any good way to make $$$?

[Zwelgje]

I just had the alternate idea to conquer my enemies through diplomacy, which requires huge pools of money (around $1000 per city, plus rushing happiness improvements afterwards to keep the city productive).

First capture your enemy's capital (you can't bribe their capital anyway), then you bribe their cities. When a civ doesn't have a capital anymore the bribing of the cities gets much cheaper.

 

[Alex Johnson]

That strategy (capturing capitol) doesn't work very well. If the regular cities are so hard I can't capture a single one by military might, then I can't capture the capitol. Likewise, the capitol is often buried in the center of the empire and a) I can't see it because I can't get past the outer ring of cities and b) I couldn't get troops in because the outer ring of cities can't be passed (the zone of control problem).

 

[Zwelgje]

Civilization is a numbers game really, if you bring enough of the right units you'll always win.
Once you're fighting armor with your chariots that may not be entirely true though.

 

[trada]

How about you give every unit a value?

Say:

Militea = 1
Chariot = 3
ARMOR = 12

That way you can still call it a numbers game.. 4 Chariots equals a ARMOR so 8 Chariots equals two armors!