Firstly dont underestimate the power of your generals. they are very very hard to kill.

Secondly, use as many archers/slingers as you can. a 3/4 stack for me wll probably have at least 4 foot misile units + ideally some horse cav aswell. I swing the horse archers behind, fan the foot archers/slingers across the whole of the frontline and pick off enemy units one by one. Any unit reduced to 60-70 guys can then be left for you generals + melee units to sandwhich and rout.

I never had too much problems with ptolomies or seleucids like this.

I have played Hai several times, and seem to expand differently in each instance. on my most recent save I went almost directly south taking sophene & Edessa and then west to antioch and then south along the med coast. and another army went west and took seleukai and babylon. I now have alexandria memphis, babylon etc without having many provinces in asia minor. Other saves it has has been almost the reverse, and i will take asi minor before moving west.

This is dictated by opportunism, and circumstance. Opportunism, in that if i see a city like Antioch or babylon guarded with 1 general then I am going to take it. Circumstance in that the ptolemy's attacked me so i had to go after them.

p.s i dont agree with the posts reccomending you disband units at the beginning. show some balls and go for the glory! after a couple of earlly battles my expensive medium cavalry unit that I was started with was reduced to a double silver 15 man unit - the maintainance costs on that arent much. they are currently maintained purely for ceremonial purposes as i am still yet to build a MIC decent enough to retrain them!