General Questions

[Armchair Revolutionary]

Yes, but they are prats, they never use their pikes, only swords, worst unit in game.

Keep them in guard mode, pike formation and instead of attacking the unit click the area behind them. The pikemen will mow down those bastards without having the problem you proposed.

Billmen are the worst unit in the game. Utterly pointless.

[Baltic Warrior]

Billmen are good for flanking from what ive read.

[Charger Bolt]

What exactly is the main difference between billmen and your pikemen and spearmen? Is it the ability to form wall ability?

[Aeratus]

Besides differences in stats, here are the underlying differences:

Billmen
- Weapon is considered to be an axe by the game engine
- "Axe" weapons have armor-piercing attribute (enemy's armor is reduced by half in combat calculations)
- No special bonus vs. cavalry.
- No special formation

Spearmen
- Carries "long spear"
- Long spears have +8 bonus vs cavalry, and slight penalty vs. infantry
- Long spears have a defense bonus against cavalry charges when the spearmen unit is in bracing (standing still) mode. That's why spearmen should stand still and take cavalry charges, whereas billmen should counter-charge against cavalry.
- Schilitron special formation

Pikemen
- Pike combat mechanics
- Spear wall formation
- High "mass" stat (mass is the stat that affects how well a unit charges and resist charges). High mass is why pikemen don't go flying when hit by cavalry, even when spear wall is disabled or when charged at their flank.

[Charger Bolt]

Geez you aim kidding billmen are pretty useless

[Vampiresbane]

Well Billmen sometimes are easier to get ahold of versus other heavy infantry and are a good substitute if you have no other choice. Their main purpose as infantry should not be as front line infantry like spearmen or dismounted fuedal knights, but as flanking infantry (similar to any other 2h heavy infantry). They're especially good at flanking and killing other more defensive heavy infantry such as fuedal knights because of their armor piercing weapons.

I tend to hold the front line of the AI with spearmen or fuedal knights if I have them and flank with billmen and cavalry depending on the situation.

[Silverheart]

Keep them in guard mode, pike formation and instead of attacking the unit click the area behind them. The pikemen will mow down those bastards without having the problem you proposed.

Actually, you should turn off guard mode and just keep the Spear Wall formation.
Furthermore, there is the tactic of using one pike unit with guard mode enabled, and using a second pike unit (with guard mode disabled) standing directly behind it. The first unit stops the enemy charge, then you turn off guard mode and order them to attack - the first unit will be disrupted, but will allow for the second unit to maintain their formation and march straight through the enemy, skewering them as they go.
All in all, you should turn guard mode off if you want to use pikemen for anything other than stopping enemy charges.

Geez you aim kidding billmen are pretty useless

Billmen are best used for flanking purposes.
Use spearmen for clashing with enemy infantry, and then send your Billmen around the enemy flanks to attack them from the sides or rear - once they are in melee they can perform effective attacks, but you must ensure that the enemy is distracted. This makes them good for inflicting heavy casualties in a short period of time, demoralizing the enemy and hopefully breaking them into rout. They can also be sent into the fray directly after some spearmen or some other line infantry - when they mix up, with the defensive infantry holding their flanks, they can inflict some heavy casualties as well.
They do suffer from the two-hander bug, though, which is what makes them ineffective in regular combat.

[Charger Bolt]

Yes about this 2H bug, is an a stats thing or animations things that makes them buggy? Why with all the knowledgable people in this whole forum has no one figured out a fix to this bug?

[Adamat]

It's an animation problem. Their animation is so slow that they actually deal much less damage than they are supposed to do.

[HeroSK]

Isn't that 2H bug fixed in Kingdoms?

[Adamat]

Yes.

[Vampiresbane]

I don't think the bug was really fixed in kingdoms. 2h units were just given a higher attack value to make up for it. So 2h's are "balanced" rather than fixed if that makes any sense.

[Armchair Revolutionary]

There are mods out there that fix it though.

[Aeratus]

Why with all the knowledgable people in this whole forum has no one figured out a fix to this bug?

Officially, it was fixed in Kingdoms by a stat rebalance. But to the developers, vanilla ceased to exist when Kingdoms was released, so they never bothered to fix it it in vanilla.

[UndrState]

Officially, it was fixed in Kingdoms by a stat rebalance. But to the developers, vanilla ceased to exist when Kingdoms was released, so they never bothered to fix it it in vanilla.

Which is why Retrofit is such a godsend.

[Grymloq]

Does high taxation influences how often rebels are spawned in that region?

[Baltic Warrior]

Does high taxation influences how often rebels are spawned in that region?

I think that is true.

[Maklodes]

Does high taxation influences how often rebels are spawned in that region?

I think that low public order leads to more rebels being spawned in the region, and higher taxes lead to lower public order, but I don't think that taxes do anything special to the frequency of rebel spawning independently of the public order effects, such as religious unrest, garrisons, etc.

[Aeratus]

While that's a plausible theory, in my observation, I don't think public order affects the spawn rate of rebels.

Rebels do lower public order. This might make it seem like public order affects rebel spawns, but I think it's only the other way around.

[Charger Bolt]

Are there any mods that have black skinned princesses? or maybe they are already in the game but never seen them