Tips are welcome. I've read many articles and threads, but I'm still too dumb to succeed, I guess. I really love this game, but I'm getting very, very frustrated with what happens to me in the later game.

One possible problem is that I play on Noble, and then probably make lots of newbie mistakes. Another possible mistake is that my last game was on a Continents map ... I've had to mount naval campaigns to attack others; by the time I send my Galleons-with-Troops, land and mount an attack, the enemy is on the next level of military strength (wiping out my Conquistadors with Grenadiers, for example).

I've played about six games now. All follow this general pattern: I am basically just trying to stay 'in the mix' right now as far as Game Score. Early in the game, I'm reasonbly close, sometimes in the lead. Starting around 500-1000 AD, some other civilization starts to creep away from the pack in terms of Game Score. I never know what to do about it. It's usually someone with a bigger military than me. No one wants to talk about alliances or even "stop trading" usually, and I sit there watching the Leader's score go up and up. There's usually two Point leaders by about 1500 AD, usually a couple hundred points ahead of me and everyone else.

At which point, I feel I have no options. For the reasons stated above. My military is not strong enough to take them on, and if I do start a war, my score stabilizes while my enemy's continues to rise.

So how the $#@% do you get after a civilization with a 200-300 point lead in a situation like this? With no diplomatic options (every possible one is "redded-out" on other civ's screens / they don't want to talk about it) and no military options.

I LIKE to play a game of building my religions or culture early, but I'm getting the clear message from my results that the only way to victory is to build military early and huge, and attack early in the game. If I try to play a "balanced" game of building strength in all areas, my military is useless except to defend cities and play a pacifist game.

when you get to the other continent pilliage rather than attack if your units are outdated. And go for the towns first. Or play marathon speed, your units can go quite a while before becoming obsolete. I rarely play an early military campaign and do nicely down here at prince while thumping the bejeezus out of noble. If you play the peaceful builder guy/gal slap down mucho el cottagos early and often. This will keep you ahead in tech or resonably close. Build a slow but steady military force to keep the hounds at bay while you stock pile the cash. If I have managed to expand to a decent size empire i usually wait until infantry to switch to war mode civics (theocracy/vassalage) build a gob of infantry to defend the Motherland while i hook up the oil/research the oil techs. Once I hace oil hooked up I start pumping out tanks anywhere and everywhere i can. while researching bomber techs. The exception being transports in a couple coastal cities. I then load up about 5-6 transports of tanks and go visit my neighbors that refused to trade sheep to me all game. I usually attack the top dog i can find with the first wave. I keep a single city to base the bombers in and raze as many others as i can while pilliaging on the move. 2 dozen tanks will rip a civ without tanks to ribbons. If they have a stock pile of troops in the cities i just lay waste to the landscape. evetentualy they will whittle away my tanks but in the mean time they have been crippled. and that late in the game, their towns will never grow back, the size 12 city with oodles of improvements is now a burned out inner city slum. Just be sure to have lots of naval units built up to keep them from returning the favor.

By looking at the Stats screen early, I'm seeing that I fall behind quickly in many areas: population, Food, military.

Which astounds me. If I'm overdoing one area, shouldn't I at least have the lead in SOMETHING?

I guess I have a ton to learn about early game play.

I LIKE to play a game of building my religions or culture early, but I'm getting the clear message from my results that the only way to victory is to build military early and huge, and attack early in the game.
No. Not on Noble, at least - you can play and win pure builder games at least through Monarch. You're just not making the right choices about what to build. I consider myself a pretty good builder - if you post a save game, I'd be happy to look it over and give some advice. Even better, post several saves from different eras of the game. But without seeing a save, it's hard to know where your problems are.

Hi, it's very possible to win at least a monarch game with almost pure building. I've done it (monarch, continents, all standard settings) with only six cities by building up a good tech lead to a SR victory, and if I remember correctly, I never declared war and only fought some short defensive wars.

Post a save game if you want constructive help on your game.

I've won pretty much all of my games on Noble through pure pacifist play, peacefully building my way to victory. It completely messes my game up when someone declares war on me, but thanks to extensive diplomatic manouvering, this rarely occurs.
Not having to focus on military gives you a good edge in industry and research, and also means that if someone should declare war on you, you'll hopefully be able to mobilize a small army of superior tech level to meet the enemy.

If they are beating you in score, take a few of their cities. Thats the only sure-fire way to bring their score down.

Its easy to do on Noble since they dont receive any production bonuses or anything.