Quote Originally Posted by d'Arthez View Post
Caucasian Archers. They are good, reasonable area of recruitment (lvl 1 barracks help as well!), not expensive; vital infantry support for Hayasdan campaigns.
In this case my vote would go for the Persian Archer-Spearmen: dirt cheap, everywhere in the East recruitable and can do at least a bit hand-to-hand combat in particular against cavalry. From pure archery I find best the Skythians.

When you are searching for a decent all-around infantrist, you need to pick either Syrians or Cretans (I don't think they differ much): good armor, sword+shield and an above-average (but not the best) archer. If you don't care about game balance or accurancy you might even recruite them as your only infantry. I don't think that many enemies will survive a contact with that army.