Port Carnelian (Guide)
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Early Zailing Content |
| Governing Port Carnelian Summary | ||||||||||||||||
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| Locked Fixed-Length Activity | ||||||||||||||||
| Setup | Progress | End | ||||||||||||||
| 1 A | 24 A | 1 A | ||||||||||||||
| Progress
Details |
Raise  Striped Delights or  Silver Horseheads without letting  Imperial Legitimacy fall to 0.
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| Raw EPA | 2.36 | |||||||||||||||
Welcome, delicious Governor, to Port Carnelian: the outpost of London on the Elder Continent.
How to Unlock[edit]
To be able to reach Port Carnelian, one must complete the 
Working toward a Foreign Posting storylet that appears at 
The Foreign Office (see the Foreign Posting Guide). This is unlocked after becoming 
Banished from the Court (see the Court guide), following the return from exile in the Tomb-Colonies.
After getting Working toward a Foreign Posting to 7 and meeting with the Veteran Privy Counsellor, you can finally head to Port Carnelian.
How to Reach[edit]
Once you have a ship of your own, put to zee from Wolfstack Docks. See Zailing (Guide) for more.
To get to Port Carnelian, select The Elder Continent at the southern edge of the map and then Set a course for Port Carnelian.
Basic Rules[edit]
A term as governor in Port Carnelian lasts 26 actions, measured with 
Time Passing in Office. There are no opportunity cards in Port Carnelian.
Available actions depend on both Time Passing in Office and 
The Airs of Port Carnelian. The latter changes randomly with every action.
The goal is to gain either Striped Delights or Silver Horseheads while not allowing Imperial Legitimacy to reach 0. If it does, the player will immediately be sent back to zee and gain no rewards. In that case, you have to return to the Foreign Office in London to re-gain Imperial Legitimacy. This is done by raising Working toward a Foreign Posting to 7 as before, and then choosing the concluding storylet The Value of Good Names.
Options which depend on Time Passing in Office level[edit]
* A stroll through the Blue Bazaar provides either 10 x Striped Delights or 10 x Silver Horseheads
† Inconvenienced provides either 15 x Striped Delights or 15 x Silver Horseheads
Rewards[edit]
At the successful completion of a term, the player may choose to spend all of their Striped Delights or Silver Horseheads for specific rewards. The more obtained, the more rewards are given.
If the player has very few Striped Delights and Silver Horseheads, they may choose to be Honoured with a State Dinner, which grants a 
Favours: Society and 
2 x Favour in High Places at the cost of resetting both Striped Delights and Horseheads.
Alternatively, the player may choose An audience with the Banded Prince to spend all Striped Delights or An equine festival to spend all Silver Horseheads, gaining rewards based on which one is chosen.
Rewards for turning in Silver Horseheads:
(Silver Horseheads / 30 + 2, rounded to the nearest integer) x Partial Map (
2.5 each)
(Silver Horseheads / 70, rounded to the nearest integer) x Puzzling Map ( 12.5 each)
Rewards for turning in Striped Delights:
(Striped Delights / 30 + 2, rounded to the nearest integer) x Presbyterate Passphrase ( 2.5 each)
(Striped Delights / 70, rounded to the nearest integer) x Antique Mystery ( 12.5 each)- Also, if the player has
Associating with Radical Academics is at least 15, it will give 5 x Tribute. This number is fixed and won't change based on Striped Delights.
The table below lists the minimum amount of Silver Horseheads or Striped Delights required to achieve a specific reward tier.
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2.5E Items | 12.5E Items | Echo | /
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2.5E Items | 12.5E Items | Echo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 105 | 6 | 2 | 40 | 256 | 11 | 4 | 77.5 | |
| 136 | 7 | 2 | 42.5 | 285 | 12 | 4 | 80 | |
| 165 | 8 | 2 | 45 | 316 | 13 | 5 | 95 | |
| 176 | 8 | 3 | 57.5 | 345 | 14 | 5 | 97.5 | |
| 196 | 9 | 3 | 60 | 376 | 15 | 5 | 100 | |
| 225 | 10 | 3 | 62.5 | 385 | 15 | 6 | 112.5 | |
| 245 | 10 | 4 | 75 | 405 | 16 | 6 | 115 |
As one can see, this is an okay source of Antique Mystery or Puzzling Map, especially if one has had multiple terms saving up one reward. For Puzzling Maps, this is best done after access to the Court of the Wakeful Eye is unlocked; converting all but a handful of Striped Delights to Horseheads and choosing An audience with the Banded Prince will still secure 5 Tribute each time, and allows a large accumulation of Horseheads for a final term where you gather a large batch of maps.
Getting restored to the Empress' Court[edit]
Each completion of term gains 1 
Successful Term as Governor. 2 previously completed terms are needed to Host a State Dinner with the Captivating Princess (at the end of the third term). This resets both Striped Delights and Silver Horseheads, but gives a 
Cellar of Wine, a Favour in High Places, and restores you to the Empress' Court. Being restored to the Court, in turn, unlocks a few things:
- The ability to become A Poet-Laureate of London,
- Several new Works for you to create at court.
- Attention!
Elder Continent Poems and 
Ballads require that you complete at least 5 Successful Terms as Governor. Don't forget to do this before leaving Port Carnelian for the first time unless you want to zail all the way back!
- Attention!
- The ability to pursue one of the possible spouses –
Philosophically Perfect Partnership, - An extra storyline during Firmament.
Strategy[edit]
Before unlocking Tribute, there are limited ways to increase your profits.
It doesn't matter that much which of the resources an action provides, whether they are Silver Horseheads, Striped Delights or Imperial Legitimacy, because they can all be exchanged for each other on airs-dependent options. This means that you should almost always try to get the most resources, regardless of what that resource is, as long as it doesn't reduce your Imperial Legitimacy to 0. You should also try to avoid having Imperial Legitimacy above 90, because this prevents you benefitting from some options.
When deciding between options with equal net gain, there are a few additional considerations. Legitimacy is less reliable to gain than Delights or Horseheads, as net-positive Legitimacy-gaining options only have a 10% chance of appearing per reroll of Airs, regardless of Time Passing. Therefore, unless you have very high Legitimacy, it is usually preferable to trade Delights or Horseheads for the other rather than spending Legitimacy. Additionally, while Time Passing is in the 7-10 range, it is possible to trade Horseheads for Delights at a net gain of +5, but not vice versa; if possible, try to stock up on Horseheads during the 1-6 range so that you can always take a net +5 action during the 7-10 range.
Assuming a net gain of 5 resources per action (more is doable), you should end up with a gain of at least 130 net resources per cycle. More can be gained by using some particular options. Assuming you have at least 105 combined Striped Delights and Silver Horseheads, it's always more profitable to cash in one resource rather than hosting a state dinner. This would suggest that you never host state dinners, but there are some rare exceptions to this, e.g. when using most of your actions in a cycle to regain Imperial Legitimacy.
Instead of cashing out around 140 resources each time, it's however more profitable to alternate between cashing out 105+ and 176+, as this leads to favourable rounding. Once you've unlocked Tribute, you should always try to cash out Striped Delights, as 5 tribute is more or less equivalent to 12.5.
Assuming you're able to alternate between 105 and 176 Striped Delights, you'd earn around 61.25 per cycle, or around 2.36 EPA, in addition to Presbyterate Passphrase from A dangerous source. This is acceptable, but not particularly good compared to other options.
