Slitherine

I started my very first field of glory empires campaign as Emporia and I utterly failed... so I started again and I'm "kind of" doing better, but I'm very underpowered compared to my neighbours.

Celtiberia and Arverni are juggernauts and dominate the area. Aquitani has been eaten up by arverni and I am surrounded but nobody attacks me. At this point I own 3 provinces and I am allied to Massilia and I muster a big army which has only... 31 strength value?

Both celtiberia and ARverni are mustering armies with values that go from 150 to 200 and have less units than mine. My regular infantry adds 2 to the force value and my skirmishers and skirmisher cavalries only 1. Medium cavalry adds 2.

I play battles in FOG2, so I don't know if this REALLY matters, but I guess I won't be able to win a 200 strength army using my 31 army which, by the way, is being depleted because I don't have enough manpower (I think).

I've declared war to Arverni trying to "exploit" a moment where they have 4 active wars and it has worked out quite well, but they have a big army wandering around my borders and I don't know if I'll be able to defend against it given the strength difference the game shows. Also, I've had some difficulties using my thureoporoi against their shock troops. I havent played FOG II for a year and have no experience using hellenic nations, so it would be nice if you had some tips on how to tackle gaulish armies using hellenic forces.

I think I'd go looking for a bigger external ally .. Rome or Carthage? And maybe concentrate on weaker indy held regions for the moment to try and build up. But not sure, it a brave choice of faction

I wanted to play something different and went for the hellenic power in iberia but I never thought other countries would expand SO fast and there would be that difference between our forces. I just hope to outmaneuver the AI in FOG, but shock troops are a pain and I've lost more than one battle because a bad roll fragmented my general unit in a single charge from steady to fragmented.

As it is right now I've been keeping up going for mobility with a combination of skirmishers + cavalry, forcing the enemy to split some troops or face flank attacks. This has worked out against independents and arverni areas without troops, but I'm pretty sure it won't work against a big army.

Since my core forces are Thureophoroi, I must time precisely when I want to engage and flank the enemy to force auto cohesion drops. Otherwise I'm doomed. If I want some success rate when receiving a charge, I have to assign a general to the unit who will be charged and try to get the high ground. It is very difficult and I need heavy infantry ASAP, but I'm pretty sure my heavies won't be able to stop charges anyway.

Does anybody know if I'll be able to upgrade my units anytieme?

the other powers have an advantage. If they take an Iberian cultured region, they get less unrest/decadence than you do as a Hellenic cultured power. Same in Gaul for Celt/Celt. Now for the Greek based powers expanding in Greece/Asia Minor this is a great bonus, for you its an additional problem.

Army upgrades - check out the manual, esp the discussion in the player's notes sections but basically you'll need buildings such as barracks (will give you HI), some others give you better experience levels for new units and to reach civ level III (where there are some nice decisions).

In general, if you want a game as a small trading Greek power, I'd suggest Rhodes as a bit easier. You are protected by your navy, can grab the Aegean/Crete so get a secure base and then see what comes up from the wars of your more powerful neighbours - or consider moving into the Black Sea region or N Africa?