Bilding up sea ports

[Corvic]

How do you do it?

I'm playing as Poland, and I wasn't able to make ships until I finally defeated Prussia and used one of their ports.

[alteropptatt]

If you doubble-click your capital province, there's a thing in the lower left corner showing how many turns untill the next town developes. The ports grow in the same way that farms and such do. the ports should be mouse-overable (new word?) even if they have't developed yet.

[uanime5]

Ally with Russia, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire. If one of them attacks you then the other two should come to your aid.

[Hardrada992]

To build ships all you need is a port, but to build better ships you need a "shipyard" which one of the three kinds of buildings you can build in a port town. Like it was stated above, you have to have a port, or wait for a port town to develop. You really only need one shipyard for each main area, so try to focus on having more trade ports. All ports can build brigs and sloops, but you need a shipyard to build 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st rates. Also, you will need to upgrade your naval academies (these are in major cities) to build better ships and advance your naval research.