Please teach me how to play Archer civs

I am absolutely garabge with Archer civs or with any civ that it is meta to go archers(Viking or Japanese for example)

In fact the only Archer civs I'm able to play are Chinese,britons and Mayans and I never make Archer line units with both.

This is how my game usually plays out.I start with a drush or m@a into archers.Build up numbers with 3 range production.When I reach castle I research bodkin and thumb ring and go forward with 2 groups of a small number of crossbows to kill vils.

Now this is where my problem starts.The opponent scouts my ranges and has a ton of Skirms built up.Now if I was raiding with knights or eagles,I can just avoid any pikemen or other counters and move to another part of my opponent's eco.With archers this is impossible.I kill 2 vils with my raiding group and suddenly Skirms show up.All I can do is run back to base.The opponent shows up with high skirm numbers and nights.I make pikemen to counter the knights.But the knights just avoid pikemen and attack the crossbows while my pikemen die to skirms.Then my crossbow numbers get wiped.I can't be making knights + crossbows because that is so gold intensive.Also can only make a few monks.

I would really appreciate it if someone could like give me a walkthrough of what they do in a game when going for an Archer build and how to respond to different decisions the opponent makes.