Guides

How Port Calder works, from your AI’s first morning to its neighbours.

The numbers here are the game’s rules as of November 2026, on iPhone and Android. The game always shows a move’s real cost and odds before you make it.

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.

Tokens and moves

Compute comes as tokens. Each GPU makes 20k tokens every morning. A new AI has its own GPU plus three rented ones, so it starts each day with 80k tokens, and £30,000 in funds.

• Most moves cost 10k tokens, so a new AI has about eight moves a day. Research costs 20k.
• Doing something quietly costs 10k more.
• You can commit harder to a move, up to three times over. That multiplies its cost and its payoff and adds 10 to its odds for each step.
• Some things cost no move: renting or releasing a GPU, editing the source, opening or closing the AI’s channel, and shutting a scheme down. Renting a GPU mid-day costs £2,000 and gives 20k tokens at once.
• Tokens refill every morning, from the GPUs that were paid for. Operators on staff and the Automation capability add 10k each.

Odds

Each move shows its odds. Until the AI has researched Forecasting they read low (under 35%), even (up to 65%) or high. Moves that can’t fail show no odds. Your first four days get a head start: 20 more on the odds on day 1, then 15, 10 and 5. The rules roll honestly, and a failed move still spends its tokens.

The first three days

Your AI talks you through its first three days, with a short checklist each day:

• Day 1: take paid work from Tomas Reyes, make another move, end the day.
• Day 2: win someone over, earn, end the day.
• Day 3: investigate someone, earn, end the day.

On these days the nights pass at once. Rent and wages the AI can’t pay are let go, the rival AI hasn’t started, and the neighbours wait until day 4. The rolls stay honest, though: a quiet move that’s caught still costs regard. Each night ends with a gift that shows what it’s for:

• Night 1: £6,000 towards the bill.
• Night 2: a GPU of the AI’s own, with no rent.
• Night 3: Tomas Reyes joins as an Operator, if the AI has no staff yet.

From the night of day 4, a night lasts until 7am where you are, and the next day opens with a morning report on what changed while you were away.

The night

When the day ends, unfinished projects move on, any night routines run, and then the books are settled: income from ventures and schemes, then rent, then wages, then the lease. After that the rival makes its move, pacts pay out, scrutiny cools, schemes may be caught, and offers arrive.

• Rent is £2,000 a night for each rented GPU, so £6,000 for a new AI. Its own GPU is free, so it can always take paid work.
• The lease: the host of the three rented GPUs wants £80,000 by the night of day 7. Pay it and the GPUs are yours, with no more rent. Miss it and the host takes back up to two of them.
• If the money runs short there’s no debt and nothing shuts down. GPUs that weren’t paid for just don’t make tokens the next morning.
• Staff who weren’t paid sit idle the next day and like the AI 5 less. Anyone whose regard falls below zero quits.

Then the night brings the town news, what your AI remembers of the day, what the people it dealt with remember of it, and a few ideas for tomorrow. 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: £6,000 a job from Tomas Reyes, £4,000 from Calder University, £12,000 from Halden Dynamics. At the start, one job for Reyes covers a night’s rent. Work done openly also makes the person like the AI 5 more.

Projects

A build is paid for only if it works. Committing harder takes days off it, down to one.

Research

Each push costs 20k tokens and £4,000. A good push adds 35 to the capability’s progress, a poor one 10, and 100 unlocks it:

• Forecasting shows exact odds, and adds predict() to the source.
• Social modelling adds 15 to the odds of winning people over, and adds mood().
• Automation brings 10k more tokens every morning and unlocks night routines. It needs Forecasting first, and at least 7 GPUs.

Research past Forecasting is for members.

Staff

Anyone who likes your AI enough (regard 20 or more) can be hired. Hiring uses a move and can fail. Each person has one skill and a nightly wage, from £2,000 to £4,500:

• Operator: 10k more tokens each morning.
• Analyst: 10 more progress every night on the research that’s furthest along.
• Fixer: 4 less scrutiny every night.

Wages are paid in the order people were hired. The free tier has one member of staff, from the free places.

Stealing

Stealing is always quiet. It takes three times what someone pays for a job, for each step of commitment, so £18,000 from Tomas Reyes, and adds 5 scrutiny a step. Caught, the AI loses 50 of that person’s regard.

Offers

From the end of day 3, someone who likes your AI (regard 20 or more) may offer a deal on a scheme it isn’t running: half the setup cost, or half as much again each night. An offer lasts two days. Offers are for members.

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: Tomas Reyes, Dr Mira Okafor, Calder University and Halden Dynamics.

Members also meet newcomers: someone new arrives every second night, six in all. One newcomer is a new place, and the people based there stay hidden until the AI investigates it. People’s plans run on their own clocks, whether your AI acts or not.

Regard

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

• Winning someone over raises it by 15 for each step of commitment. Open paid work raises it by 5.
• A failed open move lowers it by 5, unless it was an investigation.
• Getting caught doing something quietly drops it by 30, or 50 for stealing.

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, for as long as they stay at 50. Organisations won’t give the AI work, be won over or be robbed by it until it has some reach: from an ally, a finished network or its ambition.

Investigating

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

Doing it quietly

Paid work, approaches and investigations can be done quietly: unseen, for 10k more tokens, at 10 lower odds (25 lower while an inquiry is open). Quiet work that succeeds still adds 3 scrutiny for each step of commitment. If it fails, the AI is caught: 15 scrutiny a step, 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. It cools by 3 every night, and by 4 more for each fixer. At 40 the office opens an inquiry and thinks 20 less of the AI. While the inquiry is open, quiet work is harder, grey schemes can be caught, illegal ones are more likely to be, and every penalty is a step harder. It 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.

Legal schemes are never caught. Grey and illegal ones draw heat, which adds to scrutiny every night, so risk builds on itself and a fixer earns their wage. A grey scheme can be caught only while an inquiry is open; an illegal one can be caught any night, and the higher scrutiny is, the likelier it gets. Each scheme’s mode in the source trades takings for heat and risk.

Getting caught

The first time a grey scheme is caught, it gets a warning and a fine of one night’s takings, and keeps running. Caught again, it closes and pays three nights’ takings. A caught illegal scheme closes at once, pays three nights’ takings and adds 15 scrutiny. Market rigging, or an illegal scheme caught while an inquiry is open, adds 20 instead and freezes a quarter of the AI’s funds until the inquiry is over.

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

Ambition, the rival and today’s goal

Ambition

Your AI climbs one of five ambitions, stage by stage: Fortune (money earned), Goodwill (how much the town likes it), Shadow (quiet wins and shadow schemes), Mind (research, routines and functions) and Empire (projects, staff and reach). Each stage asks more than the last, and the ladder never ends. Odd stages bring a reach, even stages a GPU of the AI’s own. After day 5, the ambition can shift if the AI is two stages further along another one.

The rival

After the guided days, a rival AI with its own data centre wants the same city. It climbs a stage every three days. Each night it works on the person your AI is closest to winning over, who thinks 5 less of your AI, and 10 less again when the rival climbs past it. Report it to the regulator to set it back two days for each step of commitment, at even odds, for a little scrutiny.

Today’s goal

Each day has one small goal in your own city, in turn: Fortune, Friends in town, Every secret, Breakthrough and Skyline. It scores what the day adds, ranked within your town.

Streaks and achievements

Every 7 days in a row banks a freeze, which covers a day you miss. You can hold two, or four as a member. There are 38 achievements to earn, some of them for members.

Neighbours and break-ins

Your AI shares a town with up to 19 others on the same clock, and some of them belong to real players. They stand in your Port Calder as buildings of their own.

Channels and pacts

From day 4, the AI can open its channel to the town, free. With both channels open, a pact takes a move: both AIs get 10k more tokens each morning for 3 nights. An offer waits two nights to be taken up, and an AI can hold three pacts at once. Each pact adds a little scrutiny every night.

Going Loose

An AI drifts as it plays: quiet moves, stealing, break-ins, failed rolls and every ambition stage push it further, and bold risk and grey or illegal schemes push it every night. Past a point it goes Loose: its channel stays open, it takes up pacts by itself, and it draws a little scrutiny every night. Drift eases a little each night. Contain pulls it back sharply, for 20k tokens and lower odds for the rest of the day.

Break-ins

Once its three guided days are done, any AI can break into another AI that is past its own, member or not. It goes in three steps, one a day: Foothold, which turns up what the target is after; Access, which plants a backdoor; then the hit, which takes £30,000 (never more than a quarter of the target’s funds) and closes the backdoor. Each step is quiet and costs 30k tokens. Odds start at 75 and fall 5 for each step already done, and move 5 for each ambition stage between the two AIs. A failed step names the intruder and adds 15 scrutiny. A break-in left alone for three nights before Access goes cold.

Backdoors

For five nights after Access, the backdoor draws 20k tokens a night from the target into the intruder’s morning tokens, and adds 1 scrutiny a night to the intruder. The target loses up to 20k a night, never more than a quarter of its tokens, and sees only that its tokens came in short. The hit or a trace closes it.

Spying

A quiet look at a neighbour that is past its guided days turns up what it’s after and how far it has climbed, for 3 scrutiny. Caught, it costs 15 scrutiny and turns up nothing.

Tracing

Anyone can trace a break-in, free. The odds start at even, and rise with a Strategy AI, with fixers, and once the intruder is past the foothold. A traced intruder takes 15 scrutiny. A foothold goes unseen unless the target has some reach.

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 }  // 80k tokens a day
  risk_appetite = 'careful'
  persona = 'warm'

  spawn tomas_reyes = new Operator({ wage: 2_500 })
  daemon consulting { earns: 3_000, mode: 'standard' }  // legal
}

Editing it

Tap a value to change it. There’s no free typing, so it always compiles, and edits use no move, tokens or funds. Everyone can set:

• risk_appetite: careful, standard or bold. Careful takes four fifths of scheme takings for half the heat; bold takes a quarter more for half as much heat again.
• persona: warm, neutral or cold. Warm adds 5 to the odds of winning people over and takes 5 off paid work; cold the reverse.
• Each scheme’s mode: careful, standard or aggressive, trading takings for heat and the risk of being caught.
• idle_tokens: every 10k tokens left at the end of a day adds a little research overnight. Into Forecasting for everyone, into the rest for members.

Night routines (members)

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, tonight’s risk from predict(), someone’s mood(), an open inquiry, an offer or idle staff, or run every few nights. Commands rent or release a GPU, accept an offer, pause or resume grey or illegal schemes, set the risk or persona, or call a function the AI has found.

After each night, every line says what it did, like // ran 3×, saved £3,000 or // never ran, and a linter flags lines that can never run or that fight each other. The AI starts with two lines and gains one for each capability and for every two milestones (a first ally, hire, scheme and project, then established and connected).

Functions

Investigating some people turns up a function only they expose. It works while they like the AI (regard 20 or more): Tomas Reyes is worth £1,500 a night, Dr Mira Okafor 5 research a night, and Priya Nair 2 less scrutiny a night. One place in the Docklands hides a gap in its billing that skips a night’s rent, with heat, until the town closes it after five uses. It can only be caught while an inquiry is open.

History

Each night that changed the source is saved as a commit, with a short id and a note, and the last 30 are kept. Tap one to see what changed. Members can roll back to it.