Conquering limitations.

The last time I played CIV I explored the best ways to conquer other nations. Conquering is not just something you can do just at any point. It has to be planned out and done well. In past games toward the end of the game I want to conquer a bunch of land so I basically go on a Blitzkrieg to dominate the world. At first this worked, and I conquered many lands, but part of the reason it worked was because it was so close to the end of the game that there wasn't a lot of time for other nations to retaliate or take advantage of my mistakes. The first priority to conquering is having enough military units to fight. You need enough military units to protect the homeland, defeat the enemy, leave enough troops in the defeated cities to defend them, and then still have enough units to push on and repeat the process numerous times. There are many reprecutions to if you don't have enough units for all these tasks. If you don't leave yourself enough units to protect the homeland, then other nations can end up declaring war on you and easily wipe you out. If you don't have enough units to protect the conquered cities, then after you tear through them other nations or other cities in that nation could easily come along and take back the city. Then if you don't have enough units to keep fighting you will end up in a standstill, and allow the nation to regroup and get stronger to push you back. Going into war requires well though out plans, and the readiness for the unexpected like being ready for another nation to get involved and having to fight a war with 2 or more civilizations. Relating this to the real world shows the true military advantage of the United States. There are many factors you don't have to worry as much about because of the location of the U.S. As long as the U.S. stays allies with Mexico and Canada, which is a good possibility, there are only two ways to attack the U.S., and that's from the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean or the air. The U.S. doesn't have to worry about other countries marching through their borders like most countries in Europe and Asia do. This leads to almost never fighting a war on American soil which is a great advantage, and a part to why the U.S. is a world superpower.