Achaemenid persians

It makes me sad that later Achaemenids do not have the option for elephants as in regular impetus. What would be fair to remove for the elephant and which of the elephant profiles ought I to use? One of the Indian?

IIRC there is citation of 1 elephant once - I suspect that's not enough to warrant a unit at the representational scale of BI-II.

If you want to use one then I'd go with slightly less punch than an Indian EL (due to low numbers) but with the various weapon missiles (it is Persian after all), so maybe 5,3,3,VW.

I would swap out the CF, the Thracian FL and all Greek FP (in other words make it an 'eastern' option).

You think swap out both the CL?

I didn't say to swap out any CL ??

I said CF (the scythed chariot) and the Thracian Peltasts (FL) and Greek Hoplites (FP) ie the 'western' stuff because I think an elephant would be in an 'eastern' army if at all.

The CL are all 'eastern' so fine with an EL.

Swapping out the CF I think is right for two reasons:

1) You can't also swap the CF for guard cavalry which I'm fairly certain is the satrapal guard cavalry in revolt as asserted by Xenophon thus intrinsically western [anatolian at least] and in any case the elephants would be 'royal' thus not in a revolt.

2) I'm not aware of any example of elephants and scythed chariots being used together - not impossible but again one is more eastern than the other and it makes choosing the [rare] elephant a hard choice.

I like your thinking. Very impressive knowledge of the topic.