I have a question on when plunder should be received for defeating ships. The rules say whenever you defeat a ship. From my experience there are 3 main ways to encounter a ship.
1) you encounter a ship directly(ie enemy ship)
2) you encounter a barrier (ie pirate hunting) that summons a ship
3) you encounter a villain that says something like "before you act you must encounter ship x
Obviously I'm confident of receiving plunder after defeating ships encountered by the the first method, but not the next two.
Thanks in advance
You definitely get plunder any time you defeat a ship, so all of those situations would count.
Any time you defeat a ship, by any method encountered, you receive a plunder card.
Making the sting of encountering Whalebone Plik seven or eight times not so bad, provided you have the resources to deal with him. :D