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{{Verbox|small=yes|text=This article was updated for version 0.14.0.1|version=0.14.0.1}}
{{Verbox|small=yes|text=This article was updated for version 0.23.0.1|version=0.23.0.1}}


==Getting Started==
Once you download and open the game, start a new run and choose any starting options you'd like to have. Default starter units are quite balanced for beginners, you may want to only edit main character, profession, and your starters' traits. Once you make it through story/setting, start exploring town to encounter new NPCs and events. Map (default hotkey M, or Right Mouse Button when other screens are closed) can allow for easier navigation between locations in town, and show you what places have new events by highlighting certain locations with yellow.
Once you have downloaded ''Portals of Phereon'' (can be found in the game's [https://discord.com/invite/V2wRs83 Discord] or Syvaron's [https://www.patreon.com/Syvaron/overview Patreon]) and opened it, you can start a new run.


One of the first things you should do is to decide how you want to play.
Before venturing into a portal it is best to bring along starting companions with equipment that can be purchased from the shop, hotkey (S), or gathered through town exploration. You need to assign your characters to your party at home first and then proceed with equipping items on them via Prep. Party option, hotkey (Q), which is located at the bottom of the screen. Any characters with healing abilities can help with portal exploration greatly. If you chose a PlantGirl pick as a starting character, with luck it might have Rejuvenate skill. If you struggle to keep your team alive you can restart your game to pick Doctor as your starting profession as this will make you able to heal injured party members and save on infirmary or town doctor costs. You may also want to gain certain combat experience with your team before portal explorations by picking up some easy arena fights, also earning solid amount of money, which you can spend on buying even more gear.


* If you are new to the game and want to learn more about [[Main Character|Main Characters]], you can check their pages. For beginners, default [[4th Main Character]], Oriel, may be a better choice, as she has a more extensive tutorial and an easier start. When selecting your elemental affinity, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose if you are new to the game.
Choosing low hostility portals at start is of the utmost importance: as low a number as you can get, primarily below 3. Portals destabilize in a short period of time unless you pay forth some gold and crystals to maintain them. Once you have stabilized the portal, it will remain until you manually destroy it. You don't need to pay again. The maximum number of portals you can stabilize is capped at 5 from the start and you start with an already stabilized portal of hostility 1. The hot key for portal menu is (E).
*You like having a time limit? Start with the "Normal" game length. If you prefer to take your time and learn the game as you go, choose "Free play". Other game lengths might be harder, as "Fast" has an easier final fight, but gives you less time to prepare, while "Long" gives you more time to prepare, but you'll have to face stronger opponents.
* You prefer to power through everything and recruit stronger units as you go? Fusing is a great option for you, as it's quite simple and lets you choose what kind of unit you want to create. However, if you prefer a more time-consuming and harder-to-control, but cheaper and more growth-oriented method, then Breeding is for you. Mixing both methods is also a great idea and usually the best option.
*You can change the difficulty to make the game easier, but you should try setting it at or above 100% so that you can unlock new things.
*Choose whatever profession and traits you like. Default starters should be quite good for the beginners, but you may want to increase their main stats with the free points available.


If you want to learn more about these settings, check [[New Game Settings|here]].
Once within a portal it is important to be mindful of your carrying capacity. Try not to get overburdened, which occurs when more than half of your total carrying capacity is filled, as this makes you spend twice as much time for movement. If you harvest too much and cannot move, drop items or resources from your inventory and continue onward.


You can also check some start-up and breeding guides [[:Category:Guides|here]].
If your team has been damaged or is low on mana, set up a camp for a while and set your wounded characters to 'Rest' and your mana drained characters to 'Meditate'. You can also encounter certain tiles and events which can help you to maintain party resources. While camping in a location that is unprotected, like anywhere outside of a hut, you can be ambushed while camping. Try to keep the ambush chance as low as possible to avoid risking an attack while your characters are still weak by setting some of your party on 'Guard' duty. The higher guard character powers are, the more effectively they will prevent an attack. Having no characters on guard duty means that if an attack happens, it will be an ambush, where your party begins with only 1 AP each, and enemies are scattered among your units rather than on the other side of the field. Nearby passing enemy groups may end up stumbling onto your camp, or notice you and attack on purpose if your group stealth value is poor, which will lead to battle.
If you choose doctor as your profession, your main character duty can be set to "Doctor", which will increase the healing of all other party members who are resting.


==FAQs and Things To Know==
In order to make your character stronger in long term run you may want to level up your skill tree. As Evolution and Creation MC, you must perform rituals with species who you've not already performed a ritual with and spend newly earned points under "Change" option at the bottom of the screen in order to increase your character powers (The hot key for skill menu is (C)). To perform a ritual, select gender-appropriate character (any for Evo in her futa form and futa/male for Creation) by clicking on them at home and select Ritual button at the bottom of character screen. Only pure species and their hybrids will count as valid for gaining skill points. Doing a ritual with a species which you have already done a ritual with will only grant as many points as the genetic max level difference between current partner and the former partner of the same species which you had ritualed with. Druid does not evolve through rituals, but instead increases his own powers through combat experience, gaining new abilities in one of 6 schools which you can select as leveling focus.
There are many components to the game, and understanding how they all work is very important in order to avoid drowning in debt and falling far behind your rivals. Therefore, let's start with some basic things to ensure you're familiar with some of the most important stuff.


Firstly, there are several commonly missed things that are good to know, also known as the FAQ. Feel free to visit this section if you're ever unsure about something. Alternatively, visit the game's Discord channel, where people are often eager to answer questions.
Eventually you may run into issue of having no food for your team nor money to enter a portal or buy anything in town. There are multiple options for sustaining those resources, such as assigning your fellow characters to hunt/fish whenever they are at home (done through character details page), gathering food and herbs in portal explorations, or fighting in arena and performing brothel shows as your character to earn some money. Placing extra trained units in the Brothel is a good passive source of income.


#Press the "Tab" key to access the journal. You can check there when the next artifact or story portal will open. It also displays such information as [[Brothel]] stats, daily events (e.g. eggs spoiling), rival status and [[Achievements]].
Crystals will be needed early for a multitude of reasons and one of the ways to obtain them early is by breeding your characters to produce eggs. The eggs will be stored at the farm, hotkey (F), within the hatchery. Destroying an egg, either incubating or in storage, will grant you a crystal. Another way to obtain crystals is to travel through ocean portals and gather underwater crystal deposits. This method is more advanced, but it rewards larger amount of crystals in a smaller amount of playtime, at a cost of stamina. This method will also take a large amount of in-game time unless you have a water or flying mount which can carry you and your team. A unit with any of the mount traits makes all units in your party who are at least one size smaller than it move at its speed over the terrain the mount is proficient at. Another option is for you and your whole team to be able to swim or fly to avoid water movement penalties.
#You can heal injuries in multiple ways:
#*Using [[Items#Bandages|Bandages]], which can be crafted;
#*At the [[Market]] when the healer is there;
#*[[Meira|Meira's]] unique skill [[HealingWeb]];
#*Building [[Home Buildings#Infirmary|Infirmary]] home upgrade.
#If you raise someone's salary, it will remain that way forever. It's recommended to never touch it, as it rarely matters.
#Pressing "V" will quickly take you to the crafting screen, while the middle mouse button takes you to the character overview.
#The Character Overview is a valuable time-saving tool. It's good to be used to it.
#*You can use it to assign symbols to units by simply draging them onto the desired symbol, making it easier to organize your units as you can sort by symbol.
#*You can quickly find and move your units to the [[Farm]] in order to breed or fuse them.
#* You can manage the brothel from there.
#*You can toggle different important information, e.g. whether you can submit the unit to the [[Library]] or if you can perform a Ritual with them.
#You can craft many things by using [[Crafting]] window, but there's more to it.
#* You can buy and sell [[Materials]] there. Items that you can find there change daily, and the yellow number in the top right show their value.
#You can sell items from "Prepare Party" (Q) screen by pressing the sell button in the bottom left. You can also sell them at [[Lumira|Lumira's]] [[Shop]].
#Stash/Inventory
#*The Stash contains all the items you've collected and stored.
#* Inventory is what items you're taking on an expedition. You can also add food/crystals/money/stone/wood at the "Prepare Party" (Q) screen to take them as well.
#**If there is a certain amount of resources that you always want to take on expeditions, you can press "Keep resources" button. Taking at least 15 units of each resource is a good idea.
# Hovering over resource on the top bar shows how many units of it you spend daily.
#Hovering over units level when in their detail window will show you what growths they have. It's useful for figuring out if you really want the selected unit and how their stats will look at max level.
#Dating can be confusing at first, and a lot of things about it might be very unclear, but hovering over things will provide more information. Hovering over the yellow number on a dating card also provides a lot of information.
# Putting units with high bonds together at farm will result in better productivity. You can also press the "Humanoid" button at the top to switch to creature breeding. More below.


To sum it up, hover your cursor over everything.
If game still feels overwhelming or there are certain unclear things that you'd like to get explained feel free to join official discord and ask any question in #help_support_tutorial_etc channel.

==Daily Stuff==

===Milk===
Drink your milk. No, seriously, always go drink the milk at the tavern once a day. It gives you stamina at zero time cost. It adds up over time, and stamina is invaluable. I do not recommend drinking the blood.

===Food ===
There are a few key things that happen each day that you need to pay attention to. The first is food upkeep. Make sure to stay on top of it, otherwise, you'll go into debt really fast because you'll auto-buy food for upkeep. I suggest setting everyone to just fish and getting a [[Home Buildings#FishingHut|Fishing Hut]] upgrade for the house early on. I prefer fishing over hunting because there are a lot of useful fish that they can get you. The rain and sun ones are used in XP potions and they sell for a fair amount of money alongside the other fish. If you're desperate for more food, then optimizing the units that can hunt to hunt is better.

===Gold===
Gold is also a part of upkeep, and it can be a challenge in the first week. By making sure food is taken care of, you can stay ahead of gold by completing [[Arena]] fights or portal expeditions. [[Tavern]] quests can also be useful when they're doable, so make sure to check those every day. But the most important passive income to start working on right away is the [[Brothel]]. Prettier units naturally make more gold, and trained units make even more. You can manually train them by spending some time at [[Home]] doing sex training. Once done, set up some units as soon as possible, and then keep working on expanding it as you go. The brothel buttons can be hovered over for more details, but that's a guide in and of itself. It'll help make you a lot of money, and after a certain point, you should never have issues with gold again. When your gold income is stable, make sure to buy equipment and [[Items]] from the [[Shop]].

===Crystals===
Crystals are pretty important but also the rather difficult resource to manage. Most upgrades require some amount of crystals and fusing almost always requires them. One of the best ways to obtain them is by turning [[Ice Spirit|Ice Spirits]] (or [[Rock Spirit|Rock Spirits]]) into [[Crystal Girl|Crystal Girls]], giving them a good room and then spending their stamina to make tons of crystals.

If you haven't unlocked the other elements yet*, then your best options are either to use mana collectors in water worlds, which can yield a fair amount of crystals with proper placement, or preferably, to breed mana crystals. You can do this by going to the Farm where you set your pairings, and clicking on the "Eggs" buttons that can be found next to the "Instant" button. If you click them, they will turn into "2x crystals" buttons. This makes the pair produce more crystals instead of eggs. Destroying eggs you already have can also yield some crystals.

'''NOTE:''' Get a [[Spirit Species|Spirit]] to level 20 to unlock [[New Game Settings#Traits/Profession|Elementalist]] profession, then pick Elementalist as your profession at the start, and then get whatever Spirits you want unlocked to level 15.

===Wood and Stone===
Generally, it's best to try to obtain these resources by completing [[Tavern]] quests or receiving them as [[Portal]] rewards. Scouting can be done fairly quickly if you enter a portal, go to a mountain tile, and [[Camp]] with "Scout" action chosen. It will reveal quite a bit for little stamina investment. Units with abilities such as [[Heightened Sense]], [[Magic Vision]], [[Eagle Eyed]], and so on can make scouting even better. Otherwise, obtaining these resources requires a lot of work. You can go to a mountain or forest and click "harvest/mine". It takes time and stamina, and while it's quick to do in real time, it requires stamina, which is really important not to waste.

==General Gameplan Notes==

*If you plan to use breeding, make sure to do it with all futa units, as it doubles your production and the semen you can harvest can be invaluable.
*Until you get the hang of things, don't worry TOO much about having enough housing for all your units, especially if you're breeding a lot. Just make sure your usable units and high-priority units have rooms. However, this might lock you out of several recruiting events.
*Don't forget to assign jobs to any new units you get.
*Make sure to check your hatchery everyday if you're breeding.
*Always check events as they're a huge part of the fun of the game. I recommend starting with as many event-related perks as possible when you start.
*Try to level up a lot of units to at least level 10 as this unlocks them for future runs. The "Delayed" hatching room upgrade makes this a breeze.
**Those level 10 units are great to donate to the library. You can burn through library quests quickly doing this, and it's also permanent guaranteed income.
*When starting out, it's a good idea to choose portals with low hostility levels. Also remember that portals will close after a certain amount of time unless they are stabilized.
*During exploration, keep an eye on your carrying capacity. If you become overburdened, consider dropping some low-value items or materials.

This is all pretty general stuff just to keep you afloat or get you ready for all the interfaces. Once you're comfortable, you can do all sorts of things with builds, game plans, styles, and even special runs like the Seal runs. Those are pretty neat.

This is also tailored more towards starting up and beginner runs. For more advanced things, check out other [[:Category:Guides|Guides]], [[Tips and Tricks]] or check the [https://discord.com/invite/V2wRs83 Discord].

Revision as of 00:20, 6 May 2023

This article was updated for version 0.23.0.1

Getting Started

Once you have downloaded Portals of Phereon (can be found in the game's Discord or Syvaron's Patreon) and opened it, you can start a new run.

One of the first things you should do is to decide how you want to play.

  • If you are new to the game and want to learn more about Main Characters, you can check their pages. For beginners, default 4th Main Character, Oriel, may be a better choice, as she has a more extensive tutorial and an easier start. When selecting your elemental affinity, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose if you are new to the game.
  • You like having a time limit? Start with the "Normal" game length. If you prefer to take your time and learn the game as you go, choose "Free play". Other game lengths might be harder, as "Fast" has an easier final fight, but gives you less time to prepare, while "Long" gives you more time to prepare, but you'll have to face stronger opponents.
  • You prefer to power through everything and recruit stronger units as you go? Fusing is a great option for you, as it's quite simple and lets you choose what kind of unit you want to create. However, if you prefer a more time-consuming and harder-to-control, but cheaper and more growth-oriented method, then Breeding is for you. Mixing both methods is also a great idea and usually the best option.
  • You can change the difficulty to make the game easier, but you should try setting it at or above 100% so that you can unlock new things.
  • Choose whatever profession and traits you like. Default starters should be quite good for the beginners, but you may want to increase their main stats with the free points available.

If you want to learn more about these settings, check here.

You can also check some start-up and breeding guides here.

FAQs and Things To Know

There are many components to the game, and understanding how they all work is very important in order to avoid drowning in debt and falling far behind your rivals. Therefore, let's start with some basic things to ensure you're familiar with some of the most important stuff.

Firstly, there are several commonly missed things that are good to know, also known as the FAQ. Feel free to visit this section if you're ever unsure about something. Alternatively, visit the game's Discord channel, where people are often eager to answer questions.

  1. Press the "Tab" key to access the journal. You can check there when the next artifact or story portal will open. It also displays such information as Brothel stats, daily events (e.g. eggs spoiling), rival status and Achievements.
  2. You can heal injuries in multiple ways:
  3. If you raise someone's salary, it will remain that way forever. It's recommended to never touch it, as it rarely matters.
  4. Pressing "V" will quickly take you to the crafting screen, while the middle mouse button takes you to the character overview.
  5. The Character Overview is a valuable time-saving tool. It's good to be used to it.
    • You can use it to assign symbols to units by simply draging them onto the desired symbol, making it easier to organize your units as you can sort by symbol.
    • You can quickly find and move your units to the Farm in order to breed or fuse them.
    • You can manage the brothel from there.
    • You can toggle different important information, e.g. whether you can submit the unit to the Library or if you can perform a Ritual with them.
  6. You can craft many things by using Crafting window, but there's more to it.
    • You can buy and sell Materials there. Items that you can find there change daily, and the yellow number in the top right show their value.
  7. You can sell items from "Prepare Party" (Q) screen by pressing the sell button in the bottom left. You can also sell them at Lumira's Shop.
  8. Stash/Inventory
    • The Stash contains all the items you've collected and stored.
    • Inventory is what items you're taking on an expedition. You can also add food/crystals/money/stone/wood at the "Prepare Party" (Q) screen to take them as well.
      • If there is a certain amount of resources that you always want to take on expeditions, you can press "Keep resources" button. Taking at least 15 units of each resource is a good idea.
  9. Hovering over resource on the top bar shows how many units of it you spend daily.
  10. Hovering over units level when in their detail window will show you what growths they have. It's useful for figuring out if you really want the selected unit and how their stats will look at max level.
  11. Dating can be confusing at first, and a lot of things about it might be very unclear, but hovering over things will provide more information. Hovering over the yellow number on a dating card also provides a lot of information.
  12. Putting units with high bonds together at farm will result in better productivity. You can also press the "Humanoid" button at the top to switch to creature breeding. More below.

To sum it up, hover your cursor over everything.

Daily Stuff

Milk

Drink your milk. No, seriously, always go drink the milk at the tavern once a day. It gives you stamina at zero time cost. It adds up over time, and stamina is invaluable. I do not recommend drinking the blood.

Food

There are a few key things that happen each day that you need to pay attention to. The first is food upkeep. Make sure to stay on top of it, otherwise, you'll go into debt really fast because you'll auto-buy food for upkeep. I suggest setting everyone to just fish and getting a Fishing Hut upgrade for the house early on. I prefer fishing over hunting because there are a lot of useful fish that they can get you. The rain and sun ones are used in XP potions and they sell for a fair amount of money alongside the other fish. If you're desperate for more food, then optimizing the units that can hunt to hunt is better.

Gold

Gold is also a part of upkeep, and it can be a challenge in the first week. By making sure food is taken care of, you can stay ahead of gold by completing Arena fights or portal expeditions. Tavern quests can also be useful when they're doable, so make sure to check those every day. But the most important passive income to start working on right away is the Brothel. Prettier units naturally make more gold, and trained units make even more. You can manually train them by spending some time at Home doing sex training. Once done, set up some units as soon as possible, and then keep working on expanding it as you go. The brothel buttons can be hovered over for more details, but that's a guide in and of itself. It'll help make you a lot of money, and after a certain point, you should never have issues with gold again. When your gold income is stable, make sure to buy equipment and Items from the Shop.

Crystals

Crystals are pretty important but also the rather difficult resource to manage. Most upgrades require some amount of crystals and fusing almost always requires them. One of the best ways to obtain them is by turning Ice Spirits (or Rock Spirits) into Crystal Girls, giving them a good room and then spending their stamina to make tons of crystals.

If you haven't unlocked the other elements yet*, then your best options are either to use mana collectors in water worlds, which can yield a fair amount of crystals with proper placement, or preferably, to breed mana crystals. You can do this by going to the Farm where you set your pairings, and clicking on the "Eggs" buttons that can be found next to the "Instant" button. If you click them, they will turn into "2x crystals" buttons. This makes the pair produce more crystals instead of eggs. Destroying eggs you already have can also yield some crystals.

NOTE: Get a Spirit to level 20 to unlock Elementalist profession, then pick Elementalist as your profession at the start, and then get whatever Spirits you want unlocked to level 15.

Wood and Stone

Generally, it's best to try to obtain these resources by completing Tavern quests or receiving them as Portal rewards. Scouting can be done fairly quickly if you enter a portal, go to a mountain tile, and Camp with "Scout" action chosen. It will reveal quite a bit for little stamina investment. Units with abilities such as Heightened Sense, Magic Vision, Eagle Eyed, and so on can make scouting even better. Otherwise, obtaining these resources requires a lot of work. You can go to a mountain or forest and click "harvest/mine". It takes time and stamina, and while it's quick to do in real time, it requires stamina, which is really important not to waste.

General Gameplan Notes

  • If you plan to use breeding, make sure to do it with all futa units, as it doubles your production and the semen you can harvest can be invaluable.
  • Until you get the hang of things, don't worry TOO much about having enough housing for all your units, especially if you're breeding a lot. Just make sure your usable units and high-priority units have rooms. However, this might lock you out of several recruiting events.
  • Don't forget to assign jobs to any new units you get.
  • Make sure to check your hatchery everyday if you're breeding.
  • Always check events as they're a huge part of the fun of the game. I recommend starting with as many event-related perks as possible when you start.
  • Try to level up a lot of units to at least level 10 as this unlocks them for future runs. The "Delayed" hatching room upgrade makes this a breeze.
    • Those level 10 units are great to donate to the library. You can burn through library quests quickly doing this, and it's also permanent guaranteed income.
  • When starting out, it's a good idea to choose portals with low hostility levels. Also remember that portals will close after a certain amount of time unless they are stabilized.
  • During exploration, keep an eye on your carrying capacity. If you become overburdened, consider dropping some low-value items or materials.

This is all pretty general stuff just to keep you afloat or get you ready for all the interfaces. Once you're comfortable, you can do all sorts of things with builds, game plans, styles, and even special runs like the Seal runs. Those are pretty neat.

This is also tailored more towards starting up and beginner runs. For more advanced things, check out other Guides, Tips and Tricks or check the Discord.