ya know, I've heard a lot of people ask the question "how many villies should I have in by heroic, by mythic, etc. there is no set number based on when you reach another age. First off, there is no set number period, except in archaic there are some general guidelines with thor depending on which god and which map, but with other periods you can't say you should have a certain number by such and such time. Actually, IF you were going to count, the number of TCs you have would dictate more how many villies to have rather than what age you're in.
I don't AQ from the TC in archaic, but once you're in classical you pretty much keep it going until you max out your pop, and you should be creating troops this whole time so that you don't overload on villies and not enough troops, and of course you have to switch up between gatherers and dwarves.
One thing about food, just about every map has herdables, and the low hunt maps like alfheim, oasis and ghost lake have a lot more than the others, it's very important to scout as much as you can in archaic and grab them. lots of times I've seen the experts will even create a second ulf to scout more thoroughly and load up on them, especially ghost lake and oasis.
So, as soon as you hit classical you AQ your dwarves to gold until you get somewhere between 9-12, depending on how you're gonna play, and then you switch to villies and you AQ them to the herdables...and somewhere in there throw a couple of villies or dwarves over to the woodies. You should only need a few extras over there wheras you're gonna need a LOT of them on food. You will probably be low on food and higher on gold and may be tempted to put the dwarves on the herds, but it's best in the long run to kick out the villies at this point, and as much as possible only produce dwarves for gold, which you won't be able to do 100%, but it should be a goal to shoot for.
so, what time are you getting to classical and how many villies/dwarves do you have? On high hunt maps you should be able to have an 8-5-5 and hit the button by 4:10, if you want to go for a quicker advance you can go 7-5-5 and hit the button by around 3:50 or a 7-4-5 or 7-5-4, or even quicker for loki and kronos a 7-4-4 or 6-4-4. there are so many ways you can go with it depending your opponent and how you want to play it. then it's a whole different story for low hunt maps and water maps and a different mix. for high hunt maps I only put dwarves on gold in archaic, but on low hunt you need to put some on wood, sometimes all dwarves on wood, but you can go with a mix. when you start using dwarves for other than gold in Archaic that changes your whole build order because you have to make sure you don't use up all your gold on dwarves and not have enough when it's time to build the temple. bottom line is you should not have a second of downtime for your TC in archaic, and you need to make sure that you have enough resources for everything you need when you need it...you need to have the wood and gold for the temple early enough, then you need to have enough food when you have the number of villies you want. you don't want to have 8-5-5 or whatever you're shooting for and then realize you don't have enough food to advance or your temple isn't finished yet and have to delay your advance.
I know I'm rambling, but there are so many variables to consider you just can't identify a particular BO or strategy for every situation.
I think it's best to look at recorded games and you can learn alot about how to handle your economy in different situations, but you've gotta look at the same games over and over to really get a feel for it.
You don't want to end up one of those people I come across a lot when I play where in the beginning of the game they say they suck at this map, you don't want to suck at any map..you want to be able to work them all. just remember that whatever drawback a map has, the opponent is dealing with that same drawback so you're on even footing. if it means you have to advance a little later, they usually will also.