First few techs

[cabert]

Pillage pillage pillage the cottages

so i corrected my sentence, and read the comic
really funny

 

[Sjaramei]

Archers are better city defenders than axemen. If you have an axeman fortified in a city, you could have saved hammers by building an archer instead.

You've missed the point then. The reason you want axeman/chariot instead of archer is to prevent pillage of your land. You don't want to defend in the city with them.

Archers suck miserably for this. Chariots are the best since they crush both archer and axes for a low price and have high mobility. Axes have even odds with other axes, and crush archers of course. But you can use these for offense later. (more reliable than a chariot rush, which involves a lot of casualties) So they are worth the hammers anyway.