Strangely addictive...
Well, this game definitely caught my attention.
In fact, I even took the time to write down the point cost of each virus attribute, and how it affects the virus.
Here's a few tips for the newbies:
1) "Human Only" is BAD!!! It reduces your infectivity by 1 when active. "Sweating" is BAD!!! It increases visibility and DOES NOT HELP YOU AT ALL!!!
2) Reduce the lethality of your virus ASAP, or else nations will close their borders before you get to them. (I'd recommend turning everything but sneezing off in the "Lethality" category to start with)
3) Get "Bodily Fluids", "Airborne", and "Waterborne" before the other "Transmission" attributes.
4) All it takes to get into (or out of) West Europe is TIME and PATIENCE. Keep the lethality and visibility of your virus low, and the infectivity high, and you'll get there eventually.
5) Once you have at least a few people in each nation infected, crank up lethality to max and watch them drop. Usually takes about 25 days to kill them all starting from the day when you instantly morph from a harmless little germ to a full-out super-virus.
My best run:
Killed 100% of the population in 87 days and earned a score of 6725.
HOW did some of you get in the 8000s+ on the all-time high scores board?! I MUST LEARN FROM THE MASTERS!!!