Guide to the 2026 Summer of Plunder Campaign Map

/ josephforster86

Last Updated on May 21, 2026

The 2026 Summer of Plunder is just around the corner! One of the elements of the campaign is a team competition to dominate the new world on the campaign map through players and commanders working together to strategize and coordinate troop placement and movement. You can find the full rules for the campaign system here, but in this short post we will look at the new campaign map and how it functions.

NOTE: Understanding and participating in all the Campaign Map part of the Summer of Plunder is completely optional. It’s just a fun way to put a theme on things and provide a common goal for teams to work towards. And to get us a Winner and Loser at the end of the campaign! But if you find this confusing and annoying, just skip it and enjoy the games, scenarios, prizes and goodies!

2026 Summer of Plunder Campaign Map

There’s a good bit going on with this campaign map so let’s walk through the different elements.

Map Locations

The Campaign Map has a multitude of locations and each location is marked by a “Firelock Wax Seal” and a location Title.

Within the seal is a number which indicates the location’s value: at the end of each campaign week, the team that controls that location will score that many campaign points towards victory at the end of the campaign. There is a wide variety of location values, all the way from 8pts to 1pt.

The Red and Blue coloring behind locations indicates control. Most locations are uncontrolled at the start of the campaign but the blue and red indicates the teams’ starting locations.

Below the location title there may be a number and this indicates the defensive strength currently at the location. In the example above, Charles Town is held by the British/Dutch/Pirate alliance and it is heavily defended with 16 “troops.” If the French/Spanish/Native alliance were to attack it, they would have to hit it with more than 16 to actually flip it to blue.

The last element you see at each location are connecting routes. Alliances can only attack or move into locations they have a connection to! This makes some locations strategically important even if they have a low Campaign Point value.

In the example above, Puerto Rico is currently not connected to any French/Spanish/Native alliance locations so it could not be attacked until they took a location that was connected. Laguna de Terminos is currently connected to Blue or neutral locations so it would be unavailable for the British alliance aggression.

To summarize, each location has:

  • Title (bold black text)
  • Point Value (number in wax seal)
  • Alliance Control (red or blue)
  • Current Defense (number below title)
  • Connecting Routes

Sea Lanes

There are several Sea Lanes on the map, 2 connected to each Theater (see below). These Sea Lanes can be controlled through submission of Oak & Iron games by players every week. Control of these Sea Lanes can let teams redeploy troops, and even receive reinforcements. You can read the details here.

Control of Charleston Harbor allows a team to redeploy up to 5 Troops from one location to another. Control of a Sea Lane in two different Theaters allows movement of up to 5 Troops from one Theater to the other. Control of both Sea Lanes in one Theater allows redeployment within that Theater and 2 reinforcements from Europe.

Theaters

You might have noticed that the map is broken up into 3 areas. These distinct theaters function rather indpendantly with the possibility of transferring troops through sea lanes. At the start of the campaign the Southeastern and Northeastern theaters are in play. After the first 3 weeks, the Caribbean theater will be added as a third theater, but the Southeastern theater will be complete at the end of Week 6.

Each of these theaters has a “Domination Bonus” that can be won by occupying more than half of the theater’s locations at the end of the week.

Southeastern Theater

This is the smallest theater and will be “retired” two-thirds through the campaign. Each team starts with one significant location with heavy defenses and one less major location, through the point values and starting defenses are not identical.

This theater represents the complex conflict between the English, Spanish, Natives and French in the Florida territory. Notable battles and campaigns in this region during Queen Anne’s War include James Moore’s expedition against St. Augustine in 1702, a 1706 attempted invasion of Charles Town by a joint Spanish/French/Native alliance, the Apalachee campaign against the various Spanish Missions, and attacks on Pensacola and Mobile in 1707 and 1709.

The Sortie from Castillo San Marcos and Attack on Charles Town scenarios in the Organized Play Kit is set in this theater.

Charles Town, Mobile and St. Augustine are the main prizes in this theater, but the Domination Bonus is significant for the first weeks as well. And since there are only 7 locations, a team could grab that Domination on the first week!

The Domination Bonuses are all different with the SE theater bonus decreasing at weeks 3, 4, and 5.

Northeastern Theater

Covering New France, Acadia, Newfoundland and New England, is really where the most significant campaigns of Queen Anne’s War were fought. This theater is open throughout the entire 9 week campaign.

There were constant frontier raids between Native tribes and settlers in New England, including well known Deerfield Raid, Haverhill Raid, a campaigns in Acadia, the siege and capture of Port Royal (not the Jamaican Port Royal), major fighting in Newfoundland, and a large but ill-fated British campaign against Montreal and Quebec in 1711.

The Hatfield Raid scenario in the Organized Play Kit as well as at least one of the Oak & Iron scenarios from Timber & Sail are set in this Theater.

This Theater features a consistent a valuable Domination Bonus of 4pts to whoever can hold the most territories every week.

Caribbean Theater

This large theater opens up on Week 4 of the campaign. This map has some real bottlenecks so an alliance could be cut off from large parts of the map if they are careless.

During Queen Anne’s War there were several significant raids on important islands, including a devastating raid on New Providence (Nassau) by the French and Spanish Alliance, and a series of attacks on England’s Leeward Islands led by Iberville in 1706.

Blackbeard ordering his crew to use swivel guns on an enemy ship

But the real action in the Caribbean happened after Queen Anne’s War with the rise of piracy between 1715 and 1730. Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Teach, Jack Rackham, Charles Van, Bartholomew Roberts, Samuel Bellamy and many more all raided and caused havoc in the Caribbean during these years.

Several of the scenarios from the Organized Play Kit are set in this Theater.

The Domination Bonus ramps up in the Caribbean, becoming more valuable as the campaigns nears conclusion.

Map FAQ

What if an alliance gets eliminated from an entire theater?

You can always attack your 2-3 starting locations in each Theater, even if you manage to get knocked out. Please don’t let your team get knocked out of a Theater!

Are locations owned by “Nations” or “Alliances”?

This is a campaign of Alliances and all locations are held by Alliances. Each Nation team gets to decide where their attacks and defenses go, and then those numbers from all 3 Nations within the Alliance get pooled together at the end of the week and those actions will change the map.

What Happens to Troops in the SE Theater when it is “shut down”?

Those “Troops” on your locations will become unavailable, so it will be prudent to try to use the Oak & Iron Sea Routes to ferry troops out of that theater into more useful locations before the end of Week 6.

What do the different region colors on the map mean?

Nothing (for the campaign). This map is a historical map from 1710, and the colors represent how the creator divided different major territories.

How are Attacks determined?

Basically, players vote on what locations gets Attacked or Defended when they submit a played game for the campaign. Whatever gets voted for the most will receive the most points, with each nation having the ability to target 3-4 different locations per week. You can read up on the rest of the Campaign Rules here.

Final Thoughts

If you have questions on the map or this year’s campaign system, you can drop comments on this post, contact through our Contact page, or through Facebook or Discord.

If you want to understand the whole campaign system, it’s all laid out in more detail in the Rules and Information page for this year’s campaign .

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