Water is not empty land
A water tooltip can read Sea, UNCLAIMED, and OCEAN together. UNCLAIMED is ownership. Sea and OCEAN are the tile type. An ordinary land interaction on that tile can say "That is open water." Choose a different action instead of clicking the same tile again.
| You selected | Next check |
|---|---|
| Open land or plains | Ownership, then a land expansion |
| A named holding | Owner and the troop label, then an attack decision |
| Sea or ocean | Coastal tools and a naval action |
The coast is land beside water. A Port sits on a coast you control. Open ocean is neither.
Buy a Port only on your coast
Inspect who owns the shoreline. A neighbor's coast is not your build site. The Port action has shown 500K on an early menu and 1.00M on a later menu. Read the current price against Gold. The desktop-style bar shows P as a hint. That hint is not a documented phone control, and it may not be rebindable.
A completed Port shows PORT BUILT and a sail-style marker on your coast. Several port icons can exist. That does not tell you a minimum number of ports for every crossing. Buy the coastal step your route needs, then read what naval actions appear.
A starting selection beside water does not spawn the Port. You still pay and confirm the build.
Ships are not the building
The stationary sail-style Port marker is a building. Sail-shaped vessels and hull-shaped ships move on the water. Do not assign trade or transport from the silhouette alone. Hull-shaped ships can show colored health bars. Orange projectiles appear around ships and coastal structures during combat. Those signals show that a fight is happening. They do not publish damage per hit, maximum health, or a ship-counter chart.
Crossing to an island
A naval move needs its own destination and its own troop commitment. Selecting a route is not a landing. Watch whether the island's color actually changes, then read Army again.
There is no published distance-to-time formula for crossings. Do not borrow a ship-spawn command from another OpenFront game. Read the action this match shows, including any troop count near the coast, and do not substitute your whole Army for that count.
Square fortress icons and circular overlays can appear on the coast during these fights. The circle is not a measured range. Defense and Artillery prices are in the buildings guide.