Tips for Royalists in English Civil War?

[Aetini]

See above

[Shotgun]

i read this and as you may notice ive played a lot so i had a look from the floppy hat (royalists)
bloody hell ! certainly start you off on the wrong foot im gonna try again and take all the pike keep the rubbish ones behind , tbh i dont hold out much hope

[Aetini]

Yeah. I've been experimenting with it but usually it is either a slow death by Campaign army movement failures or a quick death in one large bloody battle upon which you *may win only to die in the follow up battle.

[SnuggleBunny]

The Royalist army can be very powerful, but it does play a little differently.

If you can, always pick up the massed musketeer units. They will do decently enough in melee against pike and shot units, and more importantly can do heavy damage at range, often disrupting enemies before they can close. They are vulnerable to cavalry, but Royalist cavaliers should be able to keep enemy horse away from your vulnerable musketeers. Otherwise, they do well in hedges, obstacles, villages, and woods. Note that, being entirely medium foot, they are slightly less disordered by forests than pike and shot units (though both are listed as moderately disordered, musketeers are at-22% and pike and shot at -30%). They remain well ordered in rough ground and villages, while pike and shot units are slightly disordered. In melees on open ground vs pike or cav, your musketeers have a -1 cohesion test modifier for being medium foot, so all the more reason to plunk them in some kind of cover, even a shallow stream whose only trait is "not open."

The rest of your infantry line tends to be subpar, but, combined with your musketeers, they should be able to hold off the parliamentarian foot. In the meantime, the real work is done by the cavaliers; they are much better than Parliament's horse, particularly early on when Parliamentarian horse still rely on shooting carbines. The Royalist Cavaliers' impact horse trait make them superior to Parliament's horse. Veteran Cavaliers in particular are well worth their high cost. Make sure to keep a couple units in reserve, though - cavaliers tend to go out of control in the pursuit of broken foes, so you'll want some cavalry leftover to smash into the rear of the enemy infantry, which is hopefully still bogged down by your force of crappy pike and shot and powerful musketeers. Your frontline cav should have as many veterans as possible, while your reserve cav for swinging into the enemy infantry can be regular - you're going for flank charges only anyway, as even veteran cavaliers will bounce off of raw pike and shot in a frontal charge.

[Implied Facepalm Deadmeat]

Ive tried parliament a bunch of times but my cavalry always get slaughtered