God's Imitator

Assuming that in the free matching phase of the second stage, all 6 players from Community 4 found a fixed ’game partner,’ and these partners all unconditionally gave them free vouchers.

Then Community 4’s overall returns would definitely rank at the top among the 4 Core Communities and would absolutely not fall to the dangerous positions of last or second-to-last.

In this game, there were a total of 44 players. Each of the 4 Core Communities had 6 players, and each of the 4 Peripheral Communities had 5 players.

Core Community players couldn’t possibly be brain-dead enough to actively give Wealth Vouchers to other Core Community players.

So ultimately, the victory or defeat of the 4 Core Communities depended on how many Peripheral Communities they could respectively find to give them free vouchers.

Assuming all 4 Core Communities thought of this level, then the game’s final expected victory or defeat was easy to judge:

Finding 1 Peripheral Community (or 5 to 6 players from different communities) to unconditionally give free vouchers could ensure obtaining average expected returns as a Core Community.

If fewer than 5 people were found, or if these 5 people held back when giving Wealth Vouchers, danger might arise.

Finding 2 Peripheral Communities would allow resting easy.

If not even 1 Peripheral Community could be found and they could only internally digest within Core Community players, it would be a dead end.Of course, in actual operation, it might not be that idealized, because the returns of both parties in each match could be subdivided. Peripheral Communities also couldn’t unify their thinking and all give up all returns without reservation.

Cooperating with Peripheral Communities required negotiating both the distribution of Wealth Vouchers within matches and how to arrange specific matching turns.

After these complex interests intersected and collided, they would determine the fate of all communities and all players.

...

In the first stage of the game, players from Peripheral Communities actually also felt this: strong players from Core Communities were successively extending olive branches to them, seeking cooperation.

It was just that the conditions and methods of cooperation were different.

’↓The Hermit’s’ strategy was to directly dismantle an inconsequential original rule in the match with ’↑The Sun’ to demonstrate his own strength and sincerity.

Even if players from other communities subsequently extended olive branches to ’↑The Sun,’ ’↓The Hermit’ could sufficiently preserve this good impression until the game’s second stage.

’↑The Lovers’ Han Mengying’s strategy for players like He Xiaojun was a ’prisoner’s dilemma’ wrapped in rhetoric.

Actually, judging from the game rules, as long as Peripheral Communities integrated properly, they could also conversely determine the life and death of Core Communities.

Core Communities and Peripheral Communities were roughly equal game players in this game. Victory or defeat mainly depended on organizational degree within communities.

But at relatively early time points, Peripheral Community players’ understanding of game rules wasn’t that deep. They would mistakenly think Core Communities were the advantaged party in this game.

Therefore, Han Mengying, by promising to ’leave positions in Exit Areas’ and ’ensure Peripheral Community safety,’ created a prisoner’s dilemma among Peripheral Community players, making them turn traitor.

And once they turned traitor and committed actual acts of betrayal, Han Mengying naturally grasped their weakness and could manipulate them at will.

He Xiaojun didn’t fall into the trap, but it was impossible for all Peripheral Community players to be this clear-headed.

’↓Wheel of Fortune’s’ strategy was to show the other party incredibly powerful strength, then not rush to propose specific cooperation strategies but instead give very lenient cooperation conditions.

But after truly developing cooperation, there were plenty of ways to make the other party concede benefits.

And ’↑The High Priestess’s’ strategy was to disguise as a player from the same community as the opponent to induce core personnel within Peripheral Communities, change their group decisions, and ultimately make them mistakenly believe that ’transferring Wealth Vouchers to a certain community’ was a joint decision within the community.

These different strategies would collide with each other during the game’s progression.

Players from Peripheral Communities would also think about which cooperation plan was better.

Core Communities also had to be cautious when giving cooperation plans:

If the conditions given were poor, then Peripheral Community players wouldn’t be moved and might be snatched away by other Core Communities.

But if the conditions given were too good, honestly honoring them would cause their own obtained Wealth Vouchers to drastically shrink, falling back into disadvantage in the Core Communities’ rankings.

They could also choose to deceive Peripheral Communities and not honor their promises. For example, Han Mengying actually told each person ’a position was reserved in the community,’ but it was impossible to really take away so many people.

But such deception might also be exposed, instead directly making enemies among Peripheral Communities.

...

These strategies didn’t have absolute superiority or inferiority. During collision processes, cyclical countering situations might arise.

But above these strategies, there was a truly ’perfect strategy.’

What Han Mengying was truly proud of was precisely this:

Aside from ’↓The Hermit,’ all other strategies came from her and Wang Weidong’s handiwork.

On this point, they also very tacitly reached consensus.

And this principle was actually very simple when explained: ’occupying ecological niches.’

If Han Mengying only adopted a single strategy, then there would always be other Core Communities adopting other strategies.

With four strategies colliding, Peripheral Community players could pick and choose and might accept other Core Communities’ olive branches.

But what if all the olive branches actually led to the same result?

’↑The Lovers,’ ’↓Wheel of Fortune,’ ’↑The High Priestess’—they actually belonged to the same camp.

’↓Wheel of Fortune’ was Xu Zhao from Community 15, while ’↑The High Priestess’ was another player from Community 15, Jiang Chenyan.

And the incredibly skillful ability that ’↓Wheel of Fortune’ Xu Zhao displayed when battling Shen Xing was actually, like ’↑The High Priestess’ Jiang Chenyan, the same kind of deception.

Which was ’leaking secrets.’

Because players with weak wills in Peripheral Communities leaked their communities’ secrets, including community secret codes, personnel composition participating in games, game strategies agreed upon in games, and so on.

And as long as they mastered leaked information, when matched with corresponding communities, they could naturally do whatever they wanted using this huge information gap.

Of course, accurately finding players in these Peripheral Communities with betrayal potential wasn’t easy. Han Mengying alone naturally couldn’t do it.

Other players in Community 4 were also separately executing the same strategy as her. In the first half of the game, they slowly spread this leaked intelligence within Community 4 and Community 15, gradually taking control of the situation.

Therefore, when entering the free matching phase of the latter half, Community 4 and Community 15 had actually already used this method to find a large number of ’blood bags’—that is, Peripheral Community players willing to transfer Wealth Vouchers to their two communities.

Some of these ’blood bags’ were willing, some were deceived through different tricks, but no matter what, they all made the same decision.

And as long as there were enough ’blood bags,’ they could be invincible in this game.