Its' greatness was it's utter failure...
-Ports: Not exactly a building but you can find arms dealers to buy newer swords and pistols for yourself, your officers, and crew.
-Stores: To purchase goods for trade, food for your crew, ammunition (cannonballs, bombs, grapes, knipples, planks, and sailcloth). And the ability to sell if you have any unwanted goods on board you ship.
-Shipyards: To upgrade your ship (Hull, Sails, and Cannons). You could also buy ships or increase your armada if you have a good tactics level by buying additional ships.
-Taverns: Where you could refill your crew, hire new officers (You must assign 3 fighters, a navigator, a quartermaster, a boatswain, a cannons officer, a surgeon, and a carpenter), and get the latest news. You can also get lodgings (a room) to sleep in for the next day.
-Churches: Very later on in the game when you actually start conquering colonies are available for entering. You donate an amount of money to settle your stance with a country so they would no longer pursuit you or allow you to moore in their port by firing at you with their fort.
-Banks: To be honest I never got to unlock them during the game. They wouldn't unlock. But I bet they were just for depositing your money and gaining interest every month.
-Residence: Usually where the governor\boss resides.
Skills are another important and fun thing in the game. they give you the advantage over your enemies and you choose to upgrade what you want. Each skill has a limit of 10 skill points.Your skills consist of the following:
-Leadership: An important skill which represents your control over the crew and their morality (their morality would no longer fluctuate easily).
-Navigation: The more you add to this skill, the better you handle your ship.
-Tactics: Every 2 skill points enables you to add an extra ship to your armada.
-Fencing: An important skill which helps you inflict more damage to you opponents and reduces the amount of energy loss every time you perform a strike with your sword. (Only the types of strikes).
-Pistols: The ability to increase accuracy and inflict more damage with every shot of your pistol.
-Cannons: The greater this skill, the faster your cannoneers reload the cannons on deck, the less chance of a cannon exploding while firing, and the more damage inflicted to the enemies' hull.
-Accuracy: The less chance of you missing the target. This skill increases your cannons' accuracy to get a better chance of inflicting critical hits to your enemies' hull.
-Boarding: When you board other ships to fight the crew and take control of the ship, this skill will enable you to board from a further distance rather than getting too close every time you increase this skill.
-Defense: The more skill points increased, the less damage your ship and crew take during battles.
-Repair: The efficiency and rate of repairs while in the world map.
-Trade: Make better deals with store-keepers and profit more when you sell your goods.
-Luck: The more invested in this skill, the better luck you get.
The game offers many more details when it comes to building structures in your captured ports, and managing your money equivalently.
This game is truly misinterpreted. All-in-all this game was a tad away from utter success. If it wasn't for its' annoying crashes and bad story line (that is if there is a complete storyline) this game would have been declared a masterpiece.