plasmacannon
Emperor
Times for archery:
- no strategic resources + lots of open land
- spawn near super warmonger and can abuse the hill defense to make them one of the best defensive options you posses
- Horse archers
- skirmishers
- HR garrison if you manage to hook metal and can't make warriors.
And Babylonian Bowmen.
Archers, longbowmen, x-bowmen and their UUs with Hills2 are great at fortifing on your opponent's Strategic resourse, such as, Iron and depriving Rome of Preatorians.
The AI will waste production building units trying to dig yours out. If you are playing Celts, you can do this with a Gallic Warrior and Chariot.
And to the player who asked who has a good attack vs archers early, check Persian Immortals out again. They do very well, are cheap and move speed 2.