So I just took out the most powerful, closest Civ to me...now what?

[ShadowXOR]

I thought I liked the upkeep mechanic, but I now I feel I'll be punished if I keep my army around. I'd like to focus on my economy for a bit and don't want to continue waging war at the moment now that Elizabeth is destroyed...but that's not to say I plan on being peaceful for the rest of the game...so what do I do? My gold flow is positive right now, so should I keep them around? If I don't, I may be able to pay off more city states. Not sure what victory type I'm going for yet.

If I keep them, I can pay less to upgrade them later since I have the Honor policy tree finished. My economy is doing OK as I razed all of her cities except her capital and one other.

BTW how does the AI on prince have like 5-6 cities in the time I only had two? Maybe that's why she had nothing to defend with, I guess.

I'm scared leaving them around will waste too much gold while I'm focusing on the economy for a bit, but I'm scared if I get rid of them I'll get surprised later or not have enough time to rebuild. So what's more valuable, the army or the gold?

Here are some additional details regarding the current state of my game:

The next closest/most powerful Civ that I'm aware of isn't too far away, but it would definitely be a hike for my units. He's on this continent though. I'm still in the 150 range turn-wise so I've got roughly another 350 to go on standard, I haven't seen what's across the ocean and haven't met probably at least half the Civs in the game. I personally like to keep a small number of cities because micro-managing gets irritating after a while, but the AI always seems to always found a ton of cities, and they always seem to beat me, so maybe I need more cities too? I currently have four, the two I founded and two I took from Elizabeth. I'm playing on a Standard size map (8 Civs?) with Standard length. Map type is continents.

 

[Scramble]

That's the challenge isn't it? We won't be able to give you a definitive answer, because we don't know all the specifics of your game: do the other civs like or hate you? What kind of tech do you and your opponents have? What kind of resources do you have access to? How many cities with what kind of population and production do you have? What is the map layout?

Oil and Aluminum units like Bombers, Battleships and Tanks are very cost efficient and you can hold off a very large army with just a few of these.

Choke points allow you to keep very few units around and hold off a large number of units. If you have no real choke points, put up some key forts and keep 2 units at each fort (Longswordsman/Rifleman/Infantry/Mech Inf and Crossbowman/Cannon/Artillery/Rocket Artillery). Those few units can hold off quite nicely. Back them up with a mobile unit or two(mounted, or planes/paratroops). Most times if you have a choke or a good rough position with lots of hills you can hold it just fine with very few units.