Take Sarmiszegethusa ASAP, and only recruit from there. All other settlements should concentrate on developing your economy. Sarmiszegethusa has the sacred mountaing which gives your troops +1 experience, your government can give another +1, and some temples give +1 or +2. Pretty soon you can generate a steady stream of cheap but deadly falxmen to protect your empire and expand your borders.

I also agree with not auto-calc-ing. Epiros and Makedonia seem to always come out better than they should against Getai...