Amawyn

More specifically, your entire company can only have 10 lvl 1 crew at one time. For example if player A in your company hires 10 crew, sails home and logs for the night (they are still level 1). Player B sails to a Freeport right now and can hire no crew. When player A levels up the crew to lvl 2, then player B will be able to hire 10 crew. or Just bed over to the other boat and level up the crew for them. Then bed back to your boat at the freeport and hire crew.

Maybe on claimed island at 20% tax. It used to be deducted from the reward amount, then it was no longer deducted, maybe it is back to being deducted again?

I've found that a lighthouse is a good chunk of the lag.

Some added info as I've been fighting the Host Connection Timeout issue upon login for several days. Basically you log in, can move for about 30s, then it gets stuck for a few seconds then goes to Host Connection Timeout. Repeat, and eventually after 20-30 attempts, I can stay in, usually after I move away from the base. After many experiments, I discovered it only happens when trying to login or bed-into two bases near the shore, and they both had a lighthouse in render range. One of the lighthouses was mine, so I demolished it. And voila, gets rid of most of the issue. Sometimes have 1 Host Connection Timeout still, but no longer takes 20 attempts to log in. My guess is it is due to large amount of structures rendering in, especially multiple galleons. And critically exacerbated by a lighthouse.