end a war while expanding?

I went to war with Charlemagne because I thought I was more advanced than him (I have mostly Riflemen and a few Infantry, the last time I fought him he was about 400 years behind schedule) The year is 1920-something. My army has Calvary, several Riflemen, and two or three infantry. I spied on his city ahead of time and he only had a couple of units protecting Regensberg, so I thought it would be an easy take for my larger and more advanced units. But when I ddclared war and invaded, I found that he had a HUGE military buildup in Regensberg (at least 15 units, including several riflemen) My army isn't big enough to take out his (especially with his city's defensive bonuses, I've seen one longbowman take out four or five riflemen in one turn while guarding a city). He won't negotiate a peace treaty, but I need more cities and I have ZERO room to expand peacefully and have no oil (not to mention that I had a uranium mine but somehow Asoka stole that tile) WHAT SHOULD I DO???

Whip out a buch of cannons or artillery.

This is a duplicate post. He has another in Strategy and tips part of forum about the same game. Better to post on the other thread.

In all honesty he should probably start a new game and post a save.

Lennier said:

Whip out a buch of cannons or artillery.

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Just as a general piece of advice. You need siege weapons. Lots of suicidal siege weapons.

You should get airships too. Airships could cause small damage but it builds up.

reddishrecue said:

You should get airships too. Airships could cause small damage but it builds up.

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More importantly none of the enemy units can intercept your Zeppelins, and injured units can take fewer hits.

I suggest you look at the various Tactical manuals and draw your enemy out of his defensive posture. the AI fights poorly at most times but is especially easy in a stand up field battle or ambuscade.

The empty city gambit might be a good place to start and forking two of his cities should also pull some defenders out into the open.

• If you check Charlemagne's civics's he is probably drafting troops in the 3 closest cities each turn. See if you can cut off his reinforcements or bypass his strongly defended city and hit (or just threaten) the reinforcing city(s) the AI will retask the defenders and you may be able to catch them in the open or in the less defended cities.
• Put your empire on a war footing chop whip and draft more troops than you will need. The extras can hold the new cities and add to your force rating to deter opportunism from any other rival civilizations.
• Beg 10gold from any other civs nearby to prevent them joining Charles.
• Seek a war ally diplomatically to help you attack give away stuff as needed.

In your case I would sue for peace, or at least hold the line, while building up a deathstack.
Buy deathstack, I mean deathstack. My late game ones frequently have 40+ units. Ain't nothing gonna stop dat!

Second what clanky4 said ... you will need at least 4 or 5 cannons, along with your present army.

You can roll up to a hill next to the city, bombard it down to 0% defense, then send in the cannons on suicide missions. Collateral damage is your friend! Once you have all his defenders damaged, you can attack with your regular troops and they will win.

I also agree with testhero, for tactics to use while building/moving your cannons or artillery into place. Use tactics like those to draw the defenders out into the open, and then pick them off.