How to win Battle of Stafford?

[KenPortner]

How do you beat the Parliament in this battle? The Cornish are massively outnumbered. I'm playing on the highest level of difficulty.

Thanks for any advice.

[Jhykronos]

How do you beat the Parliament in this battle? The Cornish are massively outnumbered. I'm playing on the highest level of difficulty.

Thanks for any advice.

You mean Stratton?

This is how I did it (albeit on the "3rd" difficulty level).

When selecting additional forces I picked 2 more units of cavaliers.

On Deployment, mass all mounted troops on the right Flank, mass all pikemen as far right as they can go (with a couple of supporting light infantry to screen the advance). Line the rest of the light infantry more or less in front of the center.

DO NOT move any royalist unit on the hill until every unit is ready. The massed forces on the right flank should chase off the two light infantry units there, then wheel to the left to deploy in a line at the bottom of the hill, cavaliers at the top of the map, cornish pikemen below them. Meanwhile, have your cornish light infantry pick off the weaker parliamentary light infantry units one by one, then form a line in front of the right side of the hill. Launch your deployed forces across the hill from right to left, using the flanking line of skirmish foot and light guns to shoot up all the units the PC sends over from the left side of the hill as they pass. The enemy army will hopefully break before your pike blocks get attritioned down to nothing. (Throwing your cavaliers into the flank of a line of foot, and getting them to break through into the flank of a second or third unit on the same turn doesn't hurt either).

[OberstKlink]

A good re-play with the table-top game 'Pike & Shotte' can be found here; might give you some ideas.

I can't post an URL; but g00gle for this: battle-of-hopton-heath-1643-scenario.html

Klink, Oberst

[davebcw]

I did it on the middle level 3 by trying to recreate the historical battle, in which the Royalists advanced up the hill in four columns.

I picked extra muskets and dragoons for additional troops. First objective was to clear the enemy musketeers out of the hedges along the road. I got my shot and dragoons right into the hedges to negate the enemy cover advantage. With extra muskets I could systematically gang up on enemy musketeers and blast them from two or more directions. Very important not to let two or more enemy fire on your units if possible because you need them steady for the main fight on the hill. I managed to rout all the muskets with gunfire, with only one of my units getting disrupted and none running off chasing routers.

Then I moved the pikes up, teaming them with two or more shot in front to advance up the hill, one column on my left flank with the horse moving up in reserve, one on the right, and two columns going straight up the front of the hill. This is where I really learned the value of concentrated fire, each column picking one enemy unit at a time to wear down.

I tried to work my cavaliers around the rear of the enemy position, unfortunately I screwed this up and suffered the indignity of having them routed. At one point, several enemy units charged forward to attack my central columns. This was so cool because something similar happened in the historical battle.

It was the muskets on the flanks that won the scenario for me, slogging it out with the enemy pike and shot. I held back my four pikes to only attack units that were already disrupted or fragmented by musket fire. It was very tense and I only won by a few percentage points. I doubt if I would have won on a level higher than the middle one.

[flatsix518]

I have begun discovering that preserving a reserve is rewarded in this game.

[TimW]

My approach was to go for maximum Royalist horse. Deploy them plus dragoons on the left Deploy Cornish pikes and a few shot on the right. Leave the guns where they are.

Use a few commanded shot to clear the Parliamentary shot from the lane. They generally evade and of not can be generally routed easily. Hit both Parliamentary flanks at the same time, which negates their guns and central regiments because they've nothing to shoot at and will take quite a while to get into action on the flanks.

The AI responded by shifting foot and horse to the flanks but only for them to be defeated piecemeal.

Keeping a reserve on each flank is a good idea as is watching for opportunities for flank/rear charges. Positioning commanded shot to threaten foot moving to engage the Cornish pike blocks can be effective as well.

[KenPortner]

Yes, I meant Stratton.

Problem is when playing on highest difficulty you don't get any extra troops.

Only thing I can think of is to concentrate everything on one flank and hope the AI is slow shifting its forces.