I've come across the others you mention and seriously they aint no problem on hard when you have armoured hoplites
I had a game (as Seleucia) where I had 3 Cretan's sitting on a very high hill outside of Sardis. No fronting units of any kind. Those three Cretan's beat off several attempts by GC Armored Hoplites to take that hill. In every attempt, the AH suffered heavy losses and were routed. Granted it was a steep hill the hoplites had to climb, but I've done it with other all-archer armies against mixed hoplites. Can you say skirmish.....