There are a few things that will make your early AS campaign easier, but according to your own set-rules, you might not want to go that way

Firstly, move your capital to the east. That way, you'll face less riots in your eastern provinces.
Then, you better have to micro-manage all your settlements by yourself, even if they have no governors.
Thirdly, you're likely going to lose many settlements, either because of riots, or to your untrustable allies. And as you cannot really fight back all your neighboors, you'll either have to focus on the western or the eastern part of your empire and accept to lose some provinces.
Your western opponents are usually more of a threat (especially the Ptolies), but you have bigger cities/armies there. On the other hand, the eaterners (Pahlava, Bactria) are somewhat weaker, but you don't really have the resources and the manpower to crush them easily, as most of your eastern cities are poorly developed.
Finally, get mines asap. You don't have a lot of them, but every bit of income is welcome, especially if you're at war with these darn ptolemies