Midway through the game, you will need to earn large sums of money to progress further in your career. Pay attention to the inn, and pay for people's drinks. You will hear tips that will help you make financially good decisions, such as buying cheap dream dust, or selling arms at a high price. These tips change randomly each time the game is restarted, (includes saving and reloading), but they will stay the same as long as you keep playing.

Once you have accumulated a large fortune, do not haul cargo around to your various ports to make money. Instead, purchase the warehouses in each port, hire guards, then start buying bulk amounts of the products you will be selling. By tracking the tips from the inn, you will be able to stockpile the precious resources in each port, selling them only when a very good deal appears. This is far quicker than transporting cargo by ship, and saves you a tremendous amount of space. You can use that space to arm your fleet with more cannon and keep it safer. The tougher your fleet, the easier it will be to take on the pirate captains that offer small bounties and big status rewards.

If you are not in a port that leads to a pirate captain (for example, if the current pirate captain is between Jia-Ching and Tanchon, but you are currently in Lama Sut), use the opportunity to load up on Dream Dust (if it is cheap) and stop by Shangri La to sell it. Shangri La has no Port Authority, so there is no fear of having the contraband cargo confiscated, and you can easily double your investment.