yeah, pantodapoi phalangites can do the job, but they take a lot of casualties. don't put too much confidence in thureos shields either.

as baktra, i found the rebel nomad stacks to be far more dangerous than the actual AI faction stacks. the latter generally have enough infantry to make the battle slightly more conventional. the rebel stacks, on the other hand, can be disastrous in that part of the world. i found that about a dozen sphendenotai, plus pantodapoi, a few merc phalangites, and thureophoroi plus some cav, was enough to defeat them. I still took heavy casualties though.

I'm not sure if it might have been better to just let them drain my treasury a bit each year, and save all that recruitment and upkeep money. Taking out those barbaric horsemen was more to demonstrate my authority than any economic reason.