[PB 64] Ginger plays as Charlemagne, famed man of letters

[Ginger()]

The most obvious solution is obviously to roll a d4. Commodore would fully approve.

I hate the feeling of hope
If I didn't hope for a favorable outcome for this accursed random map trollfest game, I'd be able to take it much more easily and casually. But now, despite all odds, it seems in reach and I feel compelled to tryhard.

I ended up going for the higher risk, higher payoff option #4, and I will try to capture Aonghas. I'm not sure if I want to bombard it and hit t163 or storm it t162 by sacrificing my remaining catapults and relying on unit quality to keep Commodore's stack penned up in his capital. I will have to run some rather extensive sims. Next couple turns is when I will be most vulnerable to a sally out from Comm. 

I need literally everything, more knights, more boats, more catapults, hell, I also really need more longbows to garrison. Sure, Name of the Rose generates 98 GPP, but the real greatest city in the world is Dune with the heroic epic and 29 base hammers.

[Ginger()]

What happens to cultural/walls defense if it is partially bombarded and then walls or a castle are constructed? Take a city with walls defense of 50% (natural culture 40% if it matters), and say I bombard it down to 28%, at which point the turn rolls and a castle is built. What happens to the def %bonus?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I'd saw set up a hotseat game on a medieval start, tiny map, protective leader, and quickly simulate it. But iirc it applies instantly.

[Charriu]

The city basically has a HP bar like every other unit, which depletes with bombardment. If it has half of max HP it also has half of max defense

[Ginger()]

A combination of not having much time available today, and there being really no other alternative play to win the game other than keep pushing, I decided to damn the sims and fullspeed ahead. 

Captured both cities at the cost of 3cats and one LB ('sacrificed' at 98% odds for all my good rolls earlier)

The final distribution:
   
I turned on autopromote to promo heal some of my units
I also turned on tech for Calendar to plantation my sugar (grows my HE city and it's +1 happy), additionally it is an Astronomy prereq

I canceled OB with Naufragar to bounce my units out of his territory and closer to the cities I've taken off of Commodore. I also sent him Fish-Fish, to which I eagerly await his response. Maybe our power graph belies the precariousness of our situation and he takes the NAP.

[civac2]

[Ginger()]

Owie Owie My Bones Hurt

(I DUN GOOFED)

Yeah Civac you were right, I should've retreated into the Ahongas to avoid the fight taking place. I thought my WE would perform better against his horse archer stack, but he was able to attack with it nonetheless. 

The inability to counterattack this turn was really, really rough. All those redlined units just sitting there... yeahhh I don't think I can stop Commodore from retaking Ahongas and that's the big problem that my impatience sets me back pretty far. 

The good news is that Commodore's casualties were also pretty horrific, but it doesn't sugar coat that we lost 200k strenght between the attack that took place on my turn and Commodore's counter. In strategic terms, this is bad, but probably recoverable? I'm unsure, depends how successfully Commodore pushes his luck counter attacking now.

 I can certainly continue to outproduce Commodore, but if I'm stuck in a vicious cycle of sending more microstacks in to try and stem the bleeding... it could get ugly for my long term prospects.

Also Odeons are good in a low-lux WW game, currently giving 3 happy in the big cities where I built them

[Ginger()]

I logged back in and offered Seonid and Ahongas for peace. Amica gave two cities to Gavagai earlier so this should be within the rules, right?

Strategic reasoning being that I give up the opportunity to further harass or hamper Commodore while he gets immediate return of the cities and I get to save about 5 or 6 redlined units trapped in the north that he could otherwise hunt down.

I'm not giving up Caomid or whatever that chokepoint city is, I need defensive depth to my Heroic Epic.

And who knows, maybe in ten turns the power graph will make for a more pleasant read? If he doesn't accept, I better strap myself in for Mr. Commodore's wild ride

[Ginger()]

Before I log in to see what Commodore's done (he hasn't taken the peace according to PBSPY), I wanted to talk a bit about the insidious effects of tilt. I was pretty calm after the attack, and wanted to counter as many untis of Comm's as possible, and planned accordingly to continue the war. I don't think my tactical choices in this second turn were necessarily poor if the goal was to continue to trade-down Commodore, but the tilt that set in prevented me from realizing that maybe the best course of action is to give up.

The strategic reasoning for the war was already shaky because of high cost and low rewards (and the choice of timing was rather quickly invalidated by the gold gifts Commodore got). Commodore ignored all my attempts to deescalate the border and continued to prove that he was a threat I couldn't ignore, but I also really don't want his land when 90% (i exaggerate) of the value is tied up in a soon-to-be obsolete Colossus. But my hands are tied. We'll see how much Commodore wants for peace. I'll take status quo antebellum, but if he wants to squeeze me for it, I'm more than ready to burn this show down, part 2 re-armament boogaloo.

In our discord chat, Civac offered me some kind words of condolences and advised me to discard any "ambitions" I might've had for the outcome of the game. However, I refuse, because I have one final trick, one last scheme up my sleeve. Something so stupid, only an idiot could dream of it. Colossus obsoletes, let's have a look at what doesn't...

[Ginger()]

Okay I accepted Comm's offer and gave him his cities back. In more bad news, I rolled an Artist at 17% odds. Which was the only bad result I could have. It might be useful for the extra-dumbass gameplan I have in mind. 

I've also sent Comm the same OB and fish peace offerings I sent the last time around, we'll see if he's more receptive (I'll fuggin do it again, Comm, and I can because I didn't have to whip)
Though at this point I just expect him to carry on this grudge match throughout the game. 

   
This ain't pretty
But the plus side is, I now have an economy again  +100gpt, Banking in 4 turns. Imagine if I had actually good traits like Naufragar or Commodore or Superdeath. Charlemagne was such a wet-noodle on 8 cities with no domestic ICTR. 

Now how do I get the most of what I have available? Well for starters let's look at my strengths:
   
Yeah this is hot. 100 GPP capital. 10.5 specialists before Mercantilism. If only I had a way to squeeze more beakers out of these specialists. 

And here is the very aptly-named Greed Quest inspiring me to royally piss of the feuding houses of fair Verona
   
We'll see if this flies.