Don't build yet, save money for diplomacy. Save all your money for one 20stack plus a 6-7 unit army, to defend and push egypt back. You can find other friendly nations in the area if you break with Sardes, like in my case Pergamon, Rhodos and Knossos. Don't let Sardes juke Side, break the alliance if needed because they are going into so much war you don't need them anyway. So I started the game with a rush on them, send the army from Antioch to Side and the army from Edessa to Salamis. The biggest problem in the first two playthroughs was not Egypt which was strong as expected, but Cyprus harassing from the north. Egypt also controls Cyprus and if you are not careful, Armenia and several others from the north will gladly take a bite on you. You get an Egypt war right of the bat and a lot of betrayals from smaller nations. This is my current playthrough and after 2 very rough starts I figured out this was a tricky one.
