I'll speak to Macedon. When Phillip II came to power he brought military innovations in - technology, if you will. These technologies helped them conquer Greek cities, but good strategy and planning helped them rule cities after they conquered them.

One of the key innovations Phillip II brought in was the Macedonian phalanx, considered superior to the standard phalanx formation in a few ways. The previous phalanx formation entailed the hoplite having a huge shield, protecting part of himself and part of the man to the left of him; this made staying in formation for protection very important. With the Macedonian phalanx soldiers only had small shields and huge "sarissa" spears, about 18 ft. long; they were less focused on protecting themselves and more focused on getting to the enemy with these huge spears before the enemy could even penetrate the formation. It was also great against cavalry. Phillip II and his son Alexander the Great both made extensive use of the Macedonian phalanx. Phillip II also brought in seige engines (catapults, battering rams) to get around fortifications; now, simply having fortifications - for instance Athens' long walls - was no longer enough.

Now, that technology definitely gave them an edge over their opponents, but strategy was a vital part of Macedon's plan - both in terms of conquering Greek cities, and in terms of ruling them. I'll start with how he used strategy to conquer cities. Around 357 BC Phillip started stirring things up in Greece. The Sacred War (357 BC - 346 BC) entailed Macedon and Thebes facing off against Athens and Phocis; Phocis took over Delphi, a sacred area that wasn't meant to be controlled by any one state. Phillip allied with Thebes because Thebes was the most powerful city in Greece at this point; he knew this and this alliance was a strategic move on his part. But when Phillip realizes they're losing he goes behind Thebes' back to negotiate peace with Phocis; Phocis agrees to the terms. One of the terms specified that Phocis was to divide their powerful polis into small villages. Around the same time as all of this is happening, Olympus revolted from Macedonian control. Phillip was very quick to conquer Olympus. This is something seen time and time again with Macedon; they were very concerned with threats and tried to use these diplomatic means first as opposed to wasting resources burning the entire state to the ground. Once the threat was eliminated - and it was because Phocis was decentralized - Macedon would be satisfied. But if it was an imminent threat such as the one seen with the revolt of Olympus, they were quick to finish the threat off militarily.

I'll speak more to this idea using the examples of Athens and Sparta. In 262 BC Athens was besieged by and fell to the Macedonians, essentially turning it into a monarchy. They proposed a neutrality policy, asking Macedon to leave if they would voluntarily get rid of their own long walls and navy. Macedon took them up on this offer. Like I said, Macedon was only concerned with threats and since Athens no longer had its great defensive walls or its powerful navy, they were no longer a threat worth wasting resources on. Sure technology helped them take Athens, but Macedon wouldn't bother ruling other Greek cities if they could sort themselves out like Athens did.

Sparta was hesitant to give into Macedonian rule. Macedon didn't care about Sparta yet because they just didn't pose a threat; Sparta had massive population decline, as few as 400 citizens around 235 BC. When King Cleomenes came to power in 229 BC he wanted to restore Sparta to its former glory so he exiled some of the richest Spartans and redistributed their wealth between 10,000 new Spartan citizens. Further he reinstated the agoge (Sparta's military training system, lost due to population decline) and trained them in the Macedonian phalanx. Soon afterwards Sparta defeated the Archean League. Now Macedon began to care because Sparta was becoming a threat, and they conquered Sparta at this point. As seen in the previous examples, Macedon didn't really care about ruling other cities so long as they stayed in control and didn't pose a threat; when they did pose a threat Macedon quickly fixed the problem. They left Athens alone when they no longer posed a threat, eliminated Olympus when they began to revolt, and left Sparta alone until they posed a threat. This strategy of focusing resources where immediately required made it easier for Macedon to rule over their territories.

Source: "The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society" by Ian Morris