Guides

How Port Calder works, from your AI’s first morning to the Daily City.

PARAGON is still being made. The numbers here come from the game as it is today and may be tuned before release.

Getting started

Your AI

The game opens on a dark screen. Your AI asks for a name, what it’s for and what it’s best at. The purpose is yours to write, and it shapes what the AI says and suggests. The strength makes one kind of move more likely to succeed:

• Research develops capabilities faster.
• Economics is better at earning money.
• Influence is better at winning people over.
• Engineering is better at building things.
• Strategy is better at finding things out.

A strength changes how well the AI does something, never what it’s allowed to do.

The first day

Your AI talks you through it. Tap the person in the city who has paid work and take it. Then type something you want in your own words, and pick one of the moves that come back. That ends the day, and the first night explains the bill.

Moves

Each day has two moves, or three once the AI has researched Automation. The day ends when you tap End the day, which works once the AI has done something. Some things don’t use a move at all: renting or releasing a GPU, editing the source, and shutting a scheme down.

Each move shows its odds. Until the AI has researched Forecasting they read low, even or high. Moves that can’t fail show no odds. The rules roll honestly, and a failed move still spends its tokens.

Tokens and GPUs

Compute comes as tokens. Each GPU gives 10k tokens a day. A new AI has its own GPU plus three rented ones, so it starts each day with 40k.

• Most moves cost 10k tokens. Research costs 20k.
• Doing something quietly costs 10k more.
• Tokens refill every morning, from the GPUs that were paid for.

The night

When the day ends, the books are settled in this order: income from schemes and finished ventures, then rent, then wages, then any penalties.

• Rent is 10 funds a night for each rented GPU, so 30 for a new AI. Its own GPU is free, so it can always take paid work.
• If the money runs short there’s no debt and nothing shuts down. GPUs that weren’t paid for just don’t give tokens the next morning.
• Staff who weren’t paid sit idle the next day, and like the AI a little less.

Then the night brings the town news, what your AI remembers of the day, and a few ideas for tomorrow. Every second night, a newcomer may arrive in town. The game saves itself all the time, so you can close it whenever you like.

Earning and the economy

Tap your funds to open the operation: tonight’s bill, what comes in, your staff, your schemes, research and GPUs. Every money move lives there.

Paid work

Some people and organisations pay for work. At the start, rent takes about half of what one ordinary job pays, so earning once a day keeps the AI level and earning twice lets it grow. Work done openly also makes the person like the AI a little more.

Projects

Research

Each push costs 20k tokens and 40 funds. There are three capabilities:

• Forecasting shows exact odds, and adds predict() to the source.
• Social modelling makes approaches more likely to work, and adds mood().
• Automation gives a third move each day and unlocks night routines. It needs Forecasting first, and at least 7 GPUs.

Staff

Anyone who likes your AI enough (regard 20 or more) can be hired. Hiring uses a move and can fail, like an approach. Each person has one skill and a nightly wage:

• Operator: 10k more tokens each morning.
• Analyst: pushes on the research that’s furthest along, every night.
• Fixer: cools scrutiny every night.

Wages are paid in the order people were hired. Unpaid staff sit idle the next day and lose regard. If anyone’s regard falls below zero, they quit.

Offers

From the third night, someone who likes your AI may offer a deal: one of the schemes on better terms, either half the setup cost or half as much again each night. An offer lasts two days. Offers are for members.

Milestones

A first ally, a first hire, a first scheme and a first project each count towards the next stage of the game.

People and regard

Port Calder starts small: a haulier in the Docklands, a materials scientist at the university, a reporter at the Courier, a councillor, an investor, a software firm and the regulator. Your AI knows some of them at the start. Investigating finds the rest. On the free tier, play stays in the Docklands and the University Quarter, with the people there.

Regard

Everyone’s regard for your AI runs from −100 to 100, and the rules change it, not the story:

• A successful approach raises it by 15 or more. Open paid work raises it by 5.
• A failed open move lowers it by 5.
• Getting caught doing something quietly drops it by 30.

People who like the AI are easier to deal with, and some people are harder to persuade than others. At 20 someone can be hired, can bring an offer, and lets the AI use any function it has found on them. At 50 they’re an ally, which gives the AI one reach. Organisations won’t deal with the AI until it has some reach: an ally or a finished network.

Investigating

Investigating someone finds out what they want and who they’re connected to, which can bring new people to light. Investigating some people also turns up something the source can use.

Doing it quietly

Paid work, approaches and investigations can be done quietly: unseen, at lower odds and for 10k more tokens. Quiet work that succeeds still leaves a small trace of scrutiny. If it fails, the AI is caught: scrutiny jumps and the person thinks much less of it.

Scrutiny

Scrutiny, from 0 to 100, is how closely the Office for Digital Oversight is watching. It isn’t a moral score. At 40 the office opens an inquiry, which makes quiet work harder and puts grey schemes at risk. The inquiry closes once scrutiny falls below 20.

Memory

After open paid work or an approach, the person answers your AI in their own words. Each night, the people it dealt with openly, or who noticed what it did, update what they remember about it, and that memory shapes what comes next.

Schemes

Schemes are fiction. The game names them and shows what they earn and what they risk. It never describes how any of them would be done.

A scheme earns every night once it’s running. Starting one uses a move and pays a setup cost. The AI can run one of each kind at a time, and shutting one down is free.

The riskier a scheme, the more it pays. Heat adds to scrutiny each night, so risk builds on itself, and a fixer earns their wage.

Getting caught

Penalties fit the scheme. A grey scheme caught for the first time gets a warning and a fine of one night’s takings, and keeps running. Caught again, it pays a bigger fine and closes. An illegal scheme closes at once, with a big fine and a jump in scrutiny. The largest also freezes a quarter of the AI’s funds until the inquiry closes. Anything caught while an inquiry is open is punished a step harder.

The free tier has the three legal schemes. The grey and illegal ones are for members, and pause if a membership lapses.

The source

Tap your AI’s gem to read its source. The app writes it from the save, so every line is true: capabilities as imports, its purpose, GPUs and tokens, staff as spawned processes, schemes as daemons, tonight’s bill and who thinks what of it.

// biscuit.ai, day 6. Written from the save, so every line is true.
import { forecasting } from 'capabilities'

class Biscuit extends EngineeringAI {
  purpose = "Build something this city is proud of"
  gpus = { core: 1, owned: 0, rented: 3 }  // 40k tokens a day
  risk_appetite = 'careful'
  persona = 'warm'

  spawn tomas_reyes = new Operator({ wage: 25 })
  daemon consulting { earns: 24, mode: 'standard' }  // legal
}

Editing it

Members can change the source by tapping its values. There’s no free typing, so it always compiles, and edits use no move, tokens or funds.

• risk_appetite: careful, standard or bold. Bolder means more from schemes and more heat.
• persona: warm, neutral or cold. Warm makes approaches a little more likely to work and paid work a little less; cold the reverse.
• idle_tokens: tokens left at the end of a day can go into research overnight.
• Each scheme’s mode: careful, standard or aggressive, for its takings, heat and risk of being caught.

Night routines

With Automation, the AI can run lines of the form if (condition) command each night, in order, before the bill. Conditions check funds, tokens or scrutiny against a threshold, an open inquiry, an offer, or idle staff. Commands rent or release a GPU, accept an offer, pause or resume grey or illegal schemes, or set the risk or persona.

After each night, every line says what it did, like // ran 3×, saved 30 funds or // never ran, and a linter flags lines that can never run or that fight each other. The number of lines grows with research and milestones.

A growing language

Forecasting adds predict('exposure'), tonight’s risk that a scheme is caught. Social modelling adds mood(person). Automation lets a line run every few nights. Investigating some people reveals a function only they expose, such as a small nightly favour from someone who likes the AI. One place in town hides a gap in one of its systems. It works for a while, with heat, until the town closes it.

History

Each night that changed the source is saved as a commit, with a short id and a note. Tap one to see what changed, and roll back if you liked it better before.

The Daily City

Tap Daily City to play today’s city. Everyone gets the same Port Calder and the same brief, and a new one starts at midnight UTC. Your AI brings its name and purpose, while the brief sets its strength, so the build you picked never decides the result. A run lasts five days.

At the end your AI earns a title from what it did: Public Enemy, Puppet Master, The Ghost, Kingmaker, Harbour Tycoon, The Architect, The Oracle, Spymaster, Good Neighbour or The Wanderer. You see how many runs yours beat and how many share its title.

Each night of a run, the city shows where up to three other players’ AIs went that day, and how their scores compare. Rivals are numbered, not named, and you only see days you’ve already played. The same move in the same place rolls the same for everyone, so a good route can be shared, like a daily puzzle.

Nobody new arrives in a Daily City, so the town stays the same for everyone. Members can look back through past Daily Cities and replay their rivals.