth between them by the hour.  Managed to keep him uninfected for like a week.

[Brendan]

What blows my mind is the Closed Borders thing.  You're telling me that all of sub-Saharan Africa got to together to close off half the continent from overland travel and not one damn person is getting through?  Not only is my bug not killing anyone, but it's apparently the secret to world peace.

Had a game where only Argentia and Peru had open borders left, and one healthy guy kept migrating back and forth between them by the hour.  Managed to keep him uninfected for like a week.

All the other disease-stopping methods bug me like that, too. The world makes insects and rodents completely extinct once your virus gets in full swing and the USA can distribute enough bottles of water to keep 301 million people alive indefinitely

[Rilder]

Just this.

[Kagus]

YES!  YES!  F"#¤%&'n YES!  Virus starting point of Madagascar, baby.

I just need to secure the other island regions and I'm set.

EDIT:...  Goddamnit.  While I was waiting for Cuba to get infected, the vacine was developed and deployed.