This is Part 2 for the 2023 Summer of Plunder Rules for Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron. The first half details what the campaign is, how to participate, and how to score points for yourself and your nation. This article details how the national competition works in the Caribbean!

If you haven’t read Part 1 of the campaign rules, go back and look over that article first before jumping in here.

We want to keep this campaign really easy for anyone to participate in so the rules for contributing are super simple: play a game and enter your info and pics! But there is another level of competition on top of the basic campaign making things more interesting. These rules are a good bit more complex, but take comfort in the fact that it’s not essential for all players to fully digest these rules. The Commanders of each nation will be making most of the crucial decisions in this part of the campaign. Players can help empower commanders with resources and offer some tactical suggestions through the entry form, but it is not a requirement.

Nation Victory Points

Victory Points are a measure of a nation’s political power and strength.  Players gain points from game submissions and by occupying locations on the political map.   During the campaign, as players earn Campaign Points, they also earn an equal number of Victory Points for their chosen nation.   Additionally, Nations will earn Victory Points for the map Locations they own at the start of the week.  National Commanders may then use Victory Points to attempt to capture new Locations or to boost the defenses of current Locations.  

Campaign Map Overview for Summer of Plunder 2023

There are 36 different Locations on the campaign map representing key cities, ports, or areas of political control.   Locations appear as an icon on the map and the Locations list.   Control of these Locations will change throughout the Campaign as Nations go to war.

View the Campaign Map here.

• Each Location point has an affiliation and emblem to indicate which Nation currently controls that location.
• Defense:  Each point has a Defense rating which indicates the number of Victory Points required to conquer the location
• Victory Points:  This is the number of victory points this location earns per week.

Nation Icons & Campaign Map Legend

	Dutch		Pirates
	English		Spanish
	French		Natives
	Unaligned Points designated as Unaligned are independent states not belong to any specific nation.  They do not generate Victory Points per week.  Their locations exist purely as opportunities for capture by another nation.

Capturing and Defending Control Points

Each week Nation Commanders will develop plans to conquer the various Locations on the map.  Their tactical decisions and the support from players will determine the outcome of events and affect the political control of the region.  Each Nation will have its own pool of Victory Points.  These points are spent to attack or defend control points on the map.

Capturing a control point requires an Attack to exceed the target’s base Defense plus any defender Victory Points allocated by the Nation to its defense.  

[Base Defense] + [Defender VP] + [Bonus Points] = [Target Defense]

Defender VP = A Commander may assign some of their currently earned Victory Points to the Defense of any Location.  If you are attacked at a location with a Defender VP assigned, that VP can be lost if the location is attacked by an enemy.

Bonus Points = Each week players will get to vote for two locations belonging to their nation to bolster defenses. The locations receiving the most votes will get a temporary +15 points to its Defense.  Additional bonuses occur during the campaign from special events.

Victory Point Rules

• Any Victory Points spent on an attack are permanently lost regardless of success fo failure.
• Any Victory Points spent on defense are only lost if the region is attacked, up to the amount of the attack.
• If multiple Nations attack the same Location the Nation with the highest bid wins.  
• In the event of a tie, the Defender wins.  If two Attackers tie, the Location will be changed to an Unaligned.

Example 1: Campeche has a Defense of 27.   At the start of the week, the Natives chose to spend 12 Victory Points on the defense raising it to 39.  If the Spanish commander submitted an attack with 46 points, then the attack succeeded and Campeche would now belong to the Spanish.   The Spanish lose 46 VP for the initial attack but now control Campeche and will earn 9 Victory Points each week they control that Location.  The Natives would lose all  12 VP for those troops added to the defense.

Example 2:  In the same situation for defense, the Spanish attacked with 35 VP.   The attack fails to beat the defense of 39 so the Natives maintained control.  The Spanish lose 35 VP.  The Natives lose 8 VP (35- 27 Base Defense) during the fight.

Raids

Once a week a Commander may designate one player in their faction (by choice, by being the player that earned the most points, at random or by some other means) to “lead a raid” on a nation of their choice.  That player gets to pick a nation to attack.  Random results are then for the outcome of the raid on a d10.

Weekly Round Breakdown

Phase 1.  Allocate Resources

• National Commanders will decide their intended targets and how they wish to organize their defenses for the week.  The Commander will submit (in secret) a Commander Report to the campaign leaders (Joseph/Jason). 

Phase 2.  Games are Played

• Players play games during the week and earn Campaign Points for themselves and Victory Points for their respective nations.  
• When submitting their entry the player can vote for 2 Locations to Attack and 1 Location to Defend.
• Trash talk, respectful taunting, and role-playing on Facebook/Discord are welcomed and encouraged.

Phase 3.  Combat is Resolved

• At the end of the week, the success/failure of attacks is revealed and the map is updated with changes in political control

Phase 4.  New Resources are Awarded

• Nations will receive Victory Points for Locations they control.
• Nations will receive Victory Points for games played by players in Phase 2 of the week.

Example:

Phase 1

• Spain has 48 Victory Points.   They spend 40 pts to attack the Native’s Apalachee(30) and 8 to defend St Augustine, FL(27).
• England has 65 Victory Points.  They spend 30 pts to attack Spain’s St Augustine(27)  and 35 to attack Apalachee (30).
• Natives have 38 Victory Points.  They use 31 to attack the Unaligned target of Vera Cruz (24) and put 3 VP in defense of Fort Noorhooka (24) making it 27 and 4 VP to Apalachee (30) bringing it to 34.
  

Phase 2

Games are played and new points are earned to spend the following week:

• Spain earns 50 pts
• English earns 46 pts
• Natives earn 19 pts

Phase 3

• Spain and England both attacked Apalachee which has a defense of 30, but the Natives raised it to 34.
  • Spain wins Apalachee because they spent 40 VPs which exceed the Native’s Defense of 34
  • England’s still lose the 35 VP for their failed attack.  (e.g. multiple armies fought, casualties and resources were lost on all sides during the attack)
  • The Natives lost and their defenses were broken so they lose the 4 VP they had used in defense.
• England (30) attacked St Augustine, but was unable to overcome the Spanish Defenders (32)
  • St Augustine remains in Spanish control but they lost 3 of the 8 VP allocated to defense (England’s attack was 3 over the base defense)
  • England loses their 30 VP spent on the attack.
• The Natives’ 31 was enough to capture Vera Cruz (24).

Phase 4

• All nations are awarded the points earned by players in Phase 2:
  • Spain earns 50 pts
  • English earn 46 pts
  • Natives earn 19 pts
• Spain earns for their Locations (9 Campeche, 9 Cartegena, 14 Havana, 9 Panama, 9 St Augustine, FL)
• England earns 48 for their Locations (10 Antigua, 10 Boston, 14 Jamaica, 14 New York)
• Natives earn 87 for their Locations (10 Apalachee, 8 Costa de Mosquitos, 8 Fort Noorhooka, 9 Missisquoi, 8 Natchez, 9 Norridgewock, 9 Onondaga, 9 Quilombo dos Palmares, 9 St Vincent, newly acquired 8 Vera Cruz)

How Does A Nation Win the Overall Campaign?

At the end of the campaign, the Nation that has the most Victory Points wins. 
Final Victory Points are determined by:

• Any unspent Victory Points at the end of Week 9
• Any new player points earned in the final week of play.
• The full DEFENSE value (not the VP) of the Locations under the control of a Nation after combat in the final week (e.g. the final week Aruba gives 45 pts, Havana gives Nassau gives 33). Controlling a location at the end is worth more than a weekly basis.

Example using the French:

All players who participated in that nation’s victory share in the glory! And one player who contributed to the glorious win will win the Grand Prize for a 6th Rate Frigate from Firelock Games. See details for all prizes in Campaign Rules Part 1.

Player Integrity

This is a fun, casual event and we haven’t had any issues with cheating before and we’d like to keep it that way! But players found to be cheating or abusing the rules will be prevented from participating in the remaining portion of the event immediately forfeit any campaign points earned and will be ineligible to receive any prizes.  Cheating could exist in many forms, including but not limited to:

• Falsely reporting games played
• Falsely claiming players are “new” to earn bonus points
• Falsely reporting games as being in a local game store, convention, or public venue to earn bonus points
• Submitting entries under multiple/alias emails to increase the odds of winning
• Staging photos for games that were not actually played
• Claiming other player’s entries as your own

Campaign Sponsors

We have a big team of volunteers helping out with this campaign! In addition to the team of commanders and their seconds, there are several Campaign Sponsors contributing both their time and helping with a great lineup of prizes. For a full list of the prizes that can be won, check out Part 1 of the Campaign Rules.

A huge thanks to our sponsors!

• Firelock Games
• Timber & Sail – Jason Klotz
• The Plunder Den – Dexter Heide
• Tales of the Sail – Tom Mullane and Glenn van Meter
• Dead Man’s Chest – Tyler Stone
• Things from the Basement
• The Doubloon Lagoon – Tyler Carlson
• Seamons’ Quality Sails

Conclusion

We got a lot of helpful feedback after last year’s event and this map element was one of the most common requests. After completing two full test runs with this system, we’re excited about this new addition to the 3rd Summer of Plunder campaign and we hope it will add another level of fun and narrative to the event!

Welcome to the 2023 Summer of Plunder!