Woohoo I finally won on noble. but I find some things confusing.

[Chiatroll]

I've been losing on noble left and right while reading and learning about this game and I just one a game on marathon space race...

My first win of like 5 marathon games on noble. Yeah other people win on deity but I am still learning this game so I was really proud to of won that.

I tried non marathon and marathon just felt more epic.

I keep reading but I still find myself rusty on some issues. Expansion and military power timing is still a weakness for me I always expand to slow and end up stuck more peaceful overall. I expand to slow though so I need some war to get my expansion going. This time I attacked america because I founded Buddhism and converted most of the world and america was tiny and Hindu.

I'm going to try take a more militaristic win in the future. I've read all kinds of guides on it from the war academy but I tend to fall apart in practice.

Also since BTS lets you break your land away as a vassel I kind of wonder. Is this ever a good idea? The map I got was almost all islands so would I of been in a big financial mess if it wasn't for everything else going on?

Finance wise this time I was financial and made the bronze statue first and in this specific case I had founded Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, and Confucianism and I had 4 great prophet spawns so I was building temples and a wonders and 2 great merchants to support my economy so I stayed stay at 100% almost all the way through until nations started going state property everywhere and killing my corporations.

(i had sushi and the one that terms metals into hammers)

 

[pesgores]

About the Colonies' creation, many people say it isn't really that useful. I never create independant colonies, so I don't know if they are or not good.

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

Congrat Chinatroll. I am pretty successful on noble and not so much on higher levels. After moving above noble your gameplay has to change and become more specialized and I like being able to dominate on noble so I stick with it.
If you want to try a military centric game you will have to make a few changes.
1)stop chasing religions. they can benefit the economy and are easily obtainable on noble but you will need military techs first. You will need to stay on the bottom of the tech tree mainly as the top is science and middle is religion.
2)stop building wonders. choose specific ones that provide benefits you need the most and skip the rest. production will be needed for troops.

As far as vassals are concerned they play a big role in BTS. If going for a domination victory you receive 50% of their pop and land towards victory conditions (if I remember correctly) I think there is some upkeep associated with having vassals but it is far less than owning the colonies yourself. I think a domination victory is very unlikely without vassal (your economy can't withstand the pressure) The key is to keep the good cities, raze the bad and vassalize the AI when a)your economy can't sustain war anymore, b)war weariness becomes rampant c)you are DOWed by another AI or need to DOW another AI for some reason or d) the AI is no longer a threat and it is time to rebuild the economy or take down another AI.

When you are at war with AI on another continent the upkeep cost go way up and to save the economy it may be best to let the cities go. You can demand resources from your vassal but they have the option of breaking away if they feel you are to pushy. I set up colonies sometimes late in the game because I am too lazy to build them up. If going for space or culture victory I will let overseas colonies become vassals so I can sit back and press enter to get a fast culture win.