God's Imitator

Soon, all three parties began bidding.

Having had the experience of the first round of the game, players all had certain psychological expectations. The speed of bidding this time was also faster.

After Jin Cheng from Community 7 raised the bid to 30 gold coins, she gave up. For her, this was already an acceptable limit.

Although withdrawing midway would deduct a handling fee of 5 gold coins, it also meant she could cut losses in time.

Community 15 and Community 17 could still continue to bid higher prices to compete for ’1st Developer,’ that is, first-move advantage in tic-tac-toe.

Li Renshu said, ”It’s meaningless for us to continue bidding little by little, because it’s only the two of us left.

”Increasing by 5 gold coins each time, neither side will be willing to give up easily. The sunk cost will only get higher and higher.

”If you directly bid 45 gold coins, we’ll give up bidding.”

Wang Weidong shook his head, ”We’ll bid at most 40 gold coins.”

Li Renshu said, ”Then we’ll bid 41 gold coins to continue bidding. Adding up little by little like this, ultimately we’ll both pay a higher cost.”Wang Weidong thought for a moment, ”42 gold coins. We’ll take the ’1st Developer’ status.”

Li Renshu nodded, ”Deal.”

In the end, Wang Weidong’s Community 15 bid 42 gold coins to take ’1st Developer,’ while Li Renshu bid 31 gold coins to take ’2nd Developer.’

Both sides began selecting their respective plots.

Wang Weidong still prioritized selecting the most top-left plot D1 of the nine-square grid.

Fu Chen first selected the most central E2 plot, then after Wang Weidong selected the most bottom-right F3 plot, claimed the F2 plot.

Afterwards, both sides respectively claimed plots D2, D3, F1, and E1.

Ultimately, neither side was able to achieve the goal of connecting three plots in a straight line.

Community 15 as ’1st Developer’ obtained 5 plots, while Community 17 as ’2nd Developer’ obtained 4 plots.

...

Players from the same community gathered together again to discuss future strategies.

Clearly, after the previous two rounds of games, the basic rules for bidding on nine-square grids had been completely clarified.

First, the psychological price point for most communities bidding on nine-square grids was around 30 to 40 gold coins, accounting for about a quarter of the community’s total gold coins.

And specifically for plots, it was roughly 8 gold coins per plot.

This obviously couldn’t be a result of deciding on a whim, but had gone through rough calculations.

Although it was still unclear what the specific probability and rules were for shelters to prevent death, certainly no community would be satisfied after acquiring 5 plots.

Because additionally built shelters could be sold to other players, especially ’audience members.’

And gold coins earned from selling to audience members could similarly obtain real gains when the game ended.

There were a total of 9 nine-square grids in the game, with 5 communities. Besides their own selected target nine-square grid (priority development area), each community had to grab at least one more nine-square grid to be worthwhile.

Although each community’s total gold coins were 150, this was after all still the first phase. After entering the second phase, there would very likely be many other places requiring gold coin expenditure.

Moreover, most communities couldn’t make up their minds so quickly to spend all 150 gold coins in this game. That was, after all, their entire fortune.

So around 40 gold coins was the current psychological expectation limit for many communities.

If the ’2nd Developer’ didn’t know how to play, then the ’1st Developer’ occupying first-move advantage could obtain at most 6 plots. That would be very worthwhile but if both sides understood the tic-tac-toe mechanism, then plots in the nine-square grid would inevitably be divided 5:4.

At this point, paying a high price to compete for ’1st Developer’ status was a bit unworthy.

...

The third round of the game began.

[The developable plot in this round is: D7 nine-square grid.]

[Because no community selected this nine-square grid as their ’priority development area,’ both ’1st Developer’ and ’2nd Developer’ are obtained through bidding.]

[Community 9, Community 12, and Community 15 can participate in bidding.]

[Bidding starts now. Time limit: 3 minutes.]

Again, three communities participated in bidding, but this time the bidding became even fiercer.

Fan Zehui from Community 12 was clearly determined to win, indeed displaying big spending, increasing the price by 10 or even 15 gold coins each time.

Community 9 also had absolutely no intention of giving up. Although they didn’t forcibly follow Community 12’s bidding, they consistently stayed ahead of Community 15.

After raising the price to 40 gold coins, Wang Weidong from Community 15 chose to give up.

After all, for Community 15, their current situation was very good. They had already obtained 10 plots.

While Community 9 and Community 12 still didn’t have any plots.

Community 15 had the most visa time, meaning each gold coin cost more. Fighting to the death with these two communities had absolutely no meaning.

In the end, Fan Zehui from Community 12 took ’1st Developer’ with 55 gold coins, while Zhang Shichao from Community 9 took ’2nd Developer’ with 45 gold coins.

Seeing this scene, Jin Cheng from Community 7 was clearly somewhat regretful.

She regretted that her previous strategy had been somewhat conservative. If she had raised her psychological price point to around 50 gold coins from the start, she completely might have grabbed the ’2nd Developer’ status for the D1 nine-square grid.

But now regretting was already too late. She could only produce more gold coins in subsequent plot auctions.

Fan Zehui and Zhang Shichao clearly already understood the ’first move wins’ mechanism. They ultimately still divided the plots in this nine-square grid 5:4.

The bidding cost per plot had also been raised to around 11 gold coins.

...

The fourth round of the game began.

[The developable plot in this round is: G4 nine-square grid.]

[Because no community selected this nine-square grid as their ’priority development area,’ both ’1st Developer’ and ’2nd Developer’ are obtained through bidding.]

[Community 12 and Community 17 can participate in bidding.]

[Bidding starts now. Time limit: 3 minutes.]

Fan Zehui from Community 12 had of course long since noticed the situation on Community 17’s side, but he said nothing, only methodically completing the bidding.

Because Community 15 had positioned themselves on the side with Community 7 and Community 9, the situation with the G4 nine-square grid was rather special. In reality, only Community 12 and Community 17 could participate in bidding.

This meant that just bidding the minimum price of 5 gold coins could ensure obtaining ’2nd Developer’ qualification. This was a deal that couldn’t be more worthwhile.

Just as Li Renshu was considering whether to bid a bit more gold coins to compete for ’1st Developer’ status, Fan Zehui was first to complete his bid.

[Community 12 bids: 25 gold coins.]

This was a bid that surprised everyone somewhat, because in the third round of bidding, Community 12 had already paid 55 gold coins.

If they added this round’s 25 coins, they had already spent 80 gold coins, even exceeding half of the community’s total gold coins.

With only Community 12 and Community 17 bidding, just bidding the base price of 5 gold coins could ensure becoming ’2nd Developer,’ obtaining at least 4 plots.

Community 12 bidding 20 extra gold coins to compete for ’1st Developer’ was clearly somewhat too extravagantly wealthy, even could be said to be irrational.