Necroing......still, it's better than creating a redundant topic.

In any case I had a relatively easy time against the Pahlava when I was AS. I just teched up to stone walls, and then got a garrison of roughly 3-4 pantodapoi phalangitai (these are just a precaution) and around 5 slingers. You can then just wall up and sally every turn, decimating their nomad army.

It definitely won't kill their armored generals until you have perhaps gold chevroned slingers, but in general you can take out any sort of infantry attacking the walls before they even reach the it.

You pretty much stall until you're ready at the two cities south of Asaak, although the Pahlava only occasionally attack the city that starts with a Z (can't remember) and the province east of Nisa.

Granted you'll be stunting the growths of those cities until you're ready, but your main economic powerhouse lies in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor anyhow, so there's no real worries.