Previously I proposed that since Khosraw I Reforms fixed harvest tax, it could make Fields trickle metal. Also they “further elevated the figure of the sovereign above the nobles and centralized power around him”, which could be a Hero bonus and champion penalty.   For my take, I'm getting quotes from the book I mentioned: The Two Eyes of the Earth, by M.P. Canepa (I went through all of it). I write down first Aura, then Bonus, then Tech. I only declined Auras in the first person, but do whatever. As usual, it’s your decision what exactly they would entail, and I’m not sure about what’s possible. “Additional” ideas I leave mostly without hints, since maybe they are unnecessary.   Ardashir I Overthrower: capture bonus ("After his successful usurpation Ardashir", referring to the Parthians). Inheritance: capture resistance bonus (“Believing these regions to be his by inheritance he declared that all the countries in that area including Ionia and Caria, had been ruled by Persian governors (...). He asserted that it was proper for him to recover for the Persians the kingdom which they formerly possessed”, this was really big for him, plenty of mentions regarding his “rightful inheritance”).  Holy Fire: temple tech (“Ardashir I increased the cults of the temples and ordered the fire of Ohrmazd, which was on the altar at Bagawan to be kept perpetually burning”).   Shapur I Shamer: attack bonus (the defeated Romans regarded the terms of a peace treaty “shameful”). Indemnisation: loot bonus (“Philip sued for peace and paid a large indemnity to Shapur I”, leading to “his official formulation of Rome as tributary and subject”). Humiliation: enemy Hero penalty tech (he captured Valerian in battle, a first for a Roman emperor, although “despite the assertions of certain extremely hostile Roman texts that speculated on his fate, in the reliefs Valerian is not humiliated, and he keeps his insignia of office”). Additional: Universality (“he expanded his father’s claims of dominion over Ērān, to ascendancy over Ērān ud Anērān (literally, “Iran and Non-Iran”)”).   Shapur II Persuader: bribing bonus, or occasional automatic conversion? (“Ammianus devotes a chapter to the defection of Antoninus, bodyguard of the dux of Mesopotamia, to Shapur II”). Recognition: champion bonus (“the Armenian commander in chief Mushel so impressed Shapur II with his chivalrous treatment of his captured wife and attendants that the Persian king of kings honored him at the royal bazm as if he were in attendance”, and at another instance he “gave the Roman defector Antoninus honorific headgear along with a designated place at the royal banquet table and a seat in the council of the king to mark Antoninus’s integration into the Sasanian court hierarchy”). Glory of Iran: Hero bonus tech (“created a province called “Shapur, the Glory of Ērān””, they were big in personality cult).   Khosrow I Autocrat: capture resistance bonus for CC under Hero aura, penalty if outside (“Both empires saw increasing centralization at the expense of local power bases, with sixth-century contemporaries Justinian I and Khosrow I responsible for intensifying this movement to autocracy in their respective realms”). Royal Gifts: discount on resource transfer (“Roman-Sasanian diplomatic exchange reached its apogee in the sixth century with the long coeval reigns of Justinian and Khosrow I”, and this “included objects that were given and received as gifts, throne room rituals, as well as the entertainments, culinary displays, and sundry other activities with which the two courts regaled each other’s envoys”). Maritime Silk Route: sea trade tech (“Peaking with Khosrow I’s control of all coastal areas from the Red Sea to the Indus, the Sasanians soon dominated the Indian Ocean sea trade. Under Kosrow I, the Sasanians began to expand into Sri Lanka and even markets in Southeast Asia”). Additional: Sanctuary (“after Justinian effectively closed the Athenian Academy in 529, prohibiting the teaching of law and philosophy there and pagans from teaching anywhere, six prominent philosophers led by Damascius traveled to Ctesiphon to seek refuge at the court of Khosrow I”). Additionally, he liked hippodromes.   Khosrow II Pious: regeneration bonus (“after his victory over Bahram Chobin, Khosrow II spent a week at the site circumambulating the fire while reciting the Zand and Avesta”). Royal Hunt: hunting or ranged bonus (“The Sasanian motif of the “royal hunter” was an exceptionally powerful, not to mention popular, image”, “The side relief panels of Khosrow II’s (...) are the most extensive sculptural representations of the hunt, and the dynasty’s last. On the right panel, mostly unfinished, the king of kings hunts deer in an enclosure with a bow. The left panel depicts the king of kings hunting boars…”). Monumentality: whatever-statues/monuments-do bonus (“Monumental rock relief sculpture fell out of vogue as a medium of triumphal expression for the Sasanian kings of kings, not to return until Khosrow II’s final brilliant reprise of the genre two centuries later”). I like that there's some thematic sense: Ardashir I captures and keeps, Shapur I is aggressive, Shapur II charismatic, Khosrow I a trader, and Khosrow II is more versatile.

I was trying to combine something we talked about in pm with the current game set up.  I forget what game it was but if I recall correctly you said you start with a unit, you send the unit to the barracks and train it as either a swordman, spearman, archer etc?  So when units are first created they should be identical health/resistances etc.. right? Then you train it to be an archer and it gets more dmg via the bow, and maybe a little extra amor than a regular unit ie civilian... where as if you want a peltast it would be equipped with a pelta and little to no armor.  But a hoplite would have full , the shield (aspis) which would slow it down. But a roman legionaries shield (scutum) would be even heavier, slowing them down more.  But then a hoplite would wear more armor overall/plus the fact that a spear is more cumbersome than a sword, and the hoplite ends up being slower than the legionary.

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for this thread. I have been creating some content (yes via AI, sorry) for a story I am writing about Amanirenas.  Here she is with a matriarch elephant she will use in her calvary, and a Kushite Mercenary Archer force overlooking a Parthian calvary in the passes of Syria.

I’ve already written on historical shield and armor changes in Thoughts on the Spartans. “your unit starts off with "no armor" just a shield and weapon... and then you decide which ones you want to give which units, at a loss of speed”: we’ve already talked extensively about armor evolution, so it should be beyond clear to you that, from an historical standpoint, this just makes no sense, at all, and what happened was closer to the opposite of this.