Well. That's, um, quite the attack-heavy game.
You a little, and your opponent especially, probably over-bought terminal actions. Noble Brigand is broadly considered not a great card. Saboteur is broadly considered a really bad card (I would add: unless you can chain a bunch of them together on the same turn). Given your opponent's reliance on attack cards, and Saboteurs, I think replacing some of your Trade Routes and Noble Brigands with Horse Traders would have been a decent way to go. Horse Traders is also somewhat helpful in terms of dealing with the junk that Mountebanks give you, since you can discard it for +money, +buy.
In terms of trash-for-benefit, I like Apprentice a lot more than Trade Route. I'm not sure you want trash-for-benefit at all, though, in face of an opponent with lots of Noble Brigands and Saboteurs.
You don't need to buy something every turn. If your choice is nothing versus a bad $3 or $4 terminal, you can go with nothing. (Ordinarily, you'd go for Silver, but possibly not a ton of that in this Colony game).