Here is why its so good.
Craftable items are the best in game, sure they sell civilain ships but they are much lesser versions of the craftable ones. Ship upgrades can't be bought at any vendor, ammo is much cheaper to buy off players in the AH. Everything from food, ammo, ship up grades, to ships can be all craftable. There is no farming for materials, it is like RTS game when it comes to materials. Here is an overview how it all works:
You get 10 slots per server to build structors at free ports. These structors can be used to mine minerals, growing cops, hunt for leather, raising livestock, creating metal, wood, cloth items, black powder, weapons, ammo ect. Since you only have 10 slots you must find the market which you want to aim at, because there is only 10 slots per server (not character) for ship building you need 38 slots so its impossible for 1 player to make everything he/she needs to build a ship. It is impossible for 1 player to have everything unless he had like 4 seperate accounts...this is what drives the economy because everyone has to buy off everyone else. So to build a structor you need a deed there is 2 building that creates structor deeds they can be bought off other players or found off enemy ships but its very scarece. Some deeds are given as quest rewards in the economy turtorial to start you out. So these building also need raw materials to build which you will most likely have to buy of other players. So after you build you stuctors they start to build up labor hours...1 hour is equal to 1 hour IRL. This part I like the most because if I am not playing I am building up labor hours and there is no competing for farming....its beatiful. So if I want to get a bunch of iron...I just wait till it has 1 hour of labor and I go to the port that the Iron mine is at and generate the ore...which also cost a small amount of gold. After that I load it in my ship and take it to my base of operation. Everyone has there main base port which is where you want to have the most buildings and generate your goods at. Its time consuming if they are spread out but also if they are spread out then there is lower risk if another Nation attacks the free port. God help me and Williams if someone attacks Sissil. So you play the game while you wait for your labor hours to build up then you take 30 mins to go to your ports and gather everything you need and generate your crafted items and put them in the AH.
Another question is about gold...if you need all this gold to make items, build, and buy items how do you get it? Well you get it by selling items made and by doing missions or destroying enemy ships. You get 200-400 gold for destroying an enemy ship at level 12. You get 400-600 gold for completing a mission at level 12 not including what you get off ships you destory in the mission. Its easy to do a mission and walk away with 1000 gold. So you see there is enough gold to around to drive the economy...its not rare which is an adjustment I had to make coming from WoW...its no big deal speading 400-1000 gold. I already had 20,000 gold on my character at one point. Since its not hard and materials are not time consuming to generate or make usually they are at more the fair prices...like 1 limestone is only 10 gold and players more free and open to buying items.
Another question is about traveling...if you have ports to go to how long does it take. Well the game is realistic in traveling but not in time. This is one of the fun aspects of the game cause you travel by your boat. Here is where you move through enemies, attack them, run away from them and so forth. The speed of your ship depends on 3 factors:
1. Wind direction - you need the wind to be blowing sideways into your sails for the fastest speed. Wind direction changes a bit depending on where you are, like the wind in gulf of mexico is slighly different then the carribean islands and also by time sometimes wind is blowing in shore and 2 hours later it will be blowing away from shore.
2. Currents - currents appear on and off and give you an increase in speed and no decrease when going against the current.
3. Ships speed - based on your ship depends how fast.
If you have multiple ships in your dry dock and one is at one port and another is at another port you can jump to that other port that your ships in a flash, but you can only leave a port with a ship that is dock at that port.
So thats my overview of this game so far...I am really enjoying it, but I have yet to touch on pvp because I have not got into it as of yet still experiencing other aspects.