I can field that one.

The objective of the large army is because if you're going to fairly compare a turtle empire with a blitzer one militarily, you have to assume that by turn 22 I am going to be knocking down your gates with about 5 stacks of troops, and as soon as those are gone there will be a second, larger wave, and so on.

One might measure a turtle empire economically but in terms of total income, 40-50 provinces is far more profitable (especially in that short amount of time) than 15 "developed" ones.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
One of the flaws in this thinking is that the AI is "developing" all the territories I am capturing, thereby the more I conquer, the more advanced my "development" is... and then I still have more armies, territory, and income than the turtler.


BUT! To be fair, we must admit that a blitzer does not necessarily win. A turtler could defend themselves with perhaps fewer stacks, easily replenished, in theory.

The challenge they must overcome is that against human players, I also tend to send a wave of spies and assassins, to reduce their public order by the maximum amount, make the possibility of opening gates 100%, and of course...

All that work... all that time and money spent on improvements... will be destroyed by my assassins every turn, crippling their economy, the main "selling" point of being a turtle.

Then a couple of night fighter generals arrive aboard a huge navy, destroy any standing stacks of troops, and capture their main coastal provinces in a single turn. To destroy the invasion force, and recapture their own settlements, they MUST field an impressive force.

That is why for me to be impressed with any turtle empire, they must bloat a massive force within about 20 turns.

Frankly I'd give you 30. Show me whatcha got. And don't forget to make note of how many spies, assassins, naval forces you've made, and also what your total economic output is.