I am looking upon the Medieval II strategists that may reside in this forum.  This is my problem.

I like England.  They are probably not the best faction, but I don't  let that stop me when choosing who I want to play; I play the people I like the best.  My biggest problem I have to overcome are enemy Cavalry.

I first looked towards spearmen to fight the enemy Cavalry, but I noticed in the later game that the best spearmen I would have is Levy Spearmen, which is a very early unit.  I looked at Heavy Billmen, and noticed that they are effective against armor, but are they effective against Cavalry?

How are Billmen as a unit in general?  I noticed they tend to get routed quite a bit and don't seem particularly effective.

Billmen are alright, they may not get anti-cav bonus but since cav and later units tend to have more armour they are still useful.

Against the AI in all TW games (maybe not Empire its still too broken to play) the simplest way to win is using all cavalry.

Haven't played MTW II enough, and not for a while, and I suck at online =/

The best advice I can give you is to just keep your army tight, and make it more infantry based when going against factions that are calvary centric. Calvary, once they are bogged down, will lose to infantry.

Make the infantry getting hit thick, have a back up unit behind it, and then surround that calvary unit with your spare infantry.

Take the longbow men off auto fire, and do simultaneous firing against calvary to weaken them.

Also, remember that your Longbow men have the spikes, you can use those too, although I've never used them before.

If what you say is true though, you're at a bit of a disadvantage, since you'll be playing a passive and defensive strategy, and that'll get broken eventually.

I never had any luck with billmen. They seem broken and useless.

I second what Akvod said about longbowmen- deploy their stakes, and they will wreck the hell out of some cavalry.

I haven't played it for quite a while... but have your general near your spearmen, he gives them an added bonus to morale. Cavalry beat archers, but what about archers in the forest hidden away? Try and ambush the cavalry ok? You can use bait for bringing cavalry out, like a small detachment of spearmen, or some archers. Use the closed formation for your spearmen so it makes them harder to break. Your general is important, remember this. Enjoy the game, its' one of the best. I didn't even bother with Empire Total War, I read about all the problems with that game.

It kinda sucks that your closest neighbor has some of the best cavalry units in game, english are very archery driven team, and billmen aren't too great they're a cheap and unprofessional counter to armored opponents and can hold their ground to some less disciplined armored troops but they are horrible against cavalry and knights and easily frightened.

I'd say the only way you can fight against cavalry effectively with english is to counter it with your cavalry like mailed knights and try to get another group behind or side of the enemy cavalry. Spear militia is the only decent unit against the early cavalry units, you should allways recruit spear militia instead of town militia when they become available.

and Longbowman stakes usually stops cavalry charge from the front.

It's been a while, so I may be wrong, but I recall that England had access to Armored Sergeants. They formed the bulk of my anti-cavalry infantry, although the best counter to cavalry in this game is, unfortunately, more cavalry.

Infantry is not to kill cavalry, at least not the in the English army. Use them as Cavalry holders until your cavalry hits them from behind. And try to use your Longbows for as much as possible, deploying your arms far from the enemy and then forcing them to walk to you. That's how I conwquered the world with England(almost). But a goo mixture of the three is the best way.

If the OP is talking about an online battle though, the enemy won't be stupid as to let you do a hammer and anvil like that. The best way to counter calvary in online is to never give the calvary the golden opportunity of pulling a hammer and anvil, and keeping all vulnerable units like archers close to you.

I see. well, I don't play online, so I can't really tell a online strategy. I would always get Mongols to play, Cavalry all the way. Remember a campaing i've played in Rome using the Parthians. Men, I think I lost less than two digits in number of battles(navy excluded, of course) and conquered the world(is the goal ahn). 50 provinces actually.