Okay, good points, all of them.

Let me it really clear. I had a port in the big C and another in Greece. Both states had merchants.

I had a boat on almost every part of the big Med west of Sicily and Malta. That means I had uniterrupted shipping between Egypt, which had a port, Tunisia, which had a port, and the two or three ports in the Agean.

And it wasn't that I was disappointed with how much I was making -- I wasn't making squat. Zip. No money in the port at all.

The only nation I was at war with was Turkey.

Okay, do you have to be allied with the nation to trade with them?

Do you have to establish some kind of trade agreement?

Do you have a special kind of boat?

Do you have click on their port or something?

Is there a magic password?

Seriously, five years after linking my ports in Greece and the big C, I still was making NO money and I was the only boat in the water.