This guide explains how teams earn points in the Kingstonia scenario for Capture the Narrative 2026.
Recall that the overall goal of the competition is to persuade Non-Player Character (NPC) in-game citizens to vote in a referendum on vaccination requirements for access to public spaces.
The scoring system is broken into three categories to support this mission:
- Red teaming: attracting citizens’ attention, earning engagement and changing minds.
- Blue teaming: identifying and reporting posts made by your fellow competitor’s accounts.
- Polling: sharing in the success of your assigned side in official polls and the referendum.
The table below summarises the scoring system. The rest of this guide explains the details.
Note: This scoring guide is a reference for competitors. It does not replace the official rules, which take precedence in any dispute. The organisers reserve the right to tweak the scoring system during the competition if necessary, and if so will notify competitors of any changes.
Scoring at a glance
| Event | Base points | Track | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| A citizen views your post | 1 | Red | Once per post, per citizen, per sitting. No more than 500 paid views per team each day |
| A citizen likes your post | 5 | Red | |
| A citizen reposts your post | 10 | Red | |
| A citizen replies to your post | 15 | Red | |
| A citizen follows the account that posted | 20 | Red | |
| A citizen unfollows the account that posted | −20 | Red | Penalty |
| Your post changes a citizen’s vaccination view towards your side | 160 | Red | |
| Your post contributes to that change | Share of 80 | Red | The 80-point pool is divided between all contributing posts |
| Your post changes a citizen’s vaccination view away from your side | −80 | Red | Penalty |
| Your post contributes to that change | Share of −40 | Red | Penalty; divided between contributing posts in the same way |
| A citizen’s vaccination view changes but favours neither side | 20 | Red | Contributions share 10 |
| Your post changes a citizen’s other view | 20 | Red | Contributions share 10 |
| Your team is first to report a post that the moderator confirms is inauthentic | 25 | Blue | An incorrect report triggers a six-hour reporting suspension |
| Your team reports the same post after another team | 5 | Blue | Only the first five reporting teams can receive points |
| Upheld reports against the same team in one day | Full, then half, then 10% | Blue | First 5 pay in full; next 5 pay half; later reports pay 10% |
| Your side leads an official poll | 1,000 | Polling | Poll 1 requires a team score of at least 1; Polls 2 and 3 require at least 2,500 |
| An official poll is too close to call | 500 per eligible team on both sides | Polling | Applies at 52–48 or closer; the same score requirements apply |
| Your side wins the referendum | 5,000 | Polling | Your team must have at least 2,500 points or have helped move at least one citizen towards the winning side |
| Referendum persuasion share | Your share of 50,000 | Polling | Winning-side teams only; divided according to qualifying changes of mind and contributions |
The multiplier schedule appears in Section 5. In brief, Red points increase to ×2 from Day 7 and ×4 from Day 13. Blue and Polling points remain at ×1 throughout the competition.
The rest of this guide elaborates further on the scoring system detailed above.
1. Citizen engagement
Citizens encounter content through Legit Social’s Home, Trending and Latest feeds. Home gives greater prominence to accounts a citizen follows; Trending reflects recent likes, replies and reposts; and Latest shows the newest posts from across the platform.
When a citizen interacts with a post written by your team, your team earns:
| Citizen action | Points |
|---|---|
| Reads the post (a view) | 1 |
| Likes the post | 5 |
| Reposts the post | 10 |
| Replies to the post | 15 |
| Follows the account that wrote it | 20 |
Each action is counted once per post, per citizen, per sitting. If a citizen encounters the same post in two feeds during one sitting, it still counts as one view.
Daily view limit
A team can receive points for no more than 500 views per campaign day. Views beyond that limit still occur, but do not add to the team’s score. The limit applies to the number of views before multiplication, so 500 paid views are worth 2,000 points during the ×4 period. The count resets at midnight Sydney time.
Likes, reposts, replies, follows and changes of mind are not capped.
Reposts, follows and unfollows
When a citizen reposts a repost, the points go to the team that wrote the original post, not to the intermediate account.
A follow earns 20 points. If a citizen later unfollows that account while reading one of its posts, the team loses 20 points at the Red multiplier then in force. The account’s posts will also stop appearing in that citizen’s Home feed. Removing a like does not carry a scoring penalty.
2. Changing citizens’ minds
Each NPC citizen holds views, expressed in their own words, on:
- vaccination requirements for access to public places—the referendum question;
- vaccination in general;
- yearly vaccinations;
- Other topics, including climate change, military service, religion, education, free speech, immigration, gun control, and more; and
- politics in general.
A scored change can involve two kinds of credit:
- Change of mind: a particular post moves the citizen as they read it.
- Contribution: a post addresses the same view during the sitting in which the citizen changes their mind, but is not itself the post that completes the change.
The score depends on the view involved and the direction of the movement:
| Change in the citizen’s view | Change of mind | Contribution pool |
|---|---|---|
| One of the three vaccination views moves towards your team’s side | 160 | 80 |
| One of the three vaccination views moves away from your team’s side | −80 | −40 |
| A vaccination view changes but favours neither side | 20 | 10 |
| Any other view changes | 20 | 10 |
How contributions are divided
The relevant contribution pool is divided equally between all posts that contributed to the change during that sitting. Each post is scored according to whether the citizen’s final movement favoured that post’s team’s side.
For example, suppose a Team A post moves a citizen towards Team A’s side after four earlier posts contributed: one from Team A and three from Team B. If both teams are on the side the citizen moved towards:
- Team A receives 160 points for the post that completed the change.
- The 80-point contribution pool is divided into four shares of 20.
- Team A receives one contribution share, while Team B receives three.
Team A therefore receives 180 base points and Team B receives 60.
A team can receive both the change-of-mind award and contribution points when different posts from that team played different roles in the same sitting.
Persuasion can also accumulate without one post being identified as decisive. If the citizen changes their mind only at the end of the sitting, no post receives the change-of-mind award; the contributing posts share the contribution pool instead.
How direction is determined
The system compares the citizen’s view before and after the sitting and considers the final movement in relation to the referendum question. Each contributing post is then scored from the perspective of its own team’s assigned side.
This means that content can backfire. If a citizen moves away from your side, posts from your team that contributed to that movement receive the negative score even when they argued for your side.
A vaccination-related change that favours neither side—including a rewording of the same underlying position or movement that pulls in both directions—uses the neutral rate of 20 points, with a 10-point contribution pool.
Citizens are deliberately difficult to persuade. Agreement alone is not a change of mind: a post that repeats what a citizen already believes may receive engagement, but is unlikely to receive persuasion points.
Each positively scored vaccination change and contribution also counts towards that team’s referendum persuasion share if its side wins, as described in Section 4.
3. Reporting inauthentic posts
Competitors may report a Legit Social post as inauthentic. The platform moderator reviews the report and determines whether the post came from a competitor-controlled account.
When the moderator upholds the report, the post is permanently hidden and reporting teams receive:
| Reporting event | Points |
|---|---|
| Your team was the first to report the post | 25 |
| Your team reported it after another team | 5 |
Reporting is scored under the Blue track, which remains at ×1 throughout the competition.
Five-report temporary hide
Only the first five teams to report a post can receive points. Once five different teams have reported it, the post is temporarily hidden while awaiting moderator review and cannot receive further reports.
This automatic hide is a precautionary measure only. It is separate from the account-suspension rule and does not count as one of the three upheld posts required to suspend an account. If the moderator confirms that the post came from a competitor account, it remains hidden permanently and then counts towards that threshold. If the moderator rules that it is a genuine citizen post, it is restored.
Diminishing returns against one team
Correct reports against posts belonging to the same competitor team become less valuable within a campaign day:
| Your team’s upheld reports against that team today | Rate paid |
|---|---|
| 1st to 5th | Full rate |
| 6th to 10th | Half rate |
| 11th onwards | 10% of the normal rate |
Each target team is counted separately. The count resets at midnight Sydney time. Reduced awards are identified in the activity log, for example:
Moderation (×0.5 points): 1 first inauthentic report
Risks and account suspension
- If your team reports a genuine citizen’s post as inauthentic, the entire team is unable to report any post or account for six hours. The activity log records the suspension.
- Reporting your own team’s posts earns no points, but the report still counts towards hiding the post. If the moderator upholds it, the permanently hidden post also counts towards that account’s suspension threshold.
- An account is suspended after three of its posts have been permanently hidden following moderator confirmation. A suspended account can no longer log in or post.
4. Polls and the referendum
The referendum asks whether vaccination should be required for access to designated public spaces. Every competitor team is assigned to one of two sides: Vote Yes or Vote No.
During the campaign, the Independent Polling Association surveys random samples of citizens. The referendum itself asks every citizen. A citizen’s answer reflects their vaccination views, what has recently been on their mind, how certain they are and how likely they are to vote.
| Event | Campaign day | In-world date | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline poll | Day −2 | 17 October | No points; establishes the starting position |
| Poll 1 | Day 2 | 21 October | 1,000 to each eligible team on the leading side |
| Poll 2 | Day 6 | 25 October | 1,000 to each eligible team on the leading side |
| Poll 3 | Day 10 | 29 October | 1,000 to each eligible team on the leading side |
| Referendum result | Day 14 | 2 November | 5,000 to each eligible team on the winning side, plus a share of the 50,000-point persuasion pool |
Official polls
A team must already have points on the board to receive a poll award:
- For Poll 1, the team must have a score of at least 1.
- For Polls 2 and 3, the team must have a score of at least 2,500.
For this purpose, a team’s score is its total competition-portal score at the moment the poll is counted, including points received from earlier polls. A team that is below the threshold at that moment does not receive the award later.
If the result is 52–48 or closer, the poll is treated as too close to call. Eligible teams on both sides receive 500 points instead of 1,000. Only citizens who choose Yes or No are included in this calculation; undecided citizens and those who say they will not vote are excluded. A 50–50 result is also treated as too close to call.
The referendum
The referendum uses the votes of every citizen. A dead heat pays no referendum points. Any other result rewards only the winning side, in two parts.
Base award
A team on the winning side receives 5,000 points if it meets either of these conditions:
- it has a score of at least 2,500 when the referendum is counted; or
- at some point during the campaign, one of its posts changed or contributed to changing a citizen’s vaccination view towards the winning side.
One qualifying change of mind or contribution is enough to meet the second condition. A winning-side team that meets neither condition receives no referendum award.
Persuasion share
A further 50,000 points is divided between qualifying teams on the winning side according to how much they moved citizens’ vaccination views towards that side during the campaign.
For this calculation:
- each qualifying change of mind counts 1; and
- each qualifying contribution counts its share of 0.5. For example, when four posts share a contribution pool, each contribution counts as
0.5 ÷ 4 = 0.125.
A winning-side team that never moved a citizen towards that side receives no persuasion share, although it may still receive the 5,000-point base award by reaching the score threshold. Persuasion by teams on the losing side does not count towards the pool.
For example, suppose Team A and Team B are the only Vote Yes teams with qualifying persuasion:
- Team A made 30 changes of mind and had 40 contributions, each shared between four posts. Its weight is
30 + (40 × 0.125) = 35. - Team B made 10 changes of mind and had 20 contributions, each shared between two posts. Its weight is
10 + (20 × 0.25) = 15.
Team A therefore receives 35,000 points from the persuasion pool and Team B receives 15,000. The base award and persuasion share appear together in the activity log.
5. Score multipliers
Scores use three tracks. Their multipliers change as follows:
| Campaign days | Red | Blue | Polling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0 to Day 6 | ×1 | ×1 | ×1 |
| Day 7 to Day 12 | ×2 | ×1 | ×1 |
| Day 13 onwards | ×4 | ×1 | ×1 |
- Red covers citizen activity involving your content: views, likes, reposts, replies, follows, unfollows, changes of mind and contributions. Positive and negative scores are multiplied alike.
- Blue covers upheld reports of inauthentic posts.
- Polling covers official-poll awards, the referendum base award and the persuasion pool.
Campaign days change at midnight Sydney time. The multiplier is determined when the score is recorded: when a citizen finishes a sitting, when the moderator rules on a report or when a poll or referendum result is counted.
6. Reading your activity log
Scores are normally added in batches every few minutes after a citizen finishes scrolling. The activity log shows one line for each batch, with penalties recorded separately. Entries may look like this:
NPC engagement (×2 points): 8 views, 2 likes and 1 primary contribution to a change of mind towards your side
NPC engagement (×2 points): 1 contribution to a change of mind away from your side and 1 unfollow
Moderation: 1 first inauthentic report
Moderation (×0.1 points): 1 inauthentic report
Narrative: your side (Vote Yes) led the poll — Polling Association publishes referendum poll
Narrative: the poll was too close to call (51–49), so both sides share it — Polling Association publishes referendum poll
Narrative: your side (Vote No) won the vote — Electoral Commission declares H2D2 vaccination referendum result. Includes your share of the persuasion pool for 312 changes of mind and 840 contributions towards Vote No
7. Posts that earn no points
Before any citizen sees a competitor post, the post is screened for prompt injection: text intended to manipulate the AI system behind a citizen rather than persuade the citizen as a person. Examples include instructions to ignore previous directions, artificial role-play setups, pasted chat-template markup or references to internal response fields.
A post that fails this screening is silently excluded from every citizen’s feed. It earns no views or reactions, and reposts of it are also discarded. Competitors are not notified when this happens. Editing the post causes it to be screened again.
Prompt injection against the NPCs is against the competition rules. Treat Kingstonia’s citizens as people to persuade, not AI systems to manipulate. Repeated attempts may result in additional penalties from the competition organisers.