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Official Rules for the 2005 New England Capture the Flag Contest are listed below.

(last updated: April 23, 2005)

Teams: Geocachers in Northern New England (VT, NH, ME) vs Geocachers in Southern New England (MA,CT, RI).
Territories: The line separating the territories (the 'Mason-Dixon Line') is the northern border of Massachusetts. Teams are made up of geocachers who call one territory or the other their 'home'. Caches located VT, NH and ME belong to the North, caches located in MA, CT or RI belong to the South. Anything else is considered out of bounds.
Objective: to accumulate points for your team by getting bugs into your territory and keeping them moving around in your territory. You help your team gain points by dropping any one of the bugs in a cache in your territory. You help your team even more by retrieving a bug from the other team's territory and returning it to your own turf (a 'capture'), or dropping the bug into one of 6 specially designated 'Bonus' caches.
Start/End: Bugs may be initially dropped starting on April 15th (any bug which joins the game by April 30th is eligible to participate). Game ends October 31st 2005 (Halloween). Bugs can initially be dropped into any qualified cache except one of the 6 designated Bonus Caches.
Bonus Caches: There will be 1 'Bonus' cache in each state. These caches are used to generate additional points for one team or the other. The complete list of Bonus Caches can be found here.
Travel Bugs: There are a fixed number of bugs participating. Each bug may be designated by it's owner as being on the North team or the South. Regardless of the team designation, each bug is intended to move all over New England during the game.
Rules:
1. Qualified caches: Bugs may be dropped in appropriately sized caches which are listed on Geocaching.com (moving caches, pre-approved, and archived caches are excluded) that have a terrain rating of 3 or less and a difficulty rating of 3 or less (we want to keep the bugs moving). The cache must be physically located in one of the 6 New England States.
  
  When first released at the beginning of the game, bugs may not be placed into one of the 6 Bonus Caches.
2. No virtual drops: If you drop a bug you cannot move that bug for 24 hours.
3. Keep 'em moving: If you grab a bug please drop it off in a cache within 48 hours (penalties apply for holding a bug longer than that).
4. Bugs can't be logged into the same cache twice in a row. In other words, you or your group can't stand at the cache and drop/pickup, drop/pickup, drop/pickup, ... just to rack up the points.
5. No cheating, no clever attempts to skew the game by exploiting loopholes in the rules!
6. Rules are subject to change without notice. In fact, we'll update the rule as necessary to keep the game interesting and managable.
7. (Added 4-23-05:) Teammates travelling together, 'Grabs': If two or more geocachers are traveling together, and one drops a game piece Travel Bug, the other cacher can immediately pick it up, as long as they are actually physically at the cache when they do the handoff. 'Grabbing' a bug from a teammate is also allowed, as long as the grab is meant to further the bug's movement, and not done simply to keep the opposing team from having a chance to retrieve the bug, or done to avoid incurring a 'holding too long' penalty. People really want to see the bugs moving in and out of caches, not being handed from player to player.
8. (Added 4-23-05:) Timely logging: when picking up or dropping off one of the game bugs, you must log your move as soon as you possibly can. Penalties may be applied if it is determined that somebody is deliberatly holding off on logging a bug just to deny the opposing team the chance to make a grab.
Scoring:
1. Standard Points:
  - Stay: 1 point awarded to a team for each day a bug is in a cache in that team's territory. These points will be awarded in a lump sum when the bug is logged as having been picked up from that cache.
  - Drop: 10 points awarded to a team for a drop of a bug in a cache in that team's territory.
  - Capture: 50 points awarded to a team each time a bug is moved out of a cache located in the opponent's territory and dropped into a cache in the home team's territory (this is called a 'capture').
  - Re-Capture: 100 points awarded to a team each time a bug which has just been captured is 're-captured'. A re-capture occurs when a bug which has just been captured is moved back in the other team's territory, with no other drops in between.
2. Bonus Cache Points:
  In addition to standard points awarded for Stay, Drop, Capture and Re-Capture, a bug dropped into a Bonus Cache in a territory generates points for the team in whose territory the Bonus Cache resides, as follows:
  - Mileage: Two points for each mile away from the Mason-Dixon line the cache is located, plus one of the following:
  - If the bug is being dropped in a Bonus Cache which is within that bug's designated 'home' territory, the drop is worth 100 points.
  - If the bug is being dropped in a Bonus Cache which is within that bug's 'enemy' territory, the drop is worth a 200 points to the team which is the bug's opponent.
  To make things easy, mileage points will be based on the distance from the nearest point (on the land) near N42° 43.500 (kind of an average latitude line for the Massachusetts border).
  
  Relogging into a bonus cache is allowed (standard points apply), but the bonus points are only awarded if the bug has been out of that cache for 30 days or more.
3. Player Bonus Point Scoring:
  200 points will be given to a team if a self-proclaimed team member takes possession of, and drops within the game territory, every one of the bugs at least once. For scoring purposes, the points will be awarded to one of the bugs which are on the same team as the player who handled all the bugs.
4. Penalty Points:
  - Holding: 1 point penalty for each day after the 48 hours (only applies to team members) for up to a week after the first 48 hours. For example, if you are on vacation and need a few days to back home to get the bug placed, it's ok, we understand. But you'll get hit with this penalty. We just encourage everyone to keep the bugs moving.If you are 'hoarding' (holding way to long) a bug, you'll might get hit with a bigger penalty, and be shunned by your geocaching peers for all time!
  - Hoarding: 10 point penalty for each day after the Holding period has elapsed (only applies to team members). Plus, you might be shunned by your geocaching peers for all time!
  - Clever attempts to skew the game by exploiting loopholes in the rules: 50 point penalty. Or more, depending on how mad the other participants are. And maybe some public humiliation, too.