Differences between trading and military port?

**PandaChef** · May 05, 2012, 05:02 PM

As the title says and which one is better (fots)?

**kostas84** · May 05, 2012, 05:07 PM

The money boost of the Trading Port is too high to pass up.

**CTD_or_Bust** · May 05, 2012, 05:12 PM

Uh.. well.. one gives you more money and one gives you better ships. As a bonus, military ports have coastal guns that cause severe attrition to any ships within their range. So military ports protect you and allow you to build copper/iron plated ships. Trade ports give you a large income boost. You decide what you want and where.

**W4lt3r** · May 05, 2012, 05:13 PM

Trading port = Less recruitment slots, but has higher export capacity and capability to handle two trade routes at the same time from one port, also is only limited to same unit recruitment pool as a port (mostly) and usually gives higher town growth due to better trading capability.
Military port = Same export capacity as a regular port, one more recruitment slot, better naval units available for recruitment.
Simple as that really.

In FOTS this becomes bit more obvious, that trade ports cannot recruit copper / iron plated ships, where as military port / drydock can.

**Ferdiad** · May 05, 2012, 06:50 PM

I usually have 3/4 military ports per Trading Port.

**♘Top Hat Zebra** · May 05, 2012, 07:40 PM

^Really? I do it the other way around.

**Ferdiad** · May 05, 2012, 07:43 PM

I like to keep a big navy.

**♘Top Hat Zebra** · May 05, 2012, 07:50 PM

I like having enough money to keep a big navy.

**CTD_or_Bust** · May 05, 2012, 07:58 PM

Yeah that's a pretty intense war machine you have there. I guess you never have to worry about coastal bombardments lol.

**♘Top Hat Zebra** · May 05, 2012, 08:04 PM

Nope. I turtle until I have a super powerful navy, and then I just beat every other faction on the high seas.

**Ferdiad** · May 05, 2012, 08:09 PM

^How most of my campaigns go.

**jonny duck** · May 05, 2012, 09:59 PM

I tend to build military ports in provinces that either offer bonuses to ships built there or are valuable strategic locations. After that I just build trade ports. At the end of the day you need money to fund land armies to win the game.

**Cruzz** · May 06, 2012, 01:27 AM

If you're going Republic, trade ports beyond the first one are worse than useless. Military ports and drydocks all the way (after the one trade port you want for the filthy foreigners+trade with them).

If you're playing Shogunate or Imperial, it's largely a question of how well you can defend them. If you're not going to defend the port with a navy then there's no point in making it an expensive-to-repair trade port.

**wealthmonger** · May 06, 2012, 04:38 AM

I try to keep wars to a minimum until I have a good navy, so 1 military port and the rest trade ports. But I'm greedy so ehh, 2 trade routes plus 700 wealth sounds good to me. That can be a problem early campaign but it works itself out.

**eXistenZ** · May 06, 2012, 05:34 AM

i always put a trade port next to a military port and keep alternating. When realm divide strikes you lose a lot of trading partners anyway.

**♔The Black Knight♔** · May 06, 2012, 06:28 AM

I like to have military ports all around the map and keep my trade posts by my most heavily defended provinces.

**Ceorl84** · May 06, 2012, 11:07 AM

I'm more like Cruzz, since I normally go for Republic I don't bother building any speciality ports. Since the AI fleets love to target ports, generally the cost to repair is too high relative to the income generation of trading ports. And I find I save more time and money simply by repairing the bombardment damage rather than building a powerful navy through the military ports.

**Buffalo_Ninja** · May 06, 2012, 11:43 AM

I like the military ports at bottleneck sort of locations (like Kii or Ise) that restrict access to a lot of other ports, I go with a 1:1 ratio of Military ports and trade Ports it's just the location that is the deciding factor (easy to defend vs. not easy to defend proximity to military bases and other sorts of factors). Doesn't the Dockyard let you have international trade and build awesome ships(fots)? so it's really only a decision until you unlock Iron plating then you just build the dockyard and watch your enemies piss themselves.

**SinerAthin** · May 06, 2012, 08:48 PM

I have 1 or 2 Military Ports, the other 20-30 are Trading ports.

The Trade Ports give me the money to buy more ships, so not only can I beat the enemy at the seas, I can also persue him and screw up his coastline once he's ran out of wooden trunks to send at me!