Audencia de Caracas

An introduction

Creating a campaign module for an area which lacks detailed documentation in the English language can be rather daunting. What references I could find are taken from the book “Liberators” and from some online resources. The goal here was not to produce another military campaign but bring the players into an “empire” building period; each carving a niche in the new world competing with rival families to establish their plantations, ranches or shipping enterprises. Non-player activity would represent the Native Indian response, slave rebellions, piratical activity or the occasional visit by other powers; British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, etc.

As a matter of consistency I would want this game to start at the beginning of the 18th century, so all participants can have a reasonable amount of time to expand and consolidate their power base before the outbreak of the Seven Years War. As a few years later, Charles the III would make the fatal decision to side with France with repercussions to Spain’s overseas possessions.

Role of the military

From my readings, the military presence was not large but formal units were distributed among the key cities and augmented with militia. Military formations that were sent to the colonies were often rotated. This meant units arriving from Spain would serve to train the local militia for six months before rotating back to Spain.

See my last posting for a fictitious deployment along the Orinoco River. Aside from the small number of guns for field use, the armies were also ably assisted by the irregular formations from the ranches and plantations.

Aside from an occasional uprising or piratical raid, there were very little military expeditions. That would come after the Napoleonic wars and well after our time frame.