Section 002: The Tribe’s Name—Yanhuang

Li Zhan glanced around once more and said, “The terrain here is too rugged. Let’s find a flatter spot to build the tribe center.”

“Rise of the Empire” is a classic management and construction strategy game, where time is a precious commodity and not a moment can be wasted. Li Zhan knew this well, but he had another plan in mind: the rough terrain here would be a great hindrance to large-scale agriculture in the future, and with no forest nearby, harvesting wood would be extremely difficult. In the early stages of the game, both wood and food are invaluable resources—if those two aren’t boosted, how can anything else develop?

While Li Zhan wandered with his only two villagers, searching for a suitable open area, most players had already thrown themselves into a frenzy of construction, focusing on immediate gains while neglecting the long-term growth of their settlements. Certainly, this would give them an early advantage, but it would hinder their future development. Each player started with only a scant amount of resources, and after building the tribe center and a few thatched cottages, almost nothing would remain. To build another tribe center, they would have to wait for resources to trickle in.

As Li Zhan walked, he kept a lookout while also opening the semi-transparent in-game browser to study the official help guide. This was the peak time for building tribe centers—across the bottom of the page, system notifications rolled by in red, listing the newly completed tribe centers with all sorts of strange names. The screen refreshed so rapidly, thousands of tribe centers being completed every second, that it was impossible to read anything clearly.

Li Zhan was surprised by the sheer attraction of this game—he hadn’t expected a strategy game focused on management and construction to draw in so many enthusiastic players. It seemed he still knew too little about this game’s every facet.

As he was reflecting, the male villager beside him, Zhang Chong, suddenly called out, “Chief, look, there’s a river over there!”

Following Zhang Chong’s gesture, Li Zhan saw, several hundred meters away, a wide river winding across the flat grassland. There was a bend in the river, and just a hundred meters beyond it stood a dense forest.

Water, flat land, and a forest—this was the perfect spot for a tribe!

Li Zhan felt a surge of genuine excitement as he led his two villagers down the slope, hurrying toward the river bend. Up close, the river bend was much larger than he had expected, forming a “C” shape connected to the main river. Its diameter spanned over three hundred meters, the water a deep blue, bottomless—an ideal location for a future shipyard. Fish of all sizes leapt from the water’s surface, a sign of abundant fisheries.

Glancing around, he saw the endless, level grassland, the lush vegetation hinting at fertile soil—perfect for opening farmland. The distant hills and scattered knolls would someday be excellent sites for watchtowers, even cannon turrets. And the forest a hundred meters away was filled with tall, straight trees, the best source of timber for construction.

“All right, we’ll build our tribe center here. Let’s work together and get it done as fast as possible,” Li Zhan said, leading Zhang Chong and Zhou Min to a spot about a hundred meters from the river bend, beside a patch of berry bushes.

The two villagers answered and immediately began staking out the ground and laying stones. Although both Zhang Chong and Zhou Min insisted such rough labor should be left to them, and there was no need for the chief himself to lend a hand, Li Zhan insisted they all work together for speed. He was already behind the majority of players and needed a sense of urgency.

The tribe center was the most resource-intensive building at the start. The construction took a little over two minutes, consuming two-thirds of their wood and stone. With a swish, the system notified Li Zhan that the tribe center was complete and prompted him to name it.

After a moment’s thought, Li Zhan entered “Yanhuang” in the dialog box and confirmed it. To his surprise, such a meaningful name hadn’t been claimed—he was truly lucky.

Immediately, a line appeared on every player’s semi-transparent system message bar:

System notification: Tribe [Yanhuang] has been officially completed. Player Li Zhan, representing Chinese civilization, has officially joined the ranks in “Rise of the Empire.” Let us watch and wait. [10:32:24]

By now, the peak for building tribe centers had passed, and the empty system message bar let the announcement of Yanhuang’s completion linger for a long time, with no new messages to replace it.

Player A: Why did this guy take so long to finish the tribe center? Is he out of his mind?
Player B: Bet he’s a newbie who doesn’t know a thing.
Player C: Maybe he just logged in—a part-timer who won’t stick around.
Player D: A part-timer? That tribe name is pretty cool though. Shame to waste such a good name.

After the tribe center was built, Li Zhan pulled up the player commands to check his remaining resources:
Wood: 100
Food: 300
Stone: 30
Gold: 50
Minerals (total): 0

Li Zhan smiled wryly—these meager resources truly gave the feeling of starting from scratch.

The tribe center could house fifteen villagers, so housing was not an immediate concern. Using his chief’s authority, Li Zhan clicked on the tribe center and queued up six villagers, using all his food (each villager costing fifty food). He set the tribe center’s gathering point to the berry patch so the villagers would gather food as soon as they emerged. He sent Zhang Chong and Zhou Min to the edge of the forest to build a lumber camp and stockpile wood. As for himself, he left the tribe center to scout the surroundings, checking for any carnivorous animals that might threaten the villagers—or perhaps stumble on some unexpected encounter.

Circling the area within a kilometer of the tribe center, Li Zhan found neither carnivores nor huntable animals like deer or sheep. As he walked, he opened his status panel for the first time since entering the game to check his stats:

Player Name: Li Zhan
Civilization: China
Title/Position: Tribal Chief [Yanhuang]
Level: 0

Attributes—
Potential: +8
Constitution: 10
Strength: 12
Intelligence: 10
Agility: 3
Renown: 5 (awarded after completing the first tribe center)

Command: 5
Attack: 6+0
Defense: Armor 0+0/Shield 0+0
Speed: 1

HP: 22
MP: 20

Skills—Basic Brawling (the most fundamental attack skill, provides a bonus to other attack skills)

Closing the status panel, Li Zhan glanced around absentmindedly. Hm, what was that?