Something that people should know, and probably very few do, is where Sid Meier's Civilization comes from.
The seed of our addiction is an old, and one of the best ever, board game called Advanced Civilization. It is out of production now (only Hasbro knows why), and the existing copies sell for ~US$ 600 in Ebay. A group of fans created a website replicating the exact gameplay, board and rules, and more than 1,000 members and growing attest to the immortality of this boardgame (by the way, I highly recommend going to the website, register for free, and learn to play the game... nothing better than a round of true civilized diplomacy ...
).
http://civ.rol-play.com/ahciv/login...rde&url=/ahciv/games.php?nocache=5v205r0d55kw
Anyways, Advanced Civilization, as the name indicates, is a game about, hey you guessed!, advancing your civilization. Warfare is penalized there, not impossible but not the best path to civilization, especially in the early phases of the game. Sid Meier's Civilization inherited heavily from that approach, assuming also a "war is costly" stance throughout the series. That is very easy to see.
Only Shafer decided, and using his own words, that he wanted "a Panzer General with cities in between"... basically breaking up with one of the core principles of the series (and its seed board game). War was almost the ONLY strategy in Vanilla, which not only made for a poor game (the AI will never be as good as we are maneuvering), but also divorced the spirit of the game series from the latest iteration. War was not costly anymore, but the only and ultimate strategy. In other words, he transformed a game about advancing your civilization into a wargame, and a poor one at that.
What we see in the latest, "Ed Beach"-generation of versions, is a return to the spirit of the series. War is costly. You can play it as a wargame, and the engine let's you do that, but do not expect Command and Conquer-like feedback from the game. In fact, given that now the game feels again like what the series is about, Ed Beach et al did a wonderful job in not completely disregarding the 'warpath" for players... but War is costly. If you are able to pay the cost, or able to avoid it with smart diplomacy and maneuvering, that is up to you.
But war is costly. As it should be, as it should have been barring the Shafer anecdote.
If I want to play a wargame, and I do sometimes, there are very good games at that (AT series, TOAW, even the controversial HoI series). When I want to build a civilization, which also includes conflict of course, but does not REVOLVE only around it, then I come to Civilization.
I suggest you do the same.