Pikeman are trash, but in this game that’s a term for units that cost no gold. These units are not generally very good except specifically as a counter (pikemen counter cavalry, skirmishers counter archers and cavalry archers, scouts counter monks and are great for attacking defenseless villagers while the army is busy elsewhere), and as a way to save gold so you’ll last longer when it runs out. Often players will end up using one of the trash units, usually something that complements their main army. If you’re going knights and you’re fighting someone using archers skirmishers can be really good, if the enemy is using camels pikemen are often the way to go.
To get to your farms vs fish question: if there is fish available it’s quicker to use fishing ships. You’ll still have your town center constantly creating villagers, but those can all gather other resources while your boats fish, so your total amount of work getting done is higher. however, many maps don’t have water, and as you don’t like fighting with ships anyway a farm civ is fine. In the late game, after you stop making villagers, there’s not really a difference except where you need to defend your economy.
Britons would indeed be a great choice if you like archers. They don’t have a farm bonus, but they do get a sheep bonus, so you’ll have a little help getting up to a good start and not looking like an easy mark while you boom up. Their unique unit is indeed a beastly long range archer that can handle almost anything. Maybe use some pikemen (ideally I’d recommend light cav, but the Britons don’t have very good light cav) if the others know the game well enough to counter with rams. Huns are a civ that does both archers and cavalry pretty well, so you can choose to go either way as you play, and they are especially known for their cavalry archers, so that’s an option as well. Chinese are another option, they have fast firing archer unique units. Like Britons not the best at cavalry, but they do get a farm bonus. Turks could be good too, if you’re willing to think gunpowder rather than archers. Use their unique unit or regular hand cannoneers and add in light cavalry as a meat shield. Finally I’m going to plug Berbers, because I like them. They have cheaper cavalry, and for a late game archer unit you can go either for their main unique unit, camel archers, or for the genitour they make from their archery ranges. Genitours are mounted skirmishers (so, a trash unit), and like regular skirmishers they’re only any kind of good vs archers and other trash like pikemen, so anything else needs to be handled by knights, camels and/or camel archers.
(In all of these options you will eventually need a siege unit as well to finish things off, but that doesn’t have to be a main focus right from the start.)
I hope that isn’t too much information and ones and helps.
