I don't even understand this thread. None of the questions or responses make sense. All units have their place in an army.

You should have MORE archers than anything else.
You should also be building towards ballistas. It's not like one is exclusive of the other. At some point you will reach a limit in your troop count where you will have more units than your rally point can handle. When this happens having 100,000 extra archers doesnt help, because they can't go with your force.

Ballistas are weaker than they were, but you can still farm NPCs with them, and as mentioned eventually they will replace archers in your troop count on large attacks. Planning on never having ballistas is planning for not much of a future.