Ok, I started this because I wanted to set myself apart from everybody else, as in everyone sending archers. Yeah archers have enormous range but i did a bit of a break down on troops and just wanted to share what i found.

Archers- Attack, 120 Defence, 50 Range, 1200
Speed, 250 Load, 25 Life, 250
Food, 9 Population, 2
Training time, 2min 30 sec (with no mayor at all)

Pikemen- Attack, 150 Defence, 150 Range, 50
Speed, 300 Load, 40 Life, 300
Food, 6 Population, 1
Training time, 1min 4 sec (with no mayor at all)

Now that we have a visual comparison of archers vs. pikes lets do the math. Pikemen have 30 more attack, and 100 more defence, 50 more speed 15 more load capacity, 50 more life, they eat a third less food than archers, only take one citizen to train as opposed to two and finally they take less than half the time to train.

I know everyone is going to say "Yeah that is all nice and good, but archers have 1150 more range" and yes that is true but with the time saved training and the amount of pikes you can train with the same amount of population, in opinion Pikes may be the best mass produced troop.

Producing 500 archers with no mayor and just one barrack takes 20 hours and 50 minutes. Whereas 500 pikes with no mayer and just one barrack takes 8 hours 53 minutes and 23 seconds. So I feel that with the sheer amout of pikes you can produce in the time it takes to make archers more than makes up for the losses that will be taken due to the differance in range.

These are just my opinions so please feel free to expand upon this thread with your comparisons, breakdowns and you arguements for why you feel your prefered troop is the best hands down!