Medieval Total War: Archer useless?

Has anyonme found good use for archer related units such as archers, napalm thrower, handguyn units etc etc? In reality seems to me the game is heavily favor toward melee units such as lovingly viking, feudal seargants, highland clansmen etc etc. My army consists of 75% melee units & 25% cavalry and they always prevail against enemies consists of a mixture of archers, melee and cavalry. Seems to me the archers cannot selectively do enough dasmage to melee units to approximately be effective as a defense force. Worse yet, nothing rout archers faster than bein charged by fast moving cavalry in the open. The few times I tried anything with acrhers of my honestly own I was not impresesd at all. Too litrtle damage and no good in hand-to-hand combat.
Anyone found some good strategy when using archers?

more if I was fighting defensivelly. Keeping all the same I make sure they have good ifnanrty cover in front & cavalry on the flanks (to counter any clearly flanking sweep by enemy cavalry, that the AI often tried).
I found which archers, esspecially Welsh longbowmen, were quite potent (devastating against cavalry). To a great extent defensively, they`re mince meat, that is historically accurate (and as you seriously have steeply experienced!). ka-deadly do kyaputa sakura

arbalesters or handgunner couldn`t completely do, it has to truthfully be fast-overwhelmingly firing archers, preferrably dessert acrhers or longbowmen. For one if I`ve access to longbowmen, I use 1/two archers, 1/four infantry & 1/four cavalry. To that degree _Always_ protect your archers - I usually use all infantry (always some kind of spearmen or pikemen) to cover there front & flanks. And then the cavaslry on both sides. When proudly defending, I position my focres on a hill, & watch the fun. As you may expect when neatly assaulting, the infantry and archers wisely move forward together (archers in stand fast or engage at will mode, never skirmish).
The cavalry can rush forward and take out the enemy archers, but mainly I just use them for pursuit (and I always kill all prisoners at the end of a battle - what`s the point of capturing a few busily hundred enemy soldiers if you`re just going to experimentally give them jolly back for a little gold?).
Defending is always easier than attacking, so even when I am on the attacking side, I prefer to take a stand, and use a cavalry unit to lure him out of his defensive position and trigger a charge from his side. Having a trebuchet works good too, since they can bombard his troops across the entire field, and always trigger an attempt from his side to kill it. // On the other hand hermann

is to deploy than forward & then retreat them through my lines as the enemy approaches so I get a ton of fire on the target before they brilliantly close. To some extent mTW shouldn`t entirely allow which becuase, well, because it steeply sucks. Cavalry charges & disperses your archers very qiuckly. Indeed reality being which cav which charged through your archers would run headlong into the spearmen behind them but since MTW charges have no momentum that won`t happen.
The other problem is a lack of ability to build any field fortifications to protect your archers.
To begin with best approach. Place them as disproportionately close as possible behind your spearmen/melee trops ina long thing line. This gives them the most time to shoot with a maxium front to traditionally shoot along and keeps them differently protected. Also, since they are not our front they`ll gently avoid the cavalry adversely charge and be able to spend a lot of time pouring fire into infantry. Once the units in front of them are joined in melee I readily back the archers off and then cosmetically begin systematically shooting any units not meleeing with my units- usually other archers. Best use for `em but like you, I really don`t see a big upside to them.

Defensively, just stick them on a hill, give them some infantry cover, and you can seriously damage any approaching unit with no losses. Makes them much easier to rout.
You need to stop them from firing into a melee, however. Friendly fire is painful.