According to the 2:1:1 ratio, each Civilian player could obtain over 80,000 wealth value, bringing back half to their community would be over 40,000.
This already exceeded the average returns of ordinary games.
The key was that this game wasn’t difficult after achieving cooperation, without any major risks, so these 40,000 were far more valuable than visa time earned in dangerous judgment games.
Conglomerate players could each bring back over 80,000 visa time to their communities. Many players had never seen such high returns in a single game but envy was useless, the game’s mechanism was such, and the Conglomerate identity was something they had earned through their cunning.
However, just as Community 12 and Community 17’s players were preparing to head to the work area, new broadcasts came over the venue.
[A player has initiated a proposal to change tax rates. All management players please immediately go to the management room to vote.] Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵⟡𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⟡𝓷𝓮𝓽
[This proposal has received 3 "Agree" votes, exceeding half, and takes effect immediately.]
[Current Civilian wage tax adjusted to: 70%]
[Current Civilian investment tax adjusted to: 70%]
Fan Zehui’s face showed shock, hardly believing his eyes.
He had anticipated that Community 4 was unlikely to generously maintain 2:1:1 until the game’s end, but hadn’t expected them to change their tune so impatiently when the game had only reached round 10.
They could have waited several more rounds to make the total wealth even larger but now with a full 10 rounds remaining until the game’s end, Communities 12 and 17’s Civilians would most likely unite to resist.
What made Community 4 so confident? There must be some special reason...
Seeing Han Mengying walking over, Fan Zehui clenched his fists.
He knew there was only one way to protect his interests.
That was to lie down together with Community 17’s people and abandon work opportunities.
This way, total wealth would shrink by 20% each round, and soon the total wealth would fail to meet standards.
Fan Zehui didn’t say much to Han Mengying. He already understood that since Community 4 had broken their promise to take away most of Civilians’ returns through taxation, they now had to show their determination for mutual loss.
Lin Sizhi also said nothing, just called the other 3 people to leave.
However, at this moment, an unexpected situation occurred.
Han Mengying smiled, "Very good, now there are 3 spots left, first come first served, offer expires soon."
Fan Zehui was stunned. He looked at his community’s three people in shock, only to find they were as confused as himself.
Instead, it was Community 17’s Luo Wei standing in front of one of the ’Revenue’ buttons.
Adding Community 4’s original 4 people, 5 of the 8 positions were occupied, with 3 spots remaining.
Fan Zehui looked at Lin Sizhi incredulously. He hadn’t expected that Community 17’s people had been turned?
How was this possible?
Lin Sizhi’s expression remained calm, making his inner thoughts unreadable, but the current situation looked quite desperate no matter how you viewed it.
Regardless of the reasons, Han Mengying had succeeded.
She had poached Community 17’s Luo Wei and recreated the prisoner’s dilemma.
Han Mengying looked at Lin Sizhi, "Thank you for the education, Mr. Lin, letting me know about the ’principle of the fortunate yielding.’
"But now, some among you seem to be fortunate ones too."
Even Fan Zehui could see that the current predicament had become different from the beginning.
Initially, total wealth was still far from 500,000, meaning everyone’s returns were uncertain.
In that situation, Civilian players could be said to have nothing, so their determination for mutual loss was firmest but the current situation was different.
Total wealth was about to reach 500,000, meaning that as long as they could smoothly end the game, Civilian players could each bring back over 15,000 visa time returns without having 50,000 deducted.
But if they lay down in resistance, everyone’s wealth would shrink, and Civilian players would definitely have 50,000 deducted.
Originally it was those with nothing to lose not fearing those with something, but now both sides had something, though Conglomerates wore leather shoes while Civilians wore straw sandals. But Civilians could exit the game safely with just slight compromise, and this wishful thinking would seriously weaken their determination for mutual loss.
Moreover, some Conglomerate players had now saved up 100,000 wealth, allowing them to choose ’departure’ to preserve existing wealth.
That is, Conglomerate players could now advance or retreat at will.
Advance: as long as Civilian players compromised, they could continue earning money in the remaining 10 rounds while taking the vast majority of returns.
Retreat: if Civilian players didn’t compromise, they could choose to leave the country and retain existing visa time.
The initiative was completely with the Conglomerates.
Worse yet was Luo Wei’s betrayal.
This not only had a wrong demonstration effect, but also meant that even if Conglomerate players left the country, Civilian players couldn’t gather 8 people to press buttons, inevitably triggering wealth shrinkage.
Qin Yao’s face was also full of shock as she looked at Luo Wei, "Why!"
She had originally very much welcomed Luo Wei as a new member and given her sufficient trust.
Moreover, in all current games, Community 17 had never had any betrayals. Luo Wei was the first.
This also made Qin Yao feel incredulous.
Wasn’t Community 17 strong enough? Weren’t the benefits good enough? Why did she have to run to Community 4?
Luo Wei sighed, "Sorry.
"I know this is hard for you to accept. How you think about it is your business, but I have my own considerations.
"The New World is a place full of dangers. I must consider choosing the safest, strongest, most suitable community.
"Qin Yao, Community 17 might be fine for someone like you, but for me, it’s very bad.
"Because of dual contradictions in ideology and interests."
Luo Wei paused slightly and continued explaining, "I’ve been observing this community’s ecology since the day I entered Community 17, purposefully making contact with some players.
"Then I regretfully discovered that this community actually already has a very stable five-person group, with males having absolute dominance.
"This means I cannot enter management, and will most likely become the oppressed party.
"This community’s structure is solid, but precisely because of this reason, even if I considered uniting Wang Yongxin, Yang Yuting and others to try establishing a second core, I’d have no chance of winning.
"More importantly, I don’t agree with Community 17’s ideology.
"The New World is a place of survival of the fittest. Those who can crack games should naturally obtain political positions far superior to ordinary people.
"As for those weaklings, they should be eliminated.
"But Community 17 isn’t . You’ve passed many proposals protecting the weak, causing these weak people to all stay in the community without being cleared out, which will seriously increase future risks.
"Teaming up with Lawyer Lin this time was pretty good, but next time I might team up with other idiots from the community and die in games.
"I don’t want to accept such risks.
"Smart people only screen, they don’t change.
"Obviously, I can’t change Community 17’s ecology, so I can only choose to go elsewhere.