The combination of tactics and strategy of both naval warfare and trading is the core activity of the game. The real time naval battles constitute the far 
most exciting part. Sometime it feels repetitive and slow, luckily there is a time scale setting to speed things up.
A port view, with port buildings, villagers and officials exist for each port, but it is just an animated background scene without any genuine interaction. Various trade items like silver, iron, coal, tobacco, weapons, wool fabrics, diamonds, gold, spice among others can be bought, sold and stored at port, which is done by dragging trade items between task related windows.
At the trading post facility you buy goods with discounts and by upgrading the trading post structure you can influence what that specific port produces. You can also build your fleet units in several docks at different ports. You are continuously provided with financial reports to measure your incomes and costs throughout the game.
While traversing the seas 
the player receives news and offerings through pigeon post. Some deals and goals are difficult and risky while others are effortlessly attained. Rather uninspiring really, better if these events would be interactive and visual instead of being merely verbal and prosaic most of the time.
The battle scenes are the high points of the game, and are really something to write home about, so good we got some pigeons for that. The game has to sink in and you have to spend much time with it to appreciate it fully. Spend time learning about the background history, and understand the manual controls perfectly in the battle scenes to reach that game play bullseye. Otherwise you might miss out, which is a shame, since the game is certainly worth the effort. With some patches or expansion packs, it has a true potential to reach the top!
