How to make all regular factions playable

[Gigantus]

I got tired of people complaining about 'missing' factions, regardless of the reason, hence here the very simple solution if you do not want to do it the hard way by winning a campaign:

1. Locate the descr_strat.txt file in the data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign directory.
2. Make a copy of the file as backup
3. Open original file with Notepad (no, don't use Word or any other editor)
4. Delete the two lines as indicated below, they are near the very top of the file. Save file and start new campaign.

	hre
	spain
	venice
end              <-- delete line
unlockable       <-- delete line
	sicily
	milan
	scotland

[Thor II]

In fact, I always unlock the factions by destroying them. No need to win the campaign, just destroy the faction, spend a turn, and that's it. For sure, it's good to have won the tutorial first, this last time I tried it without winning the tutorial and did not unlock.

But it's always the first thing I do when I install Medieval 2, unlock the factions. I take the HRE and destroy Poland, ready, Poland unlocked and using it unlock Russia, and so on. I don't think just winning a long campaign is going to unlock the factions.

Only use this trick above to unlock the Pope's faction, it seems cheating to use it to unlock the others.

[Gigantus]

Agree with the cheat aspect of it - but I also had several posts where users re-installed the game on a new machine and were rightly upset of having to go through the same routine again.

[blundersaurus]

I tried to do it the right way by winning a short campaign, but then it hasn't unlocked the other factions! I assume it's because I accidentally clicked to continue playing rather than accept the victory. Mildly irritating bug though. Thanks for sharing this fix!

[Koby]

Any update for 2023? I can't find the data files on my PC and have to assume it is on the Steam/cloud side.

[steedless]

Originally posted by Koby:

Any update for 2023? I can't find the data files on my PC and have to assume it is on the Steam/cloud side.

Go to your medieval2.preference.cfg file in the game's root directory and add the following lines to the end:

[misc]
unlock_campaign = true

[Gigantus]

Originally posted by Koby:

Any update for 2023? I can't find the data files on my PC and have to assume it is on the Steam/cloud side.

Go into the Steam library and right click the game, choose 'properties' - somewhere in there is a 'local file' option that let's you get to default directory of the game.
I am using disk so I can't recall the exact procedure.