This may work every time
First, let me start with a thank you to CA. I have played all of their TW games with hundreds of hours of entertainment.
Just bought BI; I know, late. Being Bulgarian by birth, I figured I will re-live the days when the Proto Bulgarian tribes crossed the Danube and settled in on Byzantine lands. So I picked up the Sarmacians on VH/M (I like fighting on medium as the AI seems to better handle tactics). The first try was a disaster. The second was much better and I got my objectives. The third was a repeat of second's strategy and won me the objectives again. Here is what I learned (most echoes what others have described):
1) Don't hang onto your initial homeland. I tried that the first time; restarted probably 5 times. Never figured how to stop the Vandals and the Huns. None offered me to become protectorates and both insisted on destroying me first before moving on. Even when I horded, I still couldn't win, as their hordes are larger. Even if you win, you are so exhausted that you can barely retake your city from the rebels. At which point you are too poor to build much and too weak to stop the Roxolani or Goth or Ostrogoth hordes that will surely visit you.
2) Build walls as the first building. Then build a market and a port. That will earn you some cash in the short term. Have your diplomat actively seeking trade rights and sell your maps.
3) Build units every turn. When the Huns approach you, go into horde mode. With the army you have built (I suggest Sarmacian Armored Horse Archers) and your horde army, you should have almost 5 full stacks. Also, make sure you have built a second diplomat and a second spy.
4) Devide the stacks: one group goes south, the other goes west. The southern stacks take Constantinople, Thessalonica and Athens. The westward stacks take out the more northern ERE cities.
5) My westward stacks contained almost completely horse units. That was so I could put some distance between my horde and the Vandals and the Huns behind me. I relied solely on my spy to open the gates, which tipically happened within the first 3 rounds. Then I will smash into the city from 3 directions using mostly my generals to clear the gate area. The horse archers moved in next shooting to pieces all other units around the center.
6) In roughly 6 turns, I have cleared the Balkans from ERE; took some of their cities twice to fill my coffers (a mistake, in the long term though). However, my coffers had ~ 80k by the time I settled in Athens and, shortly thereafter, in Salona.
7) When you settle, make sure you have enough troops around to garrison the city. The Christian population doesn't look lovingly on the Pagan invaders (incidentally, I wanted to become a Christian faction, but couldn't figure out how). If your city happiness is below 75%, don't bother repairing -- chances are there will be revolts that will damage what you have repaired again. Make sure your population is happy before you repair the buildings.
8) Start cranking Sarmatian Virgin Archers and Bosphoran Infantry (you only really need 2 Bosphoran Infantry units, the others can be archers). These are your true garrison troops. I had 3 hordes attack me in Salona. They were sorry they did it. Station your archers on the walls. Start by shooting normal arrows at the guys in the towers. Once the towers got close, switch to flaming arrows. Don't worry about the rams -- your wall towers will destroy those (the beauty of stone walls!). Typically my archers will destroy all but 1 tower -- this must be a programmed feature, to give the AI a chance to invade your city. That's the spot your Bosphoran Infantry runs to guard. By the time the unit spills out of the tower, your archers have reduced it to a 1/4 of its original size, so your own infantry makes a short work out of them. Have your archers continue to shoot at the seige tower though. Mine typically burned it right after the unit in it spilled out on my wall. With just one unit -- greatly reduced by your archers -- it is easily contained and dealt with. Then the seige is over. With the enemy losing over 500 men, while you have lost less than a 100 archers.
9) Once you have built enough units, load an army and take Kydonia, Constantinople and Thessalonica. Once those are yours, the money rolls in. In fact, I couldn't build fast enough and I still was in the black almost every turn.
10) Well, people say that money corrupts. So true in RTW-BI. When you settled in Athens and Salonia, you, like me, probably would have ~ 80k. That money goes down over time, but it never came under 30k even after I filled in the construction queue. And after taking the other ERE towns I never came lower than that. The unfortunate part was that ALL my family members had such horrific anti-management traits that it was better not to use them as governors. So, what's their use?
11) They are your field army. Those guys just rule! I had 6 of them in a stack (I had only one that I used to convert new towns and gave that guy all possitive 'friends' from my other guys). With those 6 guys, I cleared the rest of the hordes. They were unstoppable. My faction leader, who lived to 78, had a bodiguard retinue of 47 people. I would take him and his heir towards the back of an enemy. My other guys will charge from the front, these two guys charged from the back. A charge in the back with 47 heavy knights is a hard thing to take. Very few enemies withstood more than 2 charges by those guys. Most broke and ran after the first charge.
That's pretty much it. Stay in the Balkans and get your 14 settlements. Then take an army and get your last objective accross the black sea.
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