Chapter 644: Control of a Community's Ecology

In the game, the 20,000 Gold Pounds needed to save someone wasn't particularly difficult to come by, which meant that as long as a community's internal dynamics were reasonably normal, with no serious breakdown of trust, no one would die.

The worst outcome would simply be losing 20,000 Gold Pounds.

Of course, the rule required donating all of a player's Gold Pounds, so the amount could potentially exceed 20,000. But players could easily arrange around this by having the most reliable player hold the bulk of the Gold Pounds, while the other four each kept only around 10,000.

After the final settlement phase, the Gold Pounds could simply be redistributed.

No matter how you looked at it, this rule was very difficult to exploit.

Yao Yuan had not known any of Community 23's players beforehand, yet within the brief intervals between game phases he had managed to turn them against their own leader, and the target of the scheme was the community's leader at that. The outcome was genuinely extraordinary.

Seeing the stunned expressions on everyone's faces, Yao Yuan could only shake his head with a wry look.

"Don't build it up more than it was. The probability of this plan succeeding was extremely low. It wasn't a particularly good strategy. I was just taking a chance."

Shen Bowen observed his expression carefully, "There's no need to be modest about something like this. Luck is also part of ability."

Yao Yuan shook his head, "I'm not being modest. I mean it.

"Because the more elegant a plan looks, the higher its failure rate tends to be in practice.

"If a plan has five steps and each step has an 80% chance of succeeding, that sounds very high. But the final probability of success is only around 30%.

"That's simple mathematics.

"When possible, I still prefer strategies that are straightforward, blunt, and involve fewer steps.

"But in the situation we were in, we were at a comprehensive disadvantage. There was no winning path through conventional strategy or physical strength. I had no choice but to try something, and I worked from the angle of community politics.

"This plan actually required four players on the other side to passively cooperate or actively assist, and it also needed Shengjie to complete the critical final step. If any single part had gone wrong, the whole thing would have failed.

"On top of that, it was built on reading people, which makes it completely unreliable by nature.

"So I'm not being modest. I'm just warning everyone not to treat this as a strategy worth copying, in case it causes problems for your thinking in future games."

Yao Yuan paused briefly and continued, "Looking back at the game honestly, there were actually quite a few mistakes on our side, especially in the early stages.

"I chose to go into the Medical Room without giving any thought to Solitary Confinement, which left us exposed there. And the three players outside the prison also didn't think to open the packaging and extract the medication.

"Those two mistakes put us at a serious disadvantage from the very first round.

"Everything in the third phase was really just trying to recover from that.

"All I can say is we were fortunate with the Gallery's matchmaking. With virtually any other opposing community, or without Zhao Heng in the game, we most likely would have lost."

Zhang Yan was clearly intrigued, "I wouldn't have expected this. Zhao Heng was Community 23's leader, and his game strategy wasn't bad. Yet in the end he died at the hands of the very community ecology he'd built himself.

"That's a strange outcome.

"Because in the games I've been in before, I've almost never seen something like this happen.

"Even listening to the account, I couldn't work out how to break through his position midway through.

"Because the system Zhao Heng had built looked very solid on the surface. Wu Xiufang was a new player he had gone out of his way to promote. Li Mao was a fence-sitter. As long as those two donated their Gold Pounds, he would have been completely safe.

"I just wouldn't have predicted that Wu Xiufang would choose to betray him that cleanly.

"I'd also heard things before about communities in the Gallery that operate under high-pressure or one-voice-rules-all leadership, but the situations were completely different.

"Everyone assumed that kind of community would fall apart sooner or later, yet somehow, up to now, they haven't."

Qin Cheng thought for a moment, "Are you talking about Community 12? The kind of ecosystem Chen Guangming built seems to have some similarities to Zhao Heng's Community 23, but Chen Guangming is still doing fine. He hasn't run into the same kind of collapse."

Zhang Yan nodded, "Yes, that's who I mean.

"Community 12 in our original region was a fairly marginal community with almost no presence, so it was reassigned in the Second Stage.

"But I can't figure out why Chen Guangming, who doesn't seem particularly exceptional, and Community 12, which has clear issues with its internal dynamics, has stayed intact, while Zhao Heng fell this simply."

Everyone exchanged glances. No one had a clear answer.

Lu Bingjun said, "We only encountered Chen Guangming once, during the Pain Game. We don't know enough about him or Community 12's specific situation to draw confident conclusions."

Lin Sizhi spoke up, "As it happens, I do know something about Chen Guangming.

"In the First Stage, he and I were in the same region.

"Community 12 was originally a community of almost entirely weak players, with virtually no internal structure or rules, a completely disorganised collection of individuals.

"Chen Guangming managed to reshape it into an environment where his word was law, and maintained reasonable returns throughout.

"On the surface, that looks similar to what Zhao Heng did. But in practice they are entirely different players.

"What you're puzzled about is precisely where Chen Guangming's greatest advantage lies.

"The first thing is that his political instincts are strong.

"There's no shortage of players who want to concentrate all power in their own hands the way Zhao Heng did, but the more centralised the power, the greater the risk of being overthrown. Players stripped of power at the bottom don't simply endure indefinitely. Given the right conditions, even the most timid among them will eventually resist under the right leadership.

"Maintaining that kind of power over time requires genuine political ability.

"Dividing factions, managing balances of power, identifying and neutralising threats: these are all part of political ability.

"Two communities that are both run under a single-voice system can look completely different from each other simply because of differences in one or two rule details.

"Even in a community made up mostly of weaker players, the fact that Chen Guangming has managed to do this at all says something about his political instincts.

"Because working with the tide and working against it require very different amounts of political energy.

"Second, Chen Guangming is a person with no firm moral lines, but at the same time he has no ego and absolutely no tendency toward self-destructive internal conflict.

"Meaning he has no fixation on proving he is stronger than anyone else.

"If he senses that facing a stronger player would put him in danger, he will find every possible way to avoid it. He rarely allows himself to be placed in a position of genuine risk.

"In other words, he only plays games where he has a reasonable confidence of being safe and coming out ahead.

"And the last thing is simply that his luck has been good."

Huang Shengjie blinked, "Luck?"

Lin Sizhi nodded, "Yes. In the First Stage, if you looked purely at raw capability on paper, there were perhaps three or four players stronger than Chen Guangming.

"But Chen Guangming very rarely found himself facing those players in dangerous games, and even when he did, other factors usually meant he wasn't treated as the primary target.

"You could also say that the impression Chen Guangming projects is precisely what makes the vast majority of stronger players feel it simply isn't worth the effort to single him out.

"From the perspective of many players, this kind of performance doesn't look like true strength. But one thing is undeniable: the ability to stay low and to stay alive is itself an extremely rare quality.

"Especially in an environment as particular as the Gallery."