I have been reading these forums a bit of the past while. I notice a lot of people raize cities instead of Annex. Also I notice peopel have issues with large empires and happiness.

Guys, I dont know what I do different but I have won and thrived using these two methods.

I never raize a city and I dont have issues with happiness.

My latest game has about 50 odd cities and I have 170 happiness. I annexed an entire AI civ for about 20 cities just shortly before now.

I really dont understand how its an issue.

I am moving up from Prince difficulty next game... maybe that is when I will see these issues?

the idea is that you won't be able to conquer cities without the extra power and you won't be able to have more power if you're busy making happiness buildings

So far I dont feel bogged down making happiness buildings. Maybe I have a higher pain threshold? :)

I have a super army with plenty of units.

The game before this one I had immense happiness, 50 odd cities and about 15 giant death robots with another huge army of modern armors and some randoms..

It is unfortunate that once I get to this stage the game falls flat and becomes a bit easy hence moving up the difficulties so quickly in comparison to Civ4

Anyways, grabbing a coffee now and starting up a new game on higher difficulty :D Going to skip one also so might get my ass kicked :)