Getting back to your original question.

I think my victories are largely down to the choice (limit) of troops I deploy in my armies and the correct delpoyment of them on the field.

I am playing Egyptain (huge units) and so I have to rely heavily on the mercenaries that are available the vast majority of which are Libyan Skirmishers and Arabic Horse Archers. My native levies are therefore limited to the spearmen, archers and cavalry needed to give my army a backbone.

The net result is that most of my field armies are skirmisher heavy and missile dependant. This worked fine against slow phalanx heavy armies like the Seleucids and I found it quite easy to destroy armies containing 3,000+ pikemen.

However, against the Romans it is getting more difficult, mainly because of Roman Cavalry and I am finding myself having to employ more and more of my own cavalry to counter them.

My general battlefield strategy is to deploy my spearmen and mercenary hoplites in an almost static defensive line using desert axemen or eastern infantry to protect their exposed flanks. Which in turn are defended by flank units of cavalry, horse archers and chariots.

The front of the infantry line is then screened by all my Libyans sometimes in a two deep line and sandwiched in between these skirmishers and my main battle line are my archers.

The intention is that the enemy attack this line taking heavy missile fire all the way in whilst gradually driving my light troops back onto my solid defence line behind. If they actually rwach this line (and most don't) then they must face my heavy infantry whilst being harrassed to both flanks by any light troops they haven't dealt with and if I really need to I can send cavalry across the front of my own line to take them in the flank.

On the offensive this entire formation just moves forward steadily until within missile range of the enemy and the only change involves moving the archers to the front line ahead of the Libyans.

Enemy archers are sometimes a problem but rarely in enough numbers to matter. I normally field close to 1,000 archers per army.

But enemy cavalry is a real pain. Frequently the Romans will field 500+ cavalry in their armies and these can severely upset my skirmish lines. They normally throw them at my flanks trying to avoid the pike armed infantry in the centre and the battle then hinges on the outcome of the cavalry battles on the flanks.

If the Romans win these flank battles things can get very messy and I have been forced to sacrifice skirmishers to keep enemy cavalry busy whilst I fight off a major infantry assault on my front line. Certainly if this Roman tactic becomes more common I will need to increase the cavalry compliment of my armies to deal with it.

In general I don't find myself using clever maneouvres to win battles, it mostly hinges on careful deployment and commitment of troops to the fight. The trick is to understand what works best for the type of army you employ and the type of enemy army you are fighting. I'm not interested in click fest battles where one or two cavalry units rush about defeating ten times their number so I don't bother trying.