The absence of polities that I am willing to have under player direction, which can mean a few things. Mostly it means that none of those places have anything that even approximates to a recognizable state that somebody can be reasonably expected to play in a realistic - perhaps "in-character" would be more appropriate - fashion. The polities that exist in the Americas, like those in Southeast Asia, also suffer from Wanking Syndrome, i.e. the people who would be playing as them would be playing largely by themselves, isolated, and hived off from the rest of the interactions of the player base.
I suppose I could have added "groups" in parentheses, like I did for some states and cultural groups in Eurasia and Africa, but at least those groups all impact player decisions in one way or the other; the American ones cannot and would not.
The latter. The former precludes the existence of a Seleukid Empire.
The Qarthadastei state is largely based on its former colonies in Iberia, due to the Perseid conquest of Africa in the second century (AD, although AD/BC are meaningless in TTL; the oikoumene runs on the Seleukid Era, by and large, which makes 350 "AD", 662/3 SE). It is also, now, monarchical, although there is something of a civic advisory council of judges (not related to the softim in any way save etymologically).
There is no Iranian state. The closest thing would probably be Zoroastrian Hyrkania, but even it largely speaks Greek among the government and army.
Megale Hellas is not an independent polity or series of polities; it is part of the Perseid Empire, and is all that that Empire has left of its formerly massive western territories following the Sophist wars.
Yes, true... LOL. 
I claim Elysium 
