I’ve started a post about the ultimate soldier recently, today I’ll talk about the archers ultimate soldier.

Archer are probably the most used unit in the game and with reason they are super efficient to defend, they gain an extra attacks while on the wall (that mean they get an extra square while defending not a guaranteed 2 attack), many good heroes have cool abilities with them (Deng Ai, Pang tong, etc) and the best U2 is almost undoubtedly the archer u2 the northern assassin.
But despite being the most used unit they lack the number of choice the Infantry and Cavalry have.
Here a quick summary of the u1/u2 archers.

U1 Archer

Mongolian Sniper (Attack partially ignore Cavalry defense.)
cost :
wood:1390 stone: 2220 iron:830 food:1110 total:5550
HP:788
Attack:157
Defense:39
Marching Speed:9
Range:2
Movement:3
Carry Load:1650
Consumption:55

Crossbow Elites (Higher damage dealt to all troop types.)
Wood:1440 Stone:2310 Iron:860 food:1150 total:5760
HP:706
Attack:163
Defense:31
Marching Speed:12
Range:2
Movement:3
Carry Load:1710
Consumption:57

Qiang Guerillas (Less damage suffered while being attacked.)
Wood:1340 stone:1670 iron:1610 food:750 total:5370
HP:721
Attack:152
Defense:47
Marching Speed:15
Range:2
Movement:3
Carry Load:1590
Consumption:53

U2 Archer

Northern Assassins
wood:4090 stone:6550 iron:2450 food:3270 total:16360
HP:1398
Attack:336
Defense:51
Marching Speed:10
Range:2
Movement:3
Carry Load:1620
Consumption:54

U1 (T4) choice

With 163 attack power and it’s extra damage to all troop types the crossbow elite is the best U1 in term of raw damage output but lack the defense and they might just die before delivering a good blow. Qiang Guerrilla have the highest resistance and their ability give them extra longevity. Mongolian Sniper are just super strong vs cavalry.
The choice usually come down to chose between the quiang and the Crossbow elite since the mongolian sniper don’t offer much compare to the Crossbow elite and have basically the same price. From there
It’s depend on your heroes, style, your resources output (that can be changed though) and what U2 you’re choosing.
Since Crossbow Elite need the same resources distribution than some U2 (NA & Goliath)
I usually go for the Qiang Guerilla.

Note that if money and coupon are not a problem for exchanging your resource, then you might want to go with the Crossbow elite anyway since you can always change the other extra resource to the missing stone (usually) .
I personally rather not build u1 archer when I’m going NA since they use my archery ranges while building and since the NA take like week to finish a whole batch of 100/115, I rather have a mix of inf/arch or cav/arch.

More info on the forum :

Check the pool (and discussion) on which is the best U1 for archer.

Or this other pool.