Normally I wouldn't comment on my decisions but I feel like I want to here. This is my first church world and all the knowledge I have about these type of worlds comes from 3 or 4 guides I've read, plus some advice from a few friends. I purposely let 3 players in my area grow with the intention of nobling them all later (which I have done now) in order to form a 4/5 village set up in my 15x15-20x20.
Some have not grown as much as I wanted but nothing ever goes to plan, I cleared all 3 villages the day before I nobled my first village to avoid a negative morale effect on the 3rd one. In terms of building a train normally I would but I didn't feel the need to do so here as I felt 3 nobles was enough.
However the fundamental basis for nobling fast imo is 4 barracks and 4 stables all churning out troops simultaneously is surely better than just 2 or 1? I'm fairly confident my net total of troops is probably 2-3 x more than any other player atm and that would all be down to nobling 3 villages fast.
