TOTAL WAR WIKI

Commercial Port
Category:	Port - Trade
Level:	1
Turns to build:	3
Building cost:	2500
European Indian Middle Eastern
Requires
Trading Port
Technology
Division of Labour
Enables
Commercial Basin

Adding warehouses additional docks and even the services of the excisemen to a port increases the amount of trade that can be done. Now cargoes can be consolidated and shipped onwards.

Shipping goods to a home market is only one way of making money from trade. There is more to be earned from shipping valuable goods to new markets in other countries. The ability to warehouse an incoming cargo and only release it when the price is right also increases profits.

Most maritime nations – Britain and Holland in particular – had rules that enforced a native nationals-only rule for carrying goods into their ports. Anything, for example, that arrived in the Port of London should have come in a “British bottom”. This kind of protectionism in trade also applied to colonies and indirectly caused at least one war, the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-48), between Spain and Britain. The Spanish were alleged to have chopped off the ear when Jenkins was caught trading in Spanish territory; the British had previously agreed a treaty not to do this. The war became part of the War of Austrian Succession (1740-48) but, incidentally, marks the first public occasion that “God Save the King” was used as the British national anthem, to celebrate the capture of Puerto Bello in Panama by Admiral Vernon.