God's Imitator

After serious consideration, Li Renshu only bid the minimum price of 5 gold coins, obtaining the ’2nd Developer’ status, and chose not to compete with Community 12.

Clearly, the reason Community 12 raised the price so high from the start was because they were determined to obtain the ’1st Developer’ status.

If Li Renshu followed, Community 12 would inevitably continue raising the price, possibly even to 50 gold coins or more.

Under the premise that both sides could crack the ’first move wins’ principle, grabbing the ’1st Developer’ status would at most result in obtaining one extra plot. This wasn’t cost-effective.

Because the second phase game rules were still unclear, it was uncertain whether there were other places requiring gold coin expenditure.

For players, not only did they need to find ways to obtain more plots, they also had to control the cost of obtaining each plot.

Both sides ultimately still divided the plots in this nine-square grid 5:4.

...

After the fourth round of plot bidding ended, the situation on the field had gradually become clear.

Currently, the number of plots and amount of gold coins spent by each community were:Community 7: 4 plots, cumulative expenditure 35 gold coins, remaining 115 gold coins.

Community 9: 4 plots, cumulative expenditure 45 gold coins, remaining 105 gold coins.

Community 17: 8 plots, cumulative expenditure 36 gold coins, remaining 114 gold coins.

Community 12: 10 plots, cumulative expenditure 80 gold coins, remaining 60 gold coins.

Community 15: 10 plots, cumulative expenditure 47 gold coins, remaining 113 gold coins.

Among these, because Community 12 had given Community 15 10 gold coins at the very beginning, it also led to the gap between both sides widening further.

The fifth round of the game would still auction one nine-square grid. After this auction, the game would enter the second phase, and the ownership of ’privileged community’ would also be determined based on the number of plots.

From the current situation, Community 15 occupied an obvious advantage, because not only did they have the most plots, but they also had many remaining gold coins.

If calculating the unit price per plot, then Community 15 and Community 17 were clearly very economical, obtaining one plot for about 4 gold coins.

While the other three communities were at more of a loss, requiring about 8 to 10 gold coins to obtain one plot.

Of course, this wasn’t entirely because of bidding strategies, but mainly because of the order in which plots opened.

Players were all speculating that the last nine-square grid to open in the fifth round would definitely be the most central D4 nine-square grid.

Because opening this nine-square grid meant all communities could participate in bidding. To obtain the ’privileged community’ status, competition would definitely be very fierce.

Not only that, Community 7 and Community 9, even in situations where it was already determined they couldn’t obtain the privileged community, would still participate in bidding, even bidding high prices.

Because so far they still hadn’t obtained 5 plots, which meant they couldn’t build 5 shelters to protect all players.

So they had better obtain one or two extra plots before the second phase updated the death rules.

As long as the D4 nine-square grid opened, competition would inevitably be unprecedentedly fierce but that would also mean that Community 15 obtaining ’privileged community’ was almost a certainty.

Because they only needed to keep an eye on Community 12, and could decide at any time whether to withdraw from bidding based on the situation.

If ultimately Community 7 and Community 9 won, then Community 15 could obtain ’privileged community’ without doing anything. If Community 12 wanted to compete, then Community 15 also had an absolute financial advantage.

Although Community 17 had the most gold coins, as long as Community 15 became the ’2nd Developer’ of the D4 nine-square grid, they could also ensure they had the most plots.

Wang Weidong’s expression was very relaxed. Clearly, he was satisfied with the current results.

This wasn’t purely luck. The initial probing also played a certain role.

As Cao Haichuan analyzed, Wang Weidong previously demanding gold coins from Community 12 was probing Community 12’s willingness and determination to spend gold coins.

If Community 12 didn’t give gold coins or directly gave 20 gold coins, Wang Weidong would both consider lowering his evaluation of them but Chen Guangming’s approach didn’t reveal too big a flaw, so Wang Weidong instead judged that Community 7 and Community 9 were relatively easy soft persimmons to squeeze in this game.

From the current perspective, this judgment was correct.

Moreover, whether or not it was a coincidence, the nine-square grids that could be bid on in the previous four rounds of games happened to avoid the four corners, choosing the four middle nine-square grids D1, A4, D7, and G4.

This allowed Community 15 to become the ’1st Developer’ of the A4 nine-square grid without paying any gold coins. This simultaneously weakened Community 7 and Community 9, playing a big role in establishing their advantage.

However, as the fifth round of the game began, the broadcast content stunned Wang Weidong.

[The developable plot in this round is: G7 nine-square grid.]

[Community 12 has already selected this nine-square grid as their ’priority development area,’ and no other community’s ’priority development area’ is adjacent to this nine-square grid, therefore Community 12 will directly obtain all plots of this nine-square grid.]

[Community 12 becomes the ’privileged community,’ gaining an additional advantage: can participate in bidding for all remaining nine-square grids regardless of distance.]

...

There was no bidding and no plot selection, so the time for this round of the game instead seemed quite long. Players all had nothing to do.

Fan Zehui from Community 12 of course could hardly conceal his joy, because after taking all the plots of the G7 nine-square grid, the number of plots they possessed reached 19.

Completely leading all other communities.

Li Renshu frowned in deep thought, ”Strange... why would the last nine-square grid open at G7? Opening at the most central D4 would be more reasonable, right?

”Could the order in which these nine-square grids open be completely random?”

Cao Haichuan shook his head, ”It probably isn’t completely random. Otherwise, in the previous four rounds of games, it couldn’t possibly have happened to select four middle nine-square grids without a single corner.

”I’m inclined toward ’audience vote selection,’ or the audience voting to decide the order after rules limit the range.”

Fu Chen was somewhat surprised, ”Audience voting? But the current rules don’t mention at all that the audience can vote, right?”

Cao Haichuan explained, ”According to the rules, in the previous 5 rounds of games, the audience could almost do nothing, only watch helplessly. This also isn’t too reasonable.

”The audience very likely also has other tasks.

”Perhaps ’guessing hidden rules’ is also part of the game strategy.”

Li Renshu nodded, ”Hmm... indeed there’s also this possibility.

”But why would the audience favor Community 12?”

Fu Chen thought for a moment, ”Because they look weakest on paper? Have the least visa time?”

Li Renshu’s brows furrowed slightly, ”But if looking at in-game performance, the weakest should be Community 7.”

Cao Haichuan added, ”But from this round’s situation, no matter which nine-square grid opens, Community 7 absolutely couldn’t possibly become the ’privileged community.’

”So Community 7 isn’t an option.”