God's Imitator

[After the game begins, each round, one nine-square grid will convert to ’developable state.’ At this time, according to the following rules, the ownership of plots within that nine-square grid will be decided:]

[1. If the nine-square grid is a certain community’s ’priority development area,’ then that community automatically becomes the ’1st Developer’ for this plot.]

[All other communities with adjacent nine-square grids use gold coins to bid. The highest bidder becomes the ’2nd Developer.’]

[2. If the nine-square grid is not a certain community’s ’priority development area,’ then all communities with adjacent nine-square grids use gold coins to bid. According to bid amounts, they become the ’1st Developer’ and ’2nd Developer.’]

[One can directly give up bidding, or withdraw midway after participating in bidding.]

[But withdrawing midway requires paying ’5 gold coins’ as a handling fee.]

[3. After selecting the ’1st Developer’ and ’2nd Developer,’ both sides will take turns choosing plots on the nine-square grid until all plots within the nine-square grid have been divided up.]

[When a certain community’s three plots within the nine-square grid can connect in a straight line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal are all acceptable), then all remaining plots within that nine-square grid belong to that community.]

[4. If only one community is qualified to bid for the nine-square grid, they can directly obtain all plots within that nine-square grid.]

[After the first phase ends, the number of plots occupied by all communities will be tallied.][The community occupying the most plots will become the ’privileged community,’ gaining an additional advantage: they can participate in bidding for all remaining nine-square grids regardless of distance.]

Hearing this, Fu Chen said with some surprise, ”Huh, isn’t this just tic-tac-toe?”

Li Renshu nodded, ”Yes, it’s tic-tac-toe.”

Fu Chen was very happy, ”That’s great, I happen to have studied tic-tac-toe.”

Tic-tac-toe originated from abroad. It’s a connect-the-stones game played on a 3×3 grid. Because the board generally doesn’t have a border drawn, and the grid lines resemble the Chinese character for ”well,” it got this name.

It wasn’t very popular domestically because the rules were very simple, similar to Gomoku, but with worse gameplay, so there wasn’t much fun.

Most people should have heard of it, but not necessarily actually played or studied it.

Players who had played should already be thinking about tic-tac-toe strategies, because this would directly determine how many plots one could obtain after becoming the ’1st Developer’ or ’2nd Developer.’

On the big screen, the rule introduction continued.

[Now, please field players exchange for gold coins and go to the console in front of the plaza to select your community’s ’priority development area.’]

[Please note specifically: the central D4 nine-square grid cannot be selected as a ’priority development area.’]

[The order in which each community selects is: Community 12, Community 7, Community 9, Community 17, Community 15.]

[This order is arranged according to each community’s ’total visa time of field players from least to most.’]

[In 10 minutes, the game officially begins.]

[Please be prepared!]

Li Renshu looked toward players from the other communities and quickly recalled the situations of these communities in her mind.

Community 12 was the community Zhou Guifen originally belonged to. This community was basically the weakest type, with a very high mortality rate and very low return rate, at the bottom in most games.

This time they were also the first to choose a nine-square grid, indicating these Community 12 players in this game had the least visa time.

Community 7 had been encountered before in ’Birth Game.’ It was the community where that domestic violence murderer Fei Xiong belonged, but it was still unclear what level the other players in the community were.

Community 9 had been encountered in both ’Blood Poker’ and ’Blind Date Game.’ They had established cooperation. Overall, they weren’t a very strong community, but were relatively friendly. Cooperation could be considered.

Community 15 probably hadn’t been encountered before. Their strength was unclear but their area selection was ranked after Community 17, which indicated these players had more total visa time.

They were formidable opponents not to be underestimated.

Everyone first came to the rest area to exchange for gold coins at the vending machine.

Possibly because this game lasted longer, the vending machines still had food and water but no special commodities.

Each player could exchange for gold coins. The first 10 were free, and after that, each one cost 5% of visa time.

After thinking, Cao Haichuan reached a conclusion, ”According to these rules, communities with more visa time are obviously at a disadvantage.

”Each player needs different amounts of visa time to exchange for gold coins, but in this game, they’re regarded as currency of equal value.”

Zheng Jie asked, ”So how many gold coins should we exchange for?”

After considering, Li Renshu said, ”If we only use free gold coins, it definitely won’t be enough. And we need to see if there’s any difference between free gold coins and exchanged gold coins.

”Let’s each exchange for 15 coins first, then see about exchanging more later.”

Everyone exchanged for 15 gold coins, then compared them with each other. These gold coins had absolutely no difference in appearance.

Clearly, this was bad news for communities with more visa time.

If a certain player only had 10,000 minutes of visa time left, then exchanging for 1 gold coin would only require 500 minutes of visa time. If they had 100,000 left, it would cost 5,000 minutes of visa time but the gold coins they exchanged would have exactly the same effect within the game.

Li Renshu considered for a moment, then said, ”The worse news is that the remaining visa time of the few of us should be about the same. There’s no player with significantly less.”

If among these players there was one player with significantly less visa time, they could completely let him exchange for the full 30 gold coins first.

After the game ended and they returned to the community, they could formulate proposals to try to redistribute game earnings, or provide compensation through the community fund but this time, the 5 people from Community 17 entering the game had little difference in remaining visa time, neither much nor little, so they couldn’t use this strategy.

Everyone took their gold coins and continued discussing the strategy for choosing a nine-square grid.

Li Renshu thought for a moment, ”We can’t choose the most central nine-square grid, so we just need to consider two questions, right?

”First, stay as far from other communities as possible. Second, consider whether to choose a middle nine-square grid or a corner nine-square grid.”

Cao Haichuan thought for a moment, ”I think we should choose a corner nine-square grid.”

Zheng Jie was somewhat puzzled, ”Why? Choosing a middle nine-square grid can cover a larger range, right?

”According to game rules, the prerequisite for bidding on a nine-square grid is that the nine-square grid we choose must be adjacent to this biddable nine-square grid.

”If we choose a middle nine-square grid, like D1, then we can bid on A1, G1, A4, D4, and G4, these five nine-square grids.

”But if we choose a corner nine-square grid, like G1, then we can only bid on D1, D4, and G4, these three nine-square grids.

”Doesn’t this reduce the biddable range?”

Cao Haichuan shook his head and explained, ”In an ideal state, of course it’s like that, but don’t forget, bidding costs gold coins.

”We can’t possibly auction off all biddable nine-square grids.

”There are 9 nine-square grids total, with 5 communities competing. And we have more remaining visa time, so spending more gold coins isn’t cost-effective. We’re at a disadvantage financially.

”The more nine-square grids we can bid on, the more other communities will also come to compete.

”Simply put, suppose four communities respectively choose D1, A4, D7, and G4, these four middle nine-square grids. Then when these four corresponding nine-square grids are auctioned, there will be two communities competing for each.

”But if four communities respectively choose A1, G1, A7, and G7, these four corners, then when these four corresponding nine-square grids are auctioned, no communities will compete. They can monopolize themselves.

”Of course monopolizing is much more cost-effective.”