Syria.

Recruit one or two diplomats in Side and Tarsos, send them to Greece and Pontus, then forget your holdings in Asia Minor at the beginning.
Send a spy to Kyrene and concentrate on the Nile Valley and prepare a big push from Alexandria to Antiocheia. You can use Kypros to support your push to Syria with fresh troops.
Once Syria is yours, you can reclaim Asia Minor.

From here, you decide if you head West and get rich with the sea trade in the Aegean, or East and get rich with the mines.
Phalanxes then barbarians in the West, phalanxes them horse archers in the East.