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The Human Immune System
09-07-2014, 10:02 PM (This post was last modified: 09-07-2014 10:15 PM by Lucia625.)
Post: #1
The Human Immune System
I'm loving this game and I have to congratulate the designer on his detailed knowledge of immunology. But one thing that seems to be missing is the fact that humans have an immune system and a certain percentage will always be able to eventually fight off a disease no matter whether a medical cure is developed or not. Even with smallpox or Anthrax, not everyone dies, even with zero medical attention.

In its current form, gameplay inevitably leads to the obvious strategy of keeping your symptoms as minimal as possible while you take as long as you like to infect every human on the planet. In fact it seems to be a really obvious and easy strategy with no viable alternatives that make any sense. Bad for any strategy game.

So what I'm suggesting is that if a population remains infected for too long, there should be a chance (that might vary depending on the type of plague) that a percentage might fight off the disease and develop an immunity without any medical intervention. The effect would be kind of like a partial cure that only affects a small percentage of the population and it might lead to some interesting outcomes.

1/ The keep-it-quiet-for-as-long-as-possible strategy might well backfire if you leave it for too long, creating more and more immune humans - beginning in the country of origin - and introducing a much needed element of risk into an otherwise sure-fire strategy.

2/ Doctors could use the antibodies of immune volunteers to speed up research into a cure, much as they do in real life. The first place to look for patients who have developed immunity would be in the disease's country of origin if the humans can determine where it is.

3/ The disease would require some sort of protein coat mutation (like influenza gets every year) in order to re-infect previously immune people - which would cost DNA and introduce another layer of strategy into where you spend your limited points. Perhaps the existing genetic re-shuffle mechanic could be expanded out a little in order to facilitate the concept since any changes that bypass natural immunity would also logically slow down a cure.

I think it would make the game much more interesting and immersive, although it might be something suitable for only the more difficult levels as it would make things harder and previously winning strategies less certain.
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09-07-2014, 11:06 PM
Post: #2
RE: The Human Immune System
Sure, you can take your time and keep symptoms minimal - but you get less DNA points for it, and your disease gets discovered anyway on the hardest difficulty, where the DNA points really matter, especially since genetic drift makes symptoms more costly the more people you have infected. Adding something like this to Mega Brutal just makes it near-impossible.
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09-07-2014, 11:40 PM
Post: #3
RE: The Human Immune System
(09-07-2014 11:06 PM)A Gu Wrote:  Sure, you can take your time and keep symptoms minimal - but you get less DNA points for it, and your disease gets discovered anyway on the hardest difficulty, where the DNA points really matter, especially since genetic drift makes symptoms more costly the more people you have infected. Adding something like this to Mega Brutal just makes it near-impossible.

If I were to play an increased difficulty level I would prefer that the things that made it more difficult actually made sense rather than having doctors discover a disease with absolutely no symptoms ........ which doesn't.
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10-07-2014, 02:28 AM (This post was last modified: 10-07-2014 02:33 AM by A Gu088.)
Post: #4
RE: The Human Immune System
(09-07-2014 11:40 PM)Lucia Wrote:  
(09-07-2014 11:06 PM)A Gu Wrote:  Sure, you can take your time and keep symptoms minimal - but you get less DNA points for it, and your disease gets discovered anyway on the hardest difficulty, where the DNA points really matter, especially since genetic drift makes symptoms more costly the more people you have infected. Adding something like this to Mega Brutal just makes it near-impossible.

If I were to play an increased difficulty level I would prefer that the things that made it more difficult actually made sense rather than having doctors discover a disease with absolutely no symptoms ........ which doesn't.

A blood test can reveal the existence of an undiscovered disease in reality. You would have to identify that it's something different, however. Of course, if it's symptomless, most doctors wouldn't care, but they might investigate it under a microscope to see how it reproduces, how it infects, etc., and whether the disease mutates in the lab to a deadlier strain.

So a bit of a stretch, but possible. Keep in mind that this is a game where your pathogen can go from being harmless to causing heart attacks globally in less than a day.
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10-07-2014, 07:19 PM
Post: #5
RE: The Human Immune System
(10-07-2014 09:39 AM)brolegi Wrote:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...n.pandemic

Thanks for putting me onto this game Smile I didn't even realize there was more than one disease game available! I'm going to install an emulator and check it out.
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12-07-2014, 04:14 PM
Post: #6
RE: The Human Immune System
An interesting thing to note is that Spanish flu was actually deadlier the more effective your immune system due to causing a cytokine storm. A potential symptom to go with this.
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12-07-2014, 08:02 PM
Post: #7
RE: The Human Immune System
(12-07-2014 04:14 PM)A Gu Wrote:  An interesting thing to note is that Spanish flu was actually deadlier the more effective your immune system due to causing a cytokine storm. A potential symptom to go with this.

According to Wikipedia, Spanish flu killed about 10% to 20% of the people it infected. Of course it still means about 100 to 150 million people died! But it also follows that more than 80% of infected people survived the disease and considering the dismal state of medicine at the time it must have been almost entirely their immune systems that saved them.

There may be some diseases that were 100% lethal but the Spanish Flu certainly wasn't one of them, not even close. Neither was the bubonic plague. Neither was Smallpox.

Immunity is a huge factor in immunology and failing to give it even a token nod is a disappointing omission in an otherwise clever, educational and surprisingly scientifically accurate game.
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13-07-2014, 12:19 AM
Post: #8
RE: The Human Immune System
(12-07-2014 08:02 PM)Lucia Wrote:  
(12-07-2014 04:14 PM)A Gu Wrote:  An interesting thing to note is that Spanish flu was actually deadlier the more effective your immune system due to causing a cytokine storm. A potential symptom to go with this.

According to Wikipedia, Spanish flu killed about 10% to 20% of the people it infected. Of course it still means about 100 to 150 million people died! But it also follows that more than 80% of infected people survived the disease and considering the dismal state of medicine at the time it must have been almost entirely their immune systems that saved them.

There may be some diseases that were 100% lethal but the Spanish Flu certainly wasn't one of them, not even close. Neither was the bubonic plague. Neither was Smallpox.

Immunity is a huge factor in immunology and failing to give it even a token nod is a disappointing omission in an otherwise clever, educational and surprisingly scientifically accurate game.

I never said Spanish flu was 100% lethal. But if you were doing the research, you'd have found that the immune system actually made the disease WORSE due to a cytokine storm - a massive immune system positive feedback loop which overloads the body, which is why the majority of the casualties were in previously healthy people - children and elders didn't have as strong an immune system, so the disease was less deadly.

There is a token nod - one of the symptoms is immune suppression.
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13-07-2014, 10:11 AM (This post was last modified: 13-07-2014 11:26 AM by Lucia625.)
Post: #9
RE: The Human Immune System
(12-07-2014 04:14 PM)A Gu Wrote:  I never said Spanish flu was 100% lethal. But if you were doing the research, you'd have found that the immune system actually made the disease WORSE due to a cytokine storm - a massive immune system positive feedback loop which overloads the body, which is why the majority of the casualties were in previously healthy people - children and elders didn't have as strong an immune system, so the disease was less deadly.

Yes the research you refer to was conducted on Macaque monkeys using a viral strain carefully cultured from a frozen corpse buried in the Alaskan permafrost. But the fact is that 80 to 90% of people who caught the disease in the early 1900's survived it, so their immune systems must have been able to handle it just fine.

And I realize you never claimed that Spanish flu was 100% lethal, but in Plague Inc, every disease is 100% infective and - without medical attention - 100% lethal. Not even the worst diseases in human history were anything close to that.

I would like to see a realistic factor like Immunity used to increase difficulty in the game rather than have increasingly clairvoyant doctors reacting with superhuman speed.
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13-07-2014, 02:33 PM (This post was last modified: 13-07-2014 02:35 PM by A Gu088.)
Post: #10
RE: The Human Immune System
(13-07-2014 10:11 AM)Lucia Wrote:  
(12-07-2014 04:14 PM)A Gu Wrote:  I never said Spanish flu was 100% lethal. But if you were doing the research, you'd have found that the immune system actually made the disease WORSE due to a cytokine storm - a massive immune system positive feedback loop which overloads the body, which is why the majority of the casualties were in previously healthy people - children and elders didn't have as strong an immune system, so the disease was less deadly.

Yes the research you refer to was conducted on Macaque monkeys using a viral strain carefully cultured from a frozen corpse buried in the Alaskan permafrost. But the fact is that 80 to 90% of people who caught the disease in the early 1900's survived it, so their immune systems must have been able to handle it just fine.

And I realize you never claimed that Spanish flu was 100% lethal, but in Plague Inc, every disease is 100% infective and - without medical attention - 100% lethal. Not even the worst diseases in human history were anything close to that.

I would like to see a realistic factor like Immunity used to increase difficulty in the game rather than have increasingly clairvoyant doctors reacting with superhuman speed.

So you're telling me that, despire researchers who know what they're doing claiming that a healthy immune system made the disease worse, they're wrong and you're right? What? People survived because their immune system wasn't overreacting, not because it was strong - a person with a very strong immune system could die within hours of getting symptoms.

I was trying to help you with your idea, but you're just acting like an idiot. In real life, you'll never be able to infect every person on the planet with a disease, unless it was weaponized - get over it, it's a game.
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