Captain's Quarry

Scott Hardie | June 2, 2013
It's time for the summer event in Pirate Paradise: Captain's Quarry, where you'll hunt for other players to join your team. When you defeat another player, he is forced to join your team as a crewman, and anyone else that he goes on to defeat in the future will also join your team, earning you a bonus prize. If you defeat a captain, his entire team will join yours! When there's only one team left and all battles are over, that team's captain will win the event. If you are forced to join someone else's team, your only chance to win is mutiny: Defeat your own captain and seize control of the team yourself!

For example, here's one possible way that this might play out:
1) Justin defeats Erik. Erik joins Team Woods.
2) Erik defeats Tony. Tony also joins Team Woods.
3) Russ defeats Justin, their captain. Justin, Erik, and Tony all join Team Wilhelm.
4) Erik defeats Russ, his new captain. Team Wilhelm becomes Team Bates.
5) Chris defeats Tony. Tony leaves to join Team Lemler, but Russ and Justin stay behind with Erik on Team Bates.

Depending on who is randomly selected to fight whom, you may wind up in many battles at once or only a few, but you'll always have at least three battles going at once. (After a battle ends, please allow a few minutes for the site to generate the next one.) If you're not currently in battle against the player who you want to defeat, then hurry up and finish the battles that you do have, so that the site can generate more for you.

When all teams eventually merge into one, no new battles will spawn. At that point, mutiny could still happen with the battles already underway, so we'll have to wait until every battle ends before we declare a winner.

Good luck, and have fun! :-)

Erik Bates | June 3, 2013
[hidden by request]

Steve West | June 3, 2013
I love events!

Scott Hardie | June 3, 2013
Me too! They're a good way to try new strategies and liven up the game a little.

I have been kicking around this idea since before PP launched, but I waited until the game had been underway for a while so that I could plot our previous battles into a hypothetical model of how this event would play out. I needed to test that it would likely play out as intended, in the right timeframe without prizes mounting out of control. I did wind up making a few changes as a result of the model: Originally, when an enemy captain was captured, I had planned for his crewmen to spin off into "teams of one" as if they were liberated. But the model showed that this would make the event take months longer to play out, so I modified the rules to encourage larger teams faster and introduced the element of mutiny. I nearly renamed the event to something involving the word mutiny, but I like the double meaning in "Captain's Quarry" so I kept it.

It is conceivable that some players will finish this event with no prize at all. I prefer that everyone leave every event with something, but I'm willing to allow an exception once in a while. Every event is a new experiment with game rules; some will work and some will not.

Chris Lemler | June 3, 2013
Scott I really enjoy this new tourney for PP good job

Scott Hardie | June 4, 2013
Sorry, I neglected to mention at launch that with all events, turns are limited to three days instead of the usual seven. This is intended to avoid someone "slow rolling" an opponent... or more precisely, it's intended to avoid everyone slow rolling everyone else. :-)

Steve West | June 15, 2013
Three cheers for Cap'n Hardie! That was really fast. Let's do it again!

Scott Hardie | June 15, 2013
Thanks! That is, if I do emerge victorious. There are still several ways that the final team could flip over to someone else's control.

I have really enjoyed this event, for the different strategies required, like careful timing of forfeits to "jump ship" at the exact right moment. I wouldn't want there to be any benefit in forfeiting most of the time, but once in a while, it's neat to play the game with a twist.

Steve West | June 15, 2013
My mistake. I thought once the crews were all combined it was over. I get it now. Three cheers for Cap'n Hardie anyway!

Scott Hardie | June 24, 2013
At last, the final battle is over, and we have a winner: Congratulations, me!

I really liked this event, and not just because it ended well for me. :-) I'm glad to see that it was popular with other players too. Would you like to play another round of this in the fall, or something else? If we do run this again (sooner or later), I'll probably reduce the rate to two battles at a time so that it lasts longer.

Gold coin prizes will be distributed later tonight. Thanks for a fun month.

Steve West | June 24, 2013
Oh, yes. Again would be good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Except for Handicap, of course. Sigh.

Matthew Preston | June 25, 2013
Congrats Scott! Well played.