Season 3: Chapter 191: Mongolian Prairies (2)

Even though everyone trusted the think tank's judgment, the players couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the sudden change in commander.

‘We haven’t even had proper scrims with her. Will this work in the tournament?’

‘Solo rank is different from tournaments…’

‘Why now of all time?’

Their expressions didn’t look great as they entered the capsules. In fact, the expressions of the Persians on the other side, who lost the previous game, seemed much brighter.

“Sigh…”

Pang entered the capsule next to Almond and couldn’t help but let out a deep breath to ease his tension.

“It’ll be fine.”

“… Huh?”

Before entering his capsule, Almond reassured Pang.

“She’s good.”

“…”

Pang seemed briefly touched by Almond's rare comforting words. However, he soon questioned Almond with his characteristic half-closed eyes.

“How would you know that, man? You’ve never been a commander.”

Although he said that, his expression looked much better as he entered the capsule.

“Let’s just get in.”

“… Tch.”

‘Huh? Tch?’

Pang turned back in confusion and Almond’s pouty face greeted him.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just…

ahem…

is the capsule door leaking air?”

Pang scratched his head and pretended to be nonchalant. Why was Almond being like that?

‘Is he pouting because I didn’t listen to him?’

Pang thought that maybe he could’ve reacted better, but something came to mind.

‘Wait a second. Of course, I wouldn’t listen to him. He’s clueless about strategy. Who listens to Almond’s advice!?’

Almond barely paid attention during meetings, so why would Almond be pouting? Well, Pang didn’t know. Even after living so long, humans remained truly mysterious creatures.

The streamer Almond had long been confident in his so-called brain skills.

***

A vast plain greeted them after entering the game.

[Mongolian Prairies]

Beginners often used this map for practice.

“… It’s the winter version.”

“This is bad.”

However, the map often used was the summer version of the Mongolian Prairies and the current map was the winter version that wasn’t beginner friendly at all. For one, a certain resource became quite scarce.

“It’s going to be a food war.”

***

“The Mongolian Prairies! Ah, this is a representative map of

Civil Empire

. Like how default avatars are provided when you first play

LIL

, this map appears in the tutorial,” OrangeKing immediately explained in excitement about the Mongolian Prairies map.

“But now it’s the winter version! It might be because the season is winter or maybe it’s for balance reasons, but this winter version is a bit special.”

“Yes, that’s right! Just looking at it, it’s not the green plains with fluffy sheep running around that we know, is it!?”

“Yes, correct. Most of the plains are dry and some areas look like wastelands.”

“There are almost no sheep!”

— Should we go straight to farming?

— This map should’ve come up against the Vikings, lol

— Persia will get straight to farming from the start;

In

Civil Empire

, the most crucial resource was gold, but the most needed resource was food.

In the early and mid-game, sheep and deer roaming the map took care of most of the food supply. In the winter version of the Mongolian Prairies, these two animals were almost nonexistent because the sheep had already grazed the plains and left the environment barren.

“This makes it seem like Persia has a significant advantage with their farming bonuses, doesn’t it?”

As a Muslim civilization, Persia could not consume boars, the most efficient animal. Instead, they could start farming from the first era with better efficiency. Since no boars appeared on this map, they received the merits without the handicap.

“It’s like having pleasure without responsibility, isn’t it!? Now, Joseon will struggle with hunting animals while Persia alone gets the farming bonus!”

— Pleasure without responsibility, lol

— True though

— I don’t get why they get such bonuses

— But still, if Joseon monopolizes hunting, it might work out? Despite the farming bonus, nothing is as efficient as hunting.

Human history was quite interesting. In terms of energy efficiency, a hunter-gatherer society was much easier to live in than an agricultural society. In ancient times, no hard labor was as grueling and inefficient as farming. It required daily effort and even then, a natural disaster could lead to no harvest and starvation. In contrast, hunting and gathering could sustain people even if success only came once a week.

Civil Empire

was similar. Starting a farm consumed resources and it took time to gain food that made up for the loss. However, hunting didn’t consume any resources other than the player’s labor.

In national competitions with two hundred players available from the start, they had no reason not to choose hunting.

“The problem is that Persia doesn’t naively jump straight into farming!”

“Correct. They’re sending out hunters more aggressively, in fact!”

Instead of going straight to farming and ignoring hunting, Persia planned on competing for the animals with Joseon before transitioning to farming. They wanted to maximize the limited resources (animals) first, then switch to their unique resource.

“It’s like those guys who, when you spill fries on the table from your burger set, only eat the fries without touching their burger! That’s Persia right now!”

“Right! Because their burger is huge!”

— Lol, that’s so true

— Haha, I never pour out my fries because of this

— Just thinking about it makes me shiver

— Lol, that analogy

— I want to mix bacon into Persia’s fries

“Persia’s early fry strategy is in progress! They are competing with Joseon to hunt animals, but they’re essentially sharing the resources!”

Both Persia and Joseon, seeing the map’s state, invested many workers in hunting rather than scouting.

“Yes, there’s usually no significant difference in hunting in the first era. It’s typically split fifty-fifty unless there’s a specialization like Spain’s.”

In the match against Spain, Joseon had never been ahead in hunting because Spain had enhanced vision from the first era and the mounted vice commander, Tres, specialized in hunting.

Other civilizations generally split the hunting equally, so Joseon would find it hard to gain any advantage here.

“The reassuring thing is that even though this Joseon commander has no tournament experience, the gameplay has been stable so far.”

“Yes, exactly. She’s making good decisions based on the map situation…”

— She’s doing well

— She’s the best! Best Yi Sun-Shin!

— But it’s still too early to tell

— How can you tell from this? Oh, the commentators...

“More than that, it’s hard to say that it’s Best Yi Sun-Shin’s first appearance, isn’t it?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“She already has one victory!”

The caster had searched for any previous tournament history but found none.

“What are you talking about?”

“She won the first match against the Vikings!”

“Ah, the fashion victory!”

— Oh, lol

— What?

— Wow, she’s the one?

— She’s the one who won the Best Dressed?

— Wow, lol

— True, as expected of Admiral Yi...winning without fighting...

OrangeKing was referring to when Sa-Rang won the Best Dressed award at the dinner party. Thanks to that, Joseon won the map selection right and also won a tricky first game against the Vikings.

“Now, Joseon... they’re rushing to the second era. Are they... going for it again?”

As they joked about the early stages with no significant variables, OrangeKing noticed something.

“Is this the same archer rush!?”

“What!?”

— No way, lol

— For real?

— It’ll be great if they attack during the farming transition

— Seriously? lol

— BornToB... who is he…?

— Wow~

Joseon’s movements seemed unusual.

“Yes! They sorted out the archer hierarchy in the previous match. There’s no reason not to do it again!”

“It feels like watching a triple rush! They’ll keep going until it’s blocked!”

“Yes! Try to block this archer rush! If you can’t, we’ll use it again! Try to block this archer rush! If you can’t, we’ll use it again!”

— ???

— Why does it feel like the words are repeating? Why does it feel like the words are repeating?

— OrangeKing’s spirit echoes...?

— Microphone error? Microphone error?

— The legendary triple rush!? The legendary triple rush!?

Joseon prepared to use the same strategy as in the first game.

“Unlike the previous game, they’re not pushing with a forward barracks, but they’re advancing quickly to the second era, excluding all other variables!”

“This means they’ve thoroughly analyzed Persia!”

Joseon advanced to the second era at a speed suggesting that they judged Persia’s movements to be predictable.

[Joseon - Second Era]

Thud!

They followed the same flow as the first game, at least Joseon did.

“But Persia is acting completely differently from the last game!?”

Persia acted differently. As soon as the second era notification appeared, they immediately started building three defense towers.

[Defense Tower - 5%]

[Defense Tower - 2%]

[Defense Tower - 1%]

“They saved their resources to respond after observing Joseon’s movements!”

Persia seemed poised to showcase its renowned turtling strategy.

“The placement of the defense towers is perfect! This looks really tough…”

“As expected from the turtling masters, their city layout is great! Joseon’s archers are already forming…”

The city layout referred to the strategic placement of buildings in RTS games to hinder enemies. Persia had arranged their buildings and defense towers to protect each other and key resources.

Joseon had to destroy these buildings first to break through the defense towers.

“Given that food isn’t abundant on this map, losing soldiers will be very costly! They need to make careful decisions!”

Pushing soldiers would eventually break through the defense towers, but this map wasn’t rich in food. Maintaining and reviving soldiers required food, so they could only afford to lose around ten soldiers at most. Any more would take too much time to recover.

This also strained their worker production.

“Not producing workers to save soldiers puts them in an extreme situation! Will they take a gamble because they’ve already won one game!?”

“Joseon is advancing!”

Joseon’s front-line archers, including Almond and Pang, ran toward Persia’s base.

— If this works again, it’ll be amazing, lol

— If Persia fails to defend, their morale will be crushed

— If they can’t block this, they might have to order 200 hijabs, lol

— Why am I rooting for Persia? lol

— Let’s go~ If it doesn’t work, oh well~