Congrats!
Sometimes it's the only way. Obviously, the best way to win is to seek an advantage right from the opening bell, but sometimes between the ravages of the dice and the ravages of the opponents things go badly not matter what you do. Then laying low and licking your wounds and hoping nobody will take the time to kill you off is sometimes the only way.
I have an example for you which is even more extreme than yours:
Game 8119130In that game, things were going so badly by turn 10 that I had a tantrum and
tried to suicide. But the other players were having brutal wars with each other and nobody wanted to waste the troops finishing me off. So I had no choice but to keep deploying and deploying. Eventually I noticed that I had a decent-sized army and gradually started to expand. Waaaay too late people started to notice that I had the most armies on the map, and by then I had won.
Of course, an example like this is memorable
because it's so very rare. You can't expect this strategy to work on a regular basis.