Getting started

Every round starts on the water. Have you played Port Liberty before? That one question decides your first stop. Either way, you pick one of eight towns and tutorial quests begin on your real estate.

On Eternal Island, only two workers enter the new server even if you stored three. Profession and traits carry; buildings, goods, and chapter progress do not.

Mobile: Learn the location switcher, swipeable goods bar, full worker bar, and focus mode early if you play on a phone.

Skip ahead: Join a guild · Daily loop · Town supply · Site tools

The archipelago has eight towns on four islands, two per island. Each town is its own team.

You select one town when you first arrive. You cannot change it later in the round. Coordinate with your guild or friends before you click; a mismatched pick splits your group for the entire server.

After town pick, follow the tutorial quest line. Open every quest tab. Some objectives hide in side or hidden quests that are easy to miss.

Early game: follow quests. They teach estate basics, town systems, and combat hooks.

Work the main quest line and scan all quest tabs. Side and hidden quests often pay well in gold, goods, or workers.

During the tutorial, expect three starter buildings you will be asked to place: sugarcane plantation, clay pit, and lumberjack.

Before you place them, decide what you want to produce long-term. Pick one chain or a few chains that share workers and goods (sugar toward rum, clay toward bricks, wood toward planks). You cannot build every type in the game. In practice, most players target 15 to 20 buildings out of 46 possible types, spread across 3 or 4 estates as they unlock (see Chapter length and late joiners).

Each island has different terrain, so plan chains where workers have short walks.

New production buildings need a road to harbour storage before construction can finish. Upgrades, ratios, and layout rules are in the buildings guide.

If you are not ready to commit, place where the tutorial asks and adapt later. Starter buildings are cheap unless you heavily upgrade them.

Demolition refunds drop each chapter, so plan big layout moves early.

At town level 1, recruitment opens. You see three random choices from the unlocked worker pool.

As town level rises, more professions enter the pool, which dilutes your chance to roll salesman or bargainer. Early levels are the best time to hunt utility workers. See the workers guide for profession tiers and traits.

Many players reroll for a bargainer on the first hire because booth trading efficiency pays off all round. Others prioritize production specialists to match their chosen chain. You also need reputation to hire each time the town levels up.

The in-game shop sells pearls and chapter packs. Pearls are the premium currency for convenience buys on your estate and at worker recruitment.

Each chapter pack is available once per chapter. It bundles pearls, a manifest package (5 cards), and one Pioneer worker. Buy every pack from Chapter 1 through Chapter 4 and you can add up to 4 extra Pioneers on top of normal town recruitment.

Join a guild in your first days. You need one to use the guild laboratory and earn research points for your personal tech tree.

The guild hall is a building in town, but it is not shared by the whole town. Only your guild uses it (10 members max). In the Lab tab, assign workers as organizer or researcher (one of each role per player).

The auctions tab unlocks from Chapter 2 (bid at 70,000 rep). Academy, library, booths, and full lab rules are in the workers guide.

Once buildings are up, repeat this loop each session. Training speeds and guild lab roles are in the workers guide.

Do not leave mismatched workers at 100% speed when training or a community build slot would pay more.

Keep your ship repaired for sea fights. Manifest cards are burst tools: save strong cards for later, especially legendary ones.

Reputation is your personal star ranking score. It is not spendable like pearls or gold. You earn it from town supply sales, donations, academy teaching, pirate fights, king's demand fills, quests, and more.

Week one priority: reputation unlocks guild lab, academy, and more workers. Town supply sales through your market booth give gold and reputation. Community donations give reputation without gold. Balance both.

Port Liberty is a cooperative game. Your town only grows when everyone pulls together: feeding town supply, trading on wholesale, and donating to shared buildings.

To sell into town supply, assign a salesman or bargainer at your market booth and list goods there. Booth setup, seller roles, and sell speeds are in the workers guide.

Town supply does not treat every good the same. Demand rotates, and population gain depends on how much was sold in the last 24 hours. Recent hours count more than older sales, so one good hour after silence may not move the needle.

Check town supply before you list at your booth. Prioritize high-demand goods so the town levels faster and unlocks more workers for everyone. If you oversaturate a good above demand, sell speed drops by 50%. Coordinate with your town instead of flooding one good alone.

Chapter 1 is the normal entry point. Most new players join in the first few days after server start.

Chapters 1 through 4 run on fixed timers. Chapter 5 allows up to 100 days, but the round ends once both endgame objectives are done: the Statue of Liberty push and the King's Fleet battle (also called Royal Battle). In practice that often finishes in 2-3 days.

You start with one estate in Chapter 1. Each new chapter, you can buy one more estate with gold, up to four estates by Chapter 4. Spread production across them as you unlock new maps.

Joining during Chapter 1 is the best window to learn and stay competitive. Joining in Chapter 2 or later still lets you learn mechanics and contribute, but catching leaders is very hard if you arrive much later. Do not treat "I will figure it out next week" as harmless. The clock is tight.

Every player in the same town shares one set of community buildings. Level them with goods donations and worker construction time. Donate surplus goods and assign workers to build slots when your town needs them.

The mayor should lead build coordination: call out which community building to donate to first, where to assign construction workers, and when to shift focus. Check town chat or mayor orders before you donate so effort is not spread too thin across buildings.

Every 4 days, the Royal Fleet visits your town and the king asks for goods. That is king's demand: donate before the timer runs out at King's landing.

This is not the King's Fleet battle at the end of the round. That endgame fight is the same as Royal Battle (Chapter 5). This section is only the recurring 4-day donation event.

Fill the list to keep population growing. Contribute every cycle and coordinate in town chat on what to stock before the fleet arrives.

Quests push you into ship battles against NPC pirates at sea. Enemy formations mix different ship types with different HP, damage, and icons. The main quest line opens fights early. Sink enemy boats before they close distance and keep your ship repaired. Stock cannonballs from the Fort while prices are still low.

Pirate blockades cut off access to a town on the map. About once per day, a random town can be blockaded. Players must fight the blockade waves to reach that locked town again. Once all waves are beaten, everyone can sail there. Wins also feed reputation. More in the ship battles guide.

Unlock Artillery on your tech tree as soon as you have 16 research points.

Battle habits: 1. One ship at a time. At the start, swing to one side of the enemy formation, preferably where the fastest ships are. 2. Tailwind timing: When your speed-up is active, enemy shots miss. Trigger it when you expect a full broadside. 3. Target order: Sink small ships (10 HP) first, then sword ships (15 HP, high damage), then shield ships (45 HP). Boss ships (80+ HP) last. 4. Save cannonballs: Do not fire a broadside into a ship with only 1 or 2 HP left.

Captain repair skills and ship roles are in the workers guide.

This guide covers your first days in-game. Keep this site open beside the game to plan layouts, see production chains, and look up goods rep and building stats.

Use the Jump to the data & tools strip at the bottom of this page for one-click access. If you open the same pages every session, bookmark the layout builder, production chain tree, and goods database.