Am I missing something?

[Grey_Fox]

It looks about right...

[roman pleb]

Hey Celt, I also have 1.5 like you and this method mentioned above wouldn't work for me either, so what i did was move all the factions in the nonplayable section(Pontus, Numidia, etc.) into the unlockable section. I then beat a short campaign as the Brutii and there all the factions were, ready for me to start a campaign with them. So you should definitely give this a try mate.

[Celt Centurion]

I've printed this out to take to that file so maybe I won't foul it up. Thanks Roman Pleb.

Strength and Honor
Celt Centurion

Hey Celt, I also have 1.5 like you and this method mentioned above wouldn't work for me either, so what i did was move all the factions in the nonplayable section(Pontus, Numidia, etc.) into the unlockable section. I then beat a short campaign as the Brutii and there all the factions were, ready for me to start a campaign with them. So you should definitely give this a try mate.

[Vacuity]

Rather than mess around trying to do it yourself, why not use a ready-made mod?
The Completed Factions MOD has maps, descriptions and everything you might wish to make your campaign selection screen pretty. You can find the mod here.

It's worth noting that in one of the patches CA introduced a need for factions to have associated maps and suchlike in order for you to successfully start a campaign with them, which prevents people from quickly hacking the campaign description to make everything playable.

As to *why* CA made some of the factions unplayable, my guess is it's because they didn't have the time to give every faction exciting unique units and "character". For example neither Pontus nor Thrace are particularly interesting in their unit roster, Numidia also has a very weak and limited line-up. I am not sure this argument holds with Spain, but there are quite a few barbarian factions already playable so they may have simply selected what they thought were the most interesting of the barbarian factions.
At the end of the day they know that people who *want* to play as Thrace will find a way to play as Thrace, but they don't want people playing with the less interesting factions, giving up and not buying the next product(s), do they?

For those wanting to play as any of the factions in BI (including emergent factions) the BI Make all factions playable mod is an excellent choice, as it has some clever scripting that allows you to play emergent factions as and when they emerge in the game. You can find it here.

The questions about unlocking factions come up so often, shouldn't there be a sticky made linking to mods like these? Just an idea...

Vac

[Celt Centurion]

I thought so too. Do you have any other suggestions? I see that Roman Pleb sent one which I will try.

Another idea that I thought might work is to uninstall and start over, but that would be as a last resort.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

It looks about right...