(MT) “Alright guys, the tournament will begin in just a little while. Since we have had quite a bit of time to study the terrain of the map, we will meet up with each other at this location.” Meng Tian said as he pointed at his map.

(MY) “That is a good choice, we will have approximately 1 month to prepare everything we need to before the thing starts. We will be transported to our own cities so we will need to meet up before we decide anything further.” Meng Yi agreed.

(BM) “Will this be a mostly aerial fight?” Baron asked.

(MT) “You are allowed to build other types of weapons, but this mode allows us to build twice as many aircraft with half the supplies as regular modes. Therefore, building airplanes are more worth it.”

(BM) “Will we join up our armies once we meet up?”

(MT) “I think that is the norm here in this tournament. It looks like this is all the time we have. We’ll meet up within the sim to discuss further, remember to make haste to the position that I pointed out to you.”

At this moment the room filled with a bright beam of light and everyone was transported off to the map to begin. Baron suddenly found himself in a large room with many battle-hardened officers were lined up to greet him. On the table in front of him, there lay a map with numerous bases dotted all across the map with the name of the strategist on top of each of them as well as many battle lines drawn on the map.

(BM) “Good morning gentlemen, I assume that you will be my officers,” Baron said as he addressed the room.

(LN) “Greetings general, I am lieutenant Naire, your second in command. Is there anything you wish us to do before the preparation time ends?” Lieutenant Naire asked his superior.

(BM) “Yes actually, I need you to get me to this point right here, I have an appointment to take care of.” Baron said as he pointed to one of the forests in the very southwest part of the map.

(LN) “It shall be done, just give us a half-hour and we will escort you there. Let’s go.”

(BM) “Thank you, I will be out in a few moments I just need to study this map for a little while.”

All the other officers left while Baron stayed to take a quick glance over where each of his allies was. He also made a mental note of where the biggest names in this portion of the tournament. Soon enough, he knew all that he needed to at the moment and waltzed down to get in his prepared ride to go meet up with the others in the predetermined location.

In his time looking over the map, Baron realized that he was the furthest one from the rendezvous point and once he got there he was indeed the last to arrive. The trip took a day or two but he could not do anything to cut down the time.

(MT) “It’s good that you are here Baron, now we can all get down to business. So, one of the fundamental rules of this type of tournament is to get the best possible location to defend. Since it seems none of us lucked out in this area, it would be wisest to sell off our base and buy one where it is easiest to fight off attackers.” Meng Tian said.

(BM) “I suppose this time around it is more important to go for quality of bases rather than quantity?”

(MY) “Correct, quantity should only be used when going up against a couple of enemies at once, but if you are surrounded on all sides it is definitely best to go for quality.” Meng Yi told Baron.

(BM) “How do we sell our bases then?”

(MY) “We will just need to put it up for sale on the simulation interface. Just like this.” He said as he swiped the air and egged Baron to do the same. From there it was pretty simple to sell his territory and base of operations.

(BM) “I have not opened this tab since my very first encounter with Yue Fei, it seems like I completely forgot about it.”

(YF) “Well, any slightly gifted strategist would not need to use the stats given by the sim since they can gauge it themselves, but in any official tournament setting it has a multitude of other functions.” Yue Fei explained.

(BM) “So that’s how it is. How long will it take to sell ours?”

(MT) “Going by my previous experience, it should take about a week at most for the bases to be sold/bought. Anything done after that is prone to be weak from not having enough time to upgrade the base.”

(MY) “I took a glance at all of our bases on my way here and I think my base is the most strategically important out of all of ours so perhaps mine will sell first, but there is no guarantee for that.”

(BM) “I see, so what should we do in the meantime?”

(MT) “It is wise for us to mark and target which strategists will be the most difficult ones for us to defeat and try to ignore them for now. Also, we should decide which base that we ourselves want to buy. If we do manage to sell all of our territories then we will be able to purchase one of the more strategically important bases near the edge of the map.”

(BM) “Oh I see, if it is near the edge of the map then there will be less enemies to attack us on any side and we can focus more on other stuff.”

(MT) “Correct, but it is pointless to go for the very edge since most of the big names will have already bribed or bullied their way to those prime spots. I say the best position that fits our needs will be here.” Meng Tian said as he pointed to a fairly advantageous base to the East.