Ketchy cubby

Ketchy Cubby is a type of blockade event, supposedly named after "rastafarian pyramid sloop tag". The premise of the game is based upon the requirements of vessels attacking other ships with specific objectives.

Background

Ketchy Cubby was of series of blockade events coined and run primarily by Notorious Fandango on the Midnight Ocean. Ketchy Cubby events were also run by other flags and included one event run on the Cobalt Ocean. The original intent of Ketchy Cubby was to stir up blockade action with events on oceans, along with the intent of attacking larger flags and their alliances without jobber pay, as well as to provide a meaningful goal for smaller vessels and crews to compete for on the blockade board.

Rules

Original Version

The original Ketchy Cubby rules were established by Notorious Fandango for the blockade of Spring III on Midnight.

A participating sloop deports at the blockade at which Ketchy Cubby is being held, sails out into the blockade board, and fires one cannonball into a specific ship. In most cases, a defending ship is the required ship that must be attacked. The sloop then ports, sends a tell to a referee confirming the cannonball hit, and then deports again. This time, the sloop is required to hit a defending ship with two cannonballs, then port. After confirmation is received of the hits, the sloop deports, sails out to hit a defending ship with three cannonballs, and ports again. This process is repeated until the end of the blockade. Confirmation is required each port, and after it is received, the sloop deports with the requirement of hitting defending ships with one more cannonball than their last port. Sloops are not allowed to come off the blockade board into the safety zone before they have reached their required number of hits. If they do so, their accumulated hits for the current run are reset, and they must restart at the number of hits they were attempting to reach.

Alternate Versions

An alternate rule set for Ketchy Cubby was devised by Looseweed in his Ketchy Cubby II: King of the Ring event. Sloops were required to hit various ships of increasing size that were each restricted to movement in one quarter of a blockade board. Hits were done in progressive order, but only one cannonball hit was required as opposed to the original incrementing amounts. Sloops were therefore required to engage with enemy participating sloops along with their targets, while circumnavigating most of the board. In this event, only one pirate was allowed on board each sloop, increasing the risk of sinking and also making the event more difficult.

A variant was also proposed for sinking blockades, in which only one cannonball hit was required each time the sloop deported, in order to speed up the game.

The open nature of Ketchy Cubby and the idea of sloop tag allows for many different variants of the rules to be interpreted.

Other Uses

Due to the nature of Ketchy Cubby, it is often considered as an option for a indirect method for gaining support for blockades, as the event holders can require that specific ships be hit, such as ships belonging to the attacking or defending flag. Ideas for Ketchy Cubby have been proposed both on and off the blockade board, although Ketchy Cubby has so far only been held within blockades.

History

Ketchy Cubby has been held in a number of different blockade locations.

2005-04-17, at Spring III: The first Ketchy Cubby event was held.^[1]

2005-07-17, at Ostreum IV.^[2]

2006-03-19, at Meke V. Held as part of the Ketchy Cubby II event.

Ketchy Cubby World Tour

Notorious Fandango announced a Ketchy Cubby event, to be held at multiple islands and on multiple oceans on May 23, 2006, after a period during which Ketchy Cubby events had not been held.^[3]

Blockades that were part of the world tour included six blockades on Midnight, and one blockade on Cobalt, and points were given out for participation in each blockade event, with the eventual prize of a white familiar being announced for the event.

The following blockades were part of the world tour.

2006-06-10, Winter IV.^[4]
2006-06-25, Zeta VI.^[5]
2006-07-23, Cranberry VI.^[6]
2006-08-13, Cleo V.^[7]
2006-09-16, Meke VIII.^[8]
2006-09-23, Corona II.^[9]
2006-09-28, Meke IX.^[10]