The Manual Retreat Tactic

[Bhruic]

I was playing Armenia, and got hit by a really large stack. I only had a few HA and my general. Well, I exhausted all of my arrows, and they still outnumbered me badly. Luckily, however, they had very little cavalry left. So I just ran around the outside of the map until the time expired. Oddly enough, I actually got a "win" from that, because I'd killed more than I lost when time ran out.

Felt pretty cheap, but I really liked that general.

Bh

[warlordmb]

Don't get ambushed. Carry a spy with your army - it doesn't count against stack limit and spies spot all ambushes as soon as you get in range visual.

Same with Diplomats.

Diplomats with the army stop them from getting bribed.

[Red Harvest]

Spies reduce your movement points by quite a bit in my experience, and that is a penalty I can rarely afford. They are more likely to detect ambushes, diplomats less so. Ambushes are so rare that I was happy when I first got ambushed (after several hundred battles.)