Possible Factions

[WinsingtonIII]

The team has not positively denied that Syracuse will be in, but the main argument against them is that we know very little about their military post-Alexander (Archimedes' death-ray does not count). Syracuse had been a major bulwark against Carthage under earlier tyrants, and the workshops of Dionysus the Elder were hubs of military innovation. However, Dionysus' son was unable to maintain power and the city was wrecked by a series of coups. It was still a regional power by EB's time-frame, but it couldn't hope to take on Carthage as an (almost) equal.

Also, the faction inclusion criteria I know are for EB1. For EB2 the team may have expanded them, or simply decided to include some factions that were tenuous by EB1 standards.

Interesting, I was not aware that that was the main reason Syracuse might not make it, for some reason I thought I remembered a team member stating that it was not expansionist enough, but looking back it may have not been a member who said that.

And you're of course right that the criteria could change, and very well might if they cannot find 8 factions who live up to EB1 faction standards.

This was made quite a while ago and their are a few that I would certainly remove (or redefine), quite a few have been ruled out at various times by team members but you could still make a strong list of possible factions.
Earlier in the thread Moros stated that 5 factions on the list were in EBII

(i crossed out the ones that have either been ruled out or that were in my opinion weak choices.)

From the list I would pick,
Bosporan Kingdom (obviously)
Massaesylians
Boii
Kartli
A Belgae tribe (just putting the Nervi was bit silly i admit, so I'd redefine it as any Belgae tribe)
Arevaci (or other celtiberian tribe)
the final two are a bit tough but the Scordiscii, Kappadoika, Galatia/Bythinia, Atropatene, Helvetii, and some sort of Kamboja tribe would all be strong candidates

This new list does get rid of some of the weaker candidates, and I definitely agree with your personal top picks (in fact I voted for most of the top 6 you chose). It certainly would be strange if the EB team included the Massylians but left out their major rivals the Massaesylians, the Boii were powerful and help fill an area that was prone to become a power vacuum in EB1, and a Belgae and Celtiberian tribe would fill two other areas that are generally power vacuums as well, plus they all seem to fit what I know of the faction requirements.

The area where I was having trouble was with those final two faction slots as well, but I think any of those final factions you listed could work, I would probably pick Galatia as the seventh (if that happens Asia Minor is going to be a mad house... six factions in one area...), but for the eighth I'm not sure. A Kamboja tribe could be interesting and provide some added resistance to the Baktrians in India though. Of course, there should probably be another Germanic tribe to balance out the Sweboz, but from what I've heard, information on Germanic tribes is fairly scant and making the Sweboz for EB1 was difficult enough. The Helvetti could at least curb their southern expansion though. I'm still hoping that the Nabateans will make it in, but I'm fairly sure that you're right in saying that they probably won't.