It annoys me to no end...

[Quineloe]

he offered, I of course didn't take it because I wanted his great works in Rome.

It's also not that big an upkeep, Germany after all. The beauty of a large Panzer army as opposed to a bunch of city sniping artillery is that the latter is far more vulnerable. With Panzers, you can go in, attack the city and pull back out. With 20 of them, you can take a city in two turns, even at 110+ Strength.

Just loaded up the quick save after the defeat of Rome, I'm sitting at +620 income with -488 expenses and that's with the captured cities still only costing gold and not making any. After they came around, it's back to +250 GPT. It's definitely possible to have a large army without going broke.

Army size being 384k, largest was Russia at 505k, Average 211k (of course, completely annihilating Romes army dropped the average )

 

[MarauderCH]

I usually end up rage quitting games when I start by the Shoshone because they will end up claiming the best spots long before I am ready to. I believe only once did I complete a game where I started next to them. I was Egypt and had a super starting location and was a wonder building monster all game. It probably helped that Babylon was on the other side of the Shoshone and they didn't get a long all game and that kept the Shoshone occupied while I did my thing and got a SV.

 

[phillipwyllie]

It's not just the size of your army but the tech level of it. If your opponent only had cross-bows and pike-men and you have Rocket Artillery and Infantry they'll give almost anything in a peace deal.