Long Shen frowned and wiped his forehead as they reset for the fourth battle. In the previous three battles, he had been routed each time. He couldn't find any flaws in his strategy but each time it was like he had chosen exactly the wrong plan of attack against his opponent. He ordered his soldiers to turtle up this time and fortified his position. He was starting to feel a sense of desperation. As an avid gamer, Long Shen had plenty of experience leading squads in the shooter games, although they weren't his favorite, he still wasn't this bad. It was like his opponent was leading him by the nose. Long Shen decided to have his men settle into a bunker and prepare to engage his opponent's squad from a superior defensive position. He only needed to be patient and this time he was sure to have a victory.
They waited for over and an hour and saw no movement on the battlefield. Just when Long Shen was about to order his men out of the bunker fifteen arms appeared through the thin gun slots of the bunker tossing grenades inside. Long Shen had no time to react as the grenades exploded one after another killing him and his squad. The message came up, "You have lost. In the future, we recommend posting at least one lookout." Just before he found himself back in the virtual lobby. Reginald Theus was there waiting for him. The older man just shook his head.
Long Shen gave him a bow and said, "I admit it, you are much better than I am at this one."
The older man slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Kid, you are a good strategist, the problem is that you still treat this like it's a video game. You aren't playing against people trying to win for shits and giggles. This is war. You need to think with the mindset of someone who is afraid to die. The reason I can stomp your ass so easily is that you take chances and make decisions that only make sense for someone who has no fear of death. You expect the board to reset after each turn."
Long Shen nodded and said, "I was only in a couple of battles and we were against overwhelming odds both times. We didn't have time to think. We just sent all of our ordinances downfield and hoped for the best."
"I can tell. You are a smart guy, just pay attention to your strategy and tactics classes. Remember, gaming and life or death battles are not even remotely the same. You need to treat the lives of the soldiers under your command like they are your own. When you give orders, you aren't moving chess pieces on a board, you are deciding the fate of someone. It's up to you to safeguard them against the enemy and at the same time crush the ones trying to hurt them." He grinned at Long Shen.
"Thank you, Mr. Theus, you have given me a lot to think about. I was treating the military like it was easy." Long Shen frowned as he looked down.
"Hey, just call me Reggie. Don't get too down on yourself you are the best I have faced here at this academy. You're only missing the edge of someone who has lost a squad is all. That's not something you can or ever want to experience, it just happens. I sent you the recordings of this battle from my point of view. Watch them a few times and see if you can see where it was you went wrong." He slapped Long Shen on the arm and then logged out.
Long Shen watched the battles over and over again. He couldn't find any faults with his strategy which left him confused. Why was he being beaten so easily? It reminded him of his early days as a gold farmer before he figured out how to use the Fleet Sim to reliably earn gold. As he watched the battles from Reggie's point of view he started to see what he had been doing wrong. Reggie didn't follow a logical attack pattern. He would adapt to the way Long Shen used his squad. Rather than follow any set military doctrine, he would advance or retreat based on the actions of Long Shen's men. Long Shen had grown used to computer AI's following set patterns. When facing against players in a game, players tended to follow winning strategies so it was easy to predict an outcome based on a few early movements.
Reggie Theus wasn't like the players or the AI, he would make seemingly nonsensical decisions that would cause Long Shen to predict a movement that never happened. Long Shen was reacting to a known strategy rather than to what the enemy squad was actually doing. On top of that, the AI squad members didn't have the motivation or the ability to offer suggestions or to react against bad orders that were given.
Long Shen spent the next few hours playing the squad sim head to head to try out some of the new theory he had learned. At first, his success rate was abysmal but after a few failures and fine-tuning runs he started to get the hang of being more flexible and not trying to predict his opponents. His leadership became much more fluid. He used scouts more effectively and waited to get a big-picture view of the battlefield before committing to attacks or effectively building his defenses.
Long Shen eagerly awaited his next contest against the King of Squad battles.