So I have owned BtS for awhile now. Played it for a few weeks then work got pretty rough for me.

Have some time now and I noticed something odd. Now that I actually NEED the colony button (too high maintenance over seas), I notice it isn't there.

Domestic Adviser screen, bottom right near the exit button am I right? Yeah, not there...

Any idea why? The only things I've done a little differently is played hemisphere maps and have been toying with advanced start.

You have to have vassal states enabled to make colonies. Check your settings.

In case somone proves me wrong then I have the same problem as OP.

Yeah, I found out what the problem was. Apparently the game decides when you can and cannot grand independence because my colony button just showed up shortly after posting :p

You need to have at least 2 or 3 cities on a separate continent from where your main cities are. Otherwise you can't free them.

You need to have 2+ cities on the same other landmass in order to create a colony. 2 cities on 2 landmasses can not be turned into a colony. After you create a colony, solo cities on other landmasses may be liberated to your new colony.

After you create a colony, solo cities on other landmasses may be liberated to your new colony.

How do you do this? I take it this means you cannot create multiple colonies?

No - you can still create additional colonies (assuming the conditions stated above still exist).

There are two ways to Liberate cities to a colony:
1) Open the trade dialogue with your colony. Cities that may be liberated will have (liberate) after them. Just give them away.
2) When you click on the "FIST" Icon at the bottom of the F1 page, a list will appear outlining blocks of options. Supposing you have previously created Acolony, this will be something along the lines of:
A) Create Bcolony with Acity, Bcity, Ccity, Dcity.
B) Liberate Acity to Acolony
C) Liberate Bcity to Acolony
D) Liberate . . .

You get the idea.

I think there is some aditional element involved. I settled a bunch of crappy islands thinking I would just give them away, however I never was able to unload one totally sucky city.

I'm Inca, Abe is my vassel and took all my colonies but I'm still stuck with Chuquiapo near Maya ans the south pole.

BTW I was never given the option to liberate Sparta either, not that I ever wanted to.

I was asking because I had about 5 cities I wanted to liberate (they were costing me a lot of money) and the option wasn't there at the time, but showed up later.

In my case I was able to unload most of my colonies, but ended up being stuck with that one for the whole game. There must be some algorithm that decides which ones you can liberate and I'd like some information on what that is so I don't get stuck with junk cities in later games.

Yep, there must be some other decision a colony makes about whether to include a city or not.

In my case, I had a small island right next to my home continent. I started three cities there in quick succession. After a few turns I went to the domestic advisor, clicked the colony button on one of the cities, and it rightly detected I wanted to liberate all three of those cities. Thus was born Arabia.

Maybe 30 turns later, on another island far to the direct south of Arabia, I founded two cities. After a few turns I am asked to liberate one of the cities to the Arabians. I say yes, then I try to find a way to liberate the other city on that island, no dice. I have yet to be given the oppurtunity to liberate that other city, which has grown to size 12. It seems that Arabia doesn't want that city even though it is a few tiles away from the one it did want, and is in fact closer to the Arabian capital. Meh. Dunno, I guess they reached their quota or something. :confused:

They do have the right to say no. . .

That option then becomes unavailable if the colony feels it would be too much of a burden.

very fine. very creative feature. i never tried to found a colony but i will try, it made wonder.

any way, then i have to restart with vassals enabled to try right? can i also found a colony with 2-3 cities on the same continent with mine?
let's say that they have very fine resources but costing me much maintenance. you know some cities are strategic about resources but they are like a QUASIMODO(did i spell right?). some create many resources and shields on mountains, rocky areas but not creating any energy points (or gold,money :P)
oh, i feel that i want civ5 to be a mix of alpha centauri and civ4. both games have very nice features. by the way, i still play alpha centauri sometimes. can you believe? :)

can i also found a colony with 2-3 cities on the same continent with mine?

No. To create a colony, you need 2+ cities to be on a seperate landmass (continent or island).

If you want to reduce maintenance, just build lots of courthouses. There are other strategies around the forums, but that's the most simple one.