Trading – People, Ports, or Production?

Settlers has a lot of trading in it. What’s the best way to do it? I’ve played with people who swear that it’s more advantageous to not trade with anyone until you have 5 points(relying on their own production), and I’ve played with people who only ever used the set rates of 4:1 or the 3:1/2:1 ports to trade.

From an economics standpoint, it is not advantageous to cut yourself off from trading with other players. The main reasoning that I have heard to discourage trading with opponents is the fact that you are directly giving an opponent a resource that he/she deems valuable. Why not keep it for yourself and not help them? The fact is that whether you participate in the trading or not, there is a market available to trade resources at a changing price, and your opponents will participate in it whether you do or not. In fact, the maximum participation in the market will give the most stability and fairness to the pricing of each resources. My advice is then to participate in the trading between players, but with the correct knowledge and foresight. A beneficial trade is one where each player is receiving resources that help him/her the same as the other. Trades need to be mutually beneficial and to the same degree of benefit.