My Level Zero System-Chapter 311: The trap of "Equal"
What Faith wanted to calculate now was what he would do in this situation.
The gold coins currently stored by the factions in turn 3:
The Sword Family holds 20 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Bethel Family holds 20 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Zento Family holds 10 gold coins and has 22 gold coins in the treasury.
The Acer Family holds 10 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Flamed Family holds 28 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Madea Family holds 25 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Raymon Family holds 28 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Nostag Family holds 27 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Don Family holds 28 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
The Egretta Family holds 30 gold coins and has 4 gold coins in the treasury.
"Based on the cooperation situation of the four players from the Zento, Flamed, Raymon, and Don Families, this third bidding turn will be a bid by one of the remaining three players."
"But the Flamed Family player faked being attacked to conceal the fact that the Zento Family player had put all the money into the treasury. This means that if he bids higher than 18 gold coins, the fake attack will be exposed. Therefore, the player who makes the bid this time will most likely be the Don Family player, or the Raymon Family player."
"I see."
"The one who proposed this cooperation strategy is the Zento Family player."
"Think about it: if there was no fake attack, those four people would take turns winning 4 turns, filling their treasuries with gold coins."
"But only the Zento Family player would put the least gold coins into the treasury, meaning they would be a secondary target compared to the other three."
"And after turn 5 ends, everyone's targets will focus on the faction that successfully bid in turn 5. The amount of gold coins that the successfully bidding faction manages to put into the treasury must be nearly 50 gold coins. Plus the possible profit sharing from previous bidding turns, this player's treasury must have nearly 60 gold coins. If successful in stealing this person's treasury, the winner would also collect over 25 gold coins."
"At this point, the Zento Family player would have accumulated 30 gold coins after three turns bidding 0 gold coins, plus the certainty of not being attacked to reduce income, because the successful bidders are his allies. He could totally compete for this profit."
"Although the benefit is over 25 gold coins, to steal half of someone else's treasury, the winning bidder also needs to forfeit the entire amount of gold coins just used to win."
"Therefore, once the price starts to hit the 20 ceiling, factions will hesitate. It's not worth it to reduce competitiveness and be unable to protect one's own treasury later, just for a profit of 5 gold coins."
"In that situation, the Zento Family player could completely use their 30 gold coins capital to profit."
"But then perhaps he thought that this was only a short-term profit but harmed long-term interests, so the Zento Family player modified the strategy. By pretending that he didn't put money into the treasury, he would cause the next bidding turn to completely lose competitiveness. Plus, with the example of the Acer Family player, who gambled and failed, then was forced to share money with the other nine people, the four-person alliance will find it easier to win the next turn without having to spend all their gold coins to secure a win like the original strategy." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
"It's not hard to predict that the next three bidding turns will also play out this way. They will all pretend that they used the successful bid amount to attack someone else."
In Faith's mind, the entire game was materialized into a large chessboard, where the pieces were all moving subtly.
The entire strategic crux had been fully reconstructed by him.
So why was Kain not considered in Faith's calculations?
Was it because he had forgotten, or because Kain's performance in this game was too unremarkable?
Of course not.
In fact, the person he paid the most attention to had always been Kain.
In turn 1, Kain bid 0 gold coins.
Just by this move, Faith realized that Kain had grasped his true purpose; otherwise, Kain would definitely have been attacked.
In turn 2, Kain continued to bid 0 gold coins.
Looking at the "context" of both turns, Kain was performing "reasonable" behavior within the scope of that context.
In turn 1, Kain bid 0 gold coins because that's as far as he could calculate.
In turn 2, Kain bid 0 gold coins because he was afraid his treasury would be stolen.
Both are reasonable explanations, but Faith fundamentally didn't care.
His way of thinking was always the same.
People only see Kain's reasonable behavior, while Faith looks directly at the nature of the behavior.
Kain consistently bids 0 gold coins because he plans to use the "most foolish" way to win the game: accumulating money in the early stage and using money to crush opponents in the later stage.
However, it is easier said than done; execution is the hard part.
The money is public, so once Kain's maximal accumulation behavior occurs from turn 3 onwards, the chance of being discovered will be very high.
And the consequence of being discovered is being attacked, leading to continuously reduced income. He wouldn't be able to accumulate anything.
And to avoid being attacked, Kain can only use the hard-earned gold coins to win the bid, which means completely losing his advantage.
This is the nature of this game, and also the way the Akazac political system suppressed the development of the old nobility.
The overall value does not increase at all, so if the internal factors want to develop, they can only seize the value of other factors, and vice versa. Eventually, it reverts to a balance, with a net zero sum.
Why does the option to steal another faction's treasury only allow stealing half? It is precisely because the game designer does not want anyone to truly win.
