I'm looking for guidance in Civilization IV on how best to build a military that allows for the optimum mix of defensive capabilities with offensive ability (when needed) without having to sacrifice technological gains and city improvements.
Some background: I'm having difficulty balancing domestic output and city improvements with military strength and aggressiveness whenever I play at the Noble difficulty level or above. My preferred style of play is to not emphasize military strength, but instead to work on science and trade and city improvements. On the military front I build primarily defensive units with defensive city improvements (such as archers and walls in the early game). The problem I run into with this strategy is that usually by 0 AD or so there will be at least one civilization on the map that's got it out for me, despite my attempts at placating all of my neighbors. They'll send in a swarm of units, destroy my improvements, and take out a few cities. My only defense (sadly) is to buy/negotiate a peace treaty.
I've tried playing the opposite way – building a very strong military – but in doing so I usually have to sacrifice building workers/settlers at the rate I enjoy, which slows my expansion. I usually last a lot longer but by the mid game my civilization is behind most others when it comes to technology, city sizes, the breadth of my empire, culture, and so on. Also, this approach just isn't as much fun for me.
TIA
Best Answer
From my experience, 3 military is good enough for average defense, it allows you to hold out till you can reinforce.
But for your style of play, perhaps 5-10 would be better, you don't want to many as it causes slow down in tech etc..., but then you don't want to get crushed. You should have more on the outer cities and reinforce from your inner ones, I try to always have 3 minimum in all cities, but doesn't always work, then any bigger cities up it to 4-5.
If you notice your enemies normally attack you with massive stacks, the only way to counter those are with a large stack yourself. Have 1 large stack that walks between cities and does the attacking, then leave 3 units in all your cities for normal defense, remember if you suddenly get attacked at a choke point (hopefully you have one) you can always reinforce from your other cities, knocking them down to 1-2 stuff like that.