Hmm, I've noticed a real trend in your posts to dimiss units as sucking. Without trying to cause offense, I'd like to point out that properly used, most of these units are fine. The important point is to make sure you are using them properly.

For example, with archers, if you shoot at a unit like spearmen, and they are facing you, they will be catching most of your arrows with their shields. Spearmen aren't really the best target for basic archers. Try instead to shoot a unit like urban militia. Or attack basic mounted units (hobilars, horse archers, etc). Arrows have a much greater effect on them.

When your archers are on a hill, they are also much better as anti-archers. They can shoot farther, and therefore hit sooner approaching archer units. As most basic archer types don't have armour/shields, you can do significant damage.

The trick with most units is finding out under what circumstances they are effective, and using them for that. Trying to use units in roles they aren't suited for might make them appear to suck, but it's not really the units that are at fault.

Bh