heres a tip i found out. If you beat the game once and are trying to beat it again, just attack the cave of trials after about 3 battles. There's no penalty if you lose, and you get lots of mana and gold.
this is how you can win:
1) pick virus. 2) start in north america, cuba, greenland, newzealand, madagascar, or argentina. if not restart. 3) sell starter symptoms, and buy sneezing. 4) buy 1-1-1-0 resistances and all transmissions. 5) once 3 countries are infected, sell sneezing to get rid of visibility. 6) wait until all countries are infected. if madagascar or peru closes its shipyards or madagascar is not infected in 30 days, restart. 7) buy all drug resistances, vomiting, diharriah, and pulmonary edema. 8) buy a ton of symptoms and take deaths to the MAX!!!!!!!! 9) repost this to create the legend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KEEP THIS GOING!!!!
 "Epic War 3"){kind=icon}
 "Sonny 2"){kind=icon}
 "Pandemic 2"){kind=icon}
 "Body Ladder"){kind=icon}
 "Warfare: 1917"){kind=icon}