No problem friend. Sorry if my tone might seem to have been too sharp. It wasn't intended at all. I am a very calm and friendly person. 
And you can ask so many questions as you wish too.
First of all you should know that the history of this part of land that is known as Persia to the Western people was called Eran-Shahr by the native people. These people, originally descendants from Aryans came from the steppes of north and part of them decided to settle down in today’s Iran. The name Eran is deriving from Aryan and Shahr means lands. "Lands of the Aryans" or Eran transformed in many centuries later into Iran.
The Western people think that Iran is called as Iran only since 1935 as this name was officially published to the West. However even in the book of Shahname (Epic of the Kings) the most famous modern Persian poetry written in about 800 AD is calling these lands “Iran”.
Iran has always been a multi-cultural country. Many different Aryan tribes with similar language and culture lived and prospered next to each other. The biggest tribes were though the Medes, the Persians and the Partians. The Medes were quite powerful in the beginning (~1000 BC), until a Persian Vassal called Cyrus started a rebellion against the Medes in about 600 BC and the first Persian Empire was born. However the Persian Empire called their lands Eran or Eran-Shahr as explained before and never Persian Empire as such. It was the Greeks who gave this name to the entire empire, since the ruler of that empire in those times were the Persians. But the Persians never crushed the Medes but integrated them totally equally into their own ranks. This first Empire that you see in this mod was called Achamenid Empire (or in Persian Hakhamanesh). Cyrus used the name of his grandfather Hakhamanesh to name his empire.
Alexander destroyed the Persian Empire and after his death, it were the Partians from North-East who started a rebellion and crushed the Greeks (Seleucids) and regained the power. The Partians called their Land Eran as well and they have been very tolerant regarding religion and personal freedom. They respected the Hellenistic gods but they promoted the Iranian religion that is Zarathustranism from the Achamenid times as well. The Partians even had a Senat like the Romans. The first Partian King that came to power also took the name of his grandfather Arsacid (or in Persian Ashk) to follow the tradition. So the second Iranian dynasty called Arsacids or Ashkanian were born.
The Sassanid came into power as I explained before after a Persian vassal in the state of Pars began his rebellion and succesfully overthrown the Partians. This Persian King named his dynasty as well after his grandfather Sassan, so the Sassanid Empire was born.
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Now to military:
You can see the whole Achamenid Empire in here, mainly foot soldiers as it was common in the ancient/classical age.
Never forget that through the histroy military improves as well as black smithing/armor/weapon making. This three dynasties that we are talking about existed from 600 BC - 651 AD
The Arsacids that were originally very close to their Aryan-cousins the Scythians were like them a steppe-folk. The Romans e.g. said they never saw a Partian without his horse. The Partians were excellent Horse-Archers and had excellent Cataphtracts (armored-riders). They barely used foot-soldiers. This is surprisingly well done in Rome:Total War. Romans were almost every time crushed into dust since the Arsacids never charged them but divided the army into half and fled from the enemy. The enemy thinking of victory charged the Partians and the Partians responded with their famous "Partian-Shot". They could not only slacken the reins but let it completely go while still riding the horse away from the enemy. Since they had both hands free, they turned to the enemy while the horse kept running forward. They used strong composite bows to shoot the poor charging enemy frontally. These partisan attacks were very efficient. The horse Archers were trained from the age of 5.
The Sassanids used the tactics of both former dynasties. Strong foot soldiers like Achamenids and very strong cavalry and Horse archers like the Arsacids. However they still prefered the cavalry rather than the infantry. The infantry was more a Plan-B situation in the battles. Like the Achamenids and Arsacids they mainly barraged the enemy before charging them with their strong Cataphtracts. Sassanid kept the "Partian-shot" tactic.
If you are interested to read more about the Sassanid military:
http://www.throneworld.com/oathofemp.../sassanids.htm
Summary:
PHP Code:
Name of Empire Name of Tribe
Achamenids Persians/Medes
Arsacids Partians
Sassanids Persians
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Mercenaries:
Regarding your Mod in 2-3 AD the Sassanian were very strong at this point of history. They used Arab mercenaries within own lines as well as white-Hun mercenaries. The white-Huns lived in eastern of today’s Iran, probably in today’s Afghanistan. They were called Hephthalites or white-Huns that were a Turko-Mongol horde. They were eliminated by the Sassanids after many bloody battles though. They have weakened the Sassanids a lot.
There were also the ‘normal’ Huns in the north of Iran (today’s southern ex-soviet Republics). The Arabs were in South West (today’s Saudia-Arabia). In the West were the East-Romans (Byzantinians). These were practically the neighbors of Iran in the 2-3 AD.
Hope that helps a bit
Houman
Mercenary??
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