[quote=@Shorticus]
I'll be honest... I was very close, after you first asked me to keep my focus in the U.S., asking if I could make a nation of Carribean pirates that attacked the shores of New England on motorboats converted into attack boats.

I thought better of it. Gonna shoot you that PM, by the by, so I can do all my editing in one fell swoop.
[/quote]

I've been trying to half-ass encourage someone to do that since they're there on the map. There's some interesting possibilities with the Caribbean, while not directly relevant to the US itself.

While not being Vikings they'd be the source of some exotic goods unavailable in the mainland. I've called it to my friends the Rum Road, and like the Silk Road that's its name-sake you'd have Jamaican, Cuban, or Trinidadian merchants sailing for the mainland to sell rum, sugar, tobacco, and other exotics in exchange for staple crops otherwise unavailable on the islands. They'd be getting their daily bread while providing high-value produce to the north.

There's also the matter of Jamaican pirates, but you already know that.

And it's not to mention that sugar cane is actually a more efficient means of producing ethanol. While not high in energy output like petroleum (you're not going to be powering diesel motors like large ships, trucks, tanks, or power-plants) they'd still have a high-grade enough fuel to power smaller ships they could use to ply their trade or raids to America so long as they keep to the blue waters of the coast.