It seems thrace doesn't get much love. I think it is definitely one of the more fun factions to play and falxmen as a unit mixed with hoplites/phalanxes add both interest and challenge.

They have a poor choice of temples (morale sucks compared to Exp). They also lack cavalry which as other people have noted isn't historically accurate.

Even without modding they arer still a fun faction, and in the early game several units of militia cavalry with the general can do fairly well against their neighbours, if you get the charge you will certainly beat light lancers.

For more interest you can mod them. There are a few ways I've liked:

easy way- edit the exportdescbuildings to give them access to the temple of artemis (just add thrace to the macedonians). This will give your cavalry up to +3 ranged and close attack which helps the cavalry situation a lot. It also doesnt have the negative effects of Ares either.

The other way I eventually modded them was to allow them to get barbarian noble cavalry (Dacian) and gothic cavalry at the highest level hippodrome.

Even if you donlt mod them my strategy has been very different from others here (although a little risky).

First problem is money. Pump up taxes. Also trade makes a lot of money so my first build in the capital is a port (also for other reasons). The second thing I do is get rid of all the peltasts- 170 upkeep for a unit that is weak in combat is not worth it at this time, there are 4-5 peltasts which saves you 6-700 per day. Capital builds a diplomat to talk to the greeks and macedonians (other diplomat heads to speak to dacia/scythia).

Your faction leader is getting on a bit but has a decent retinue- unless you want your hero in the capital to come along for the ride, have hime move to your faction leader and take the retinue before you move to attack on Byzantium.

As a greek faction ideally you want to be going for macedon/greece, personally I go straight for athens after byzantium. The capital has a port by the time you have byzantium (or before if your spy fails to open the gates). Thus you can have a ship down the coast soon after. You will need a character with the byzantine army before they move on to greece so you can either hope the faction leader will survive 5 years or you can take along the character in the capital at the start.

At VH/H, VH/M athens is almost always unconquered at this time. The one time it had been attacked i joined the siege with my ally (hence the diplomat is needed) and attacked the next turn thereby getting their assistance.

You now have a powerful city in Greece (soon to be your new capital) with an academy to get anilliaries. You also have acees to the excellent mercenary pool there (the reason you needed the character for athens). Now you can go through greece easily with one army of mercs and the byzantine army. Works very well and you are attacking along short lines as opposed to the longer supply lines to attack macedon from your initial base. You have 2 mercenary pools next to athens as well (the grecian and spartan). Also puts you near crete as a quick painless land grab and Rhodes for the colossus.

Also you have an army with a mixture of falxmen (who will demolish phalanxes/hoplites) and hoplite mercenaries (to take care of the macedonian cavalry).

The Dacians usually concentrate on macedon and against scythia you can bribe their armies or hold the bridge across the river easily enough.

The only real risk you run in the drive for Athens are the pirate fleets so you may want to disembark your troops at the end of each turn until you arrive. The sacking of the peltasts also frees up some money for purchasing mercenaries near the front.