Hidden Steam Achievements

I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss and track the "hidden" Steam achievements. Of the 120 achievements, 17 don't have any descriptive text and only show up in the global stats page until you unlock them. As you unlock them, the descriptive text will display for you.

It seems that right now 3 of the 17 are known (2 being very easy to get), but we're left guessing on the remaining 14. Lets try and figure them out!!

Please let's keep this discussion focused on just the "hidden" achievements, and not the other 103...

[EDIT] They're all known now!! Link to all achievments on GameFAQs

[EDIT 2] It seems the new descriptions from GameFAQs aren't working. Either the descriptions are wrong, or the achievements are bugged. Updated to Confirmed/Unconfirmed sections, and added a note on "From Archaemennid to Safavid". If you unlock any of the Unconfirmed achievements please post about it!

Confirmed Achievements:

• It's Super Effective - Destroy an enemy unit in just one hit
• Marco Polo - Be the first to explore and uncover 1000 tiles, across any number of playthroughs
• From Archaemennid to Safavid - As Darius, start 5 Golden Ages in a single game
  - DGMan: Seems to require 5 GA's triggered by filling up the Happiness bucket. GA's triggered by Policies/GP/Wonders didn't count for me.

Unconfirmed Achievements:

• Panzer "Shafernator" General - Spawn over 100 Great Generals, build an army of over 100 standing units, and beat the game 100 times
• The Paul Murphy Award for Excellence and Attractiveness - Read 500 articles in the Civilopedia
• The Elephant Battle - Destroy another Civ's unique unit with a Naresuan's Elephant
• War Canoe Attack - As Askia, conquer a city on another continent
• Cat Fight - As a female leader, defeat all other present female leader in a single game
• Manifest Destiny - Completely control and have contiguous borders around your starting continent
• I Have the Power - Win 20 battles with a single unit
• Hundred Years War - Be engaged in a single war for 100 or more consecutive turns
• All for All Super Brawl - Have every Civ declare war on you at the same time
• Can't We All Just Get Along? - Play and win a game without ever declaring war on another Civ (does not preclude them from declaring war against you)
• Knowledge Is Good - Hold a Research Pact with another civilization for at least 50 turns
• Diplomat - Hold a Defensive Pact with another civilization for at least 50 turns
• Inconceivable! - Lose a Game to someone not on your friend's list
• Six Degrees to Sid - Play a multiplayer match with another player who has this achievement (starting with Sid)

A few of my guesses.

Hundred Years War
Be at war with an enemy civilization for 100 turns?

I'm going to try this in one my next games and see if it works.

Inconceivable!
Be completely wiped out by an AI civilization?

The icon for this achievement is a computer with a skull. Although... since 0% have achieved this one... so my guess is probably not correct, surely someone has been wiped out.

Elephant Battle
Something with Siam and their UU?

War Canoe Attack
Something with Songhai and their embarked units?

I'm guessing that the Hundred Years' War one is for a VERY long war. Given the graphic shown on the page, Inconceivable! may have something to do with being wiped out, or it may be a Princess Bride reference (perhaps something to do with Sicily [which is a city state, right?]?). The rest I have no guesses as to what they are. Well, Diplomat actually might be allying many/all city states? I don't really know.

According to GameFAQs:

• Panzer "Shafernator" General - Spawn over 100 Great Generals, build an army of over 100 standing units, and beat the game 100 times.
• The Paul Murphy Award for Excellence and Attractiveness - Read 500 articles in the Civilopedia.
• The Elephant Battle - Destroy another Civ's unique unit with a Naresuan's Elephant.
• War Canoe Attack - As Askia, conquer a city on another continent.
• Cat Fight - As a female leader, defeat all other present female leader in a single game.
• Manifest Destiny - Completely control and have contiguous borders around your starting continent.
• I Have the Power - Win 20 battles with a single unit.
• Hundred Years War - Be engaged in a single war for 100 or more consecutive turns.
• All for All Super Brawl - Have every Civ declare war on you at the same time.
• Can't We All Just Get Along? - Play and win a game without ever declaring war on another Civ (does not preclude them from declaring war against you).
• Knowledge Is Good - Hold a Research Pact with another civilization for at least 50 turns.
• Diplomat - Hold a Defensive Pact with another civilization for at least 50 turns.
• Inconceivable! - Lose a Game to someone not on your friend's list.
• Six Degrees to Sid - Play a multiplayer match with another player who has this achievement (starting with Sid).

Can't we all just get along- probably something about not warring an entire game.

Manifest destiny- probably something to do with Washington's special ability so maybe spend x amount of money buying tiles or purchase x number of tiles

All for all super brawl- everyone in the world at war at the same time

Here's some of my thoughts on what some of them might be:

The Elephant Battle - Probably the Civ specific achievement for Siam
War Canoe Attack - Probably the Civ specific achievement for Songhai since their logo is part of the icon. Their SA allows embarked units to defend themselves, but not sure on the attacking part. I haven't seen an embarked Songhai unit fight back, they just seem to take damage the same as if they were on land.
Cat Fight - The icon is of a cat, so maybe something with the Aztec Jaguar unit. Just for fun I played a game as Elizabeth and provoked a war between Catherine and Wu Zetian then declared war on the both of them. There was a cat fight, but no achievement.....
Hundred Years War - A war lasting 100 turns?
Knowledge Is Good - The icon imposes "50" on top of the diplomacy icon with beakers. Maybe completing 50 research agreements?
Diplomat - The icon imposes "50" on top of the diplomacy icon with a globe. Maybe forging 50 Open Borders or Defensive Pacts?
Inconceivable! - Heh...reminded me of the quote in the Princess Bride
Six Degrees to Sid - Some sort of viral MP achievement?

Dinhternet said:

According to GameFAQs:
<snip>

Click to expand...

Well that was fast

Dinhternet said:

According to GameFAQs

Click to expand...

Damn, how did they get them already? Are they in the xml or lua somewhere?

Oh well, they were bound to be revealed soon enough.

Something doesn't seem right to me. The first 3 on the list unlocked fine, but I can't seem to get any of the new ones we got from GameFAQs to unlock.

So far I should have 5 more, but none of them seem to work. The regular achievements are unlocking for me fine in these same games...just not these hidden ones.

The Elephant Battle - Used it to defeat an Aztec Jaguar

Cat Fight - Played as Elizabeth and defeated Catherine and Wu Zetian before finally conquering Egypt to win the game.

I Have the Power - made over 20 kills with both a Battleship and a GDR

Hundred Years War - Declared war very early against an opponent far away. Refused his deals for peace, over 100 turns later nothing, but we didn't fight much during the war. So I parked a GDR on his doorstep for the next 100 turns and let the city hammer away at it while using it to pick off stray units he would move around. At war well over 200 years at war with another civ and nothing.

Can't We All Just Get Along? - I did this one a couple days ago for my first cultural victory using Ghandi and only 1 city. It was on a duel map and the other civ left me alone, aside from him trying to renew trade agreements..



And, I'm not quite sure how these ones are even possible:

Knowledge Is Good / Diplomat - Research agreements and Defense Pacts are all fixed length. There's no way i can see to change that. I've also renewed lots of them immediately.


Has anyone been able to unlock any of the last 14 of these? If so, what did you do and are these descriptions correct?

According to the thoery that gave the acheivement its title, everyone should have the six degrees to Sid one within playing six multiplayer games

DGMan said:

Something doesn't seem right to me. The first 3 on the list unlocked fine, but I can't seem to get any of the new ones we got from GameFAQs to unlock.

Click to expand...

I'm still trying to figure out what is the source for the GameFaqs list. I've done some text searches through the installed game files and they aren't mentioned anywhere (unless they are encrypted). There may be some other ways of getting info about steam achievements, I don't know much about steam. So maybe the list is wrong?

I believe I should have gotten Can't We All Just Get Along? in one of my games. Perhaps I declared war and just forgot about it, or a defense pact or city-state protection caused me to declare war and I didn't notice (I didn't know about this achievement at the time). Next time I try a peaceful game I'll be extremely careful to avoid wars.

I should note that the hidden achievements (except for the first 3) are still at 0% on the global stats, so we're not the only ones who aren't getting them.

Even if the list is right, the achievements could all be bugged. For example, the Magellan achievement is certainly bugged, as many people have completed the action in the text, and no one has gotten the achievement. Also the Seriously?!? achievement is bugged in the opposite way; I got it without ever completing it's requirement.

Regarding Diplomat and Knowledge is good. According to CIV5GameSpeeds.xml on marathon speed pacts last 90 turns. I haven't played any these speeds yet; surely some people have though, and it seems that they have not gotten these achievement.

A minor point, but sometimes the capitalization is wrong on the gamefaqs list. Does this mean anything?

I've updated the OP to reflect Confirmed/Unconfirmed, and added a note on "From Archaemennid to Safavid."

SirTurtle said:

I'm still trying to figure out what is the source for the GameFaqs list.

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I found this list on Gamespot as well. I've never heard of Raptr before, but their list doesn't show any of those 14 unconfirmed ones.

...the Magellan achievement is certainly bugged, as many people have completed the action in the text, and no one has gotten the achievement. Also the Seriously?!? achievement is bugged in the opposite way; I got it without ever completing it's requirement.

Click to expand...

I'll agree, I can't get Magellan either. And, Seriously?!? unlocked for me first game. I was wondering with that one if each civ in the game had that counter, then when I conquered them their counter got added to mine. Seem to recall it unlocking right as I conquered someone, but that was back in my first game, so I could be wrong.

Regarding Diplomat and Knowledge is good. According to CIV5GameSpeeds.xml on marathon speed pacts last 90 turns. I haven't played any these speeds yet; surely some people have though, and it seems that they have not gotten these achievement.

Click to expand...

Good point. So far most of my games have been on Quick. I'm not sure I'm the type of player who wants a single game to last a week

Magellan is bugged with default settings, but there is a workaround. You can edit Globaldefines.xml to give you the "circumnavigation" bonus movement. Once you do that, Magellan will unlock if you have an broken line of hexes completely around the world. Hypothetically you could unlock it on an all land map if you could go all the way around.

These achievements could also be part of future DLC, but have been added to the game files now. Other platforms, such as Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network do exactly this, listing achievements and trophies on everyone's gamer profile but only allowing people who have downloaded the DLC to actually unlock them. It adds extra incentive to purchase the game in those cases.

linearcore said:

Magellan is bugged with default settings, but there is a workaround. You can edit Globaldefines.xml to give you the "circumnavigation" bonus movement. Once you do that, Magellan will unlock if you have an broken line of hexes completely around the world. Hypothetically you could unlock it on an all land map if you could go all the way around.

Click to expand...

This is a nice discovery. Thanks for posting this.

I don't think it's Seriously??? that's bugged; I think it's the way Civ handles AI building wonders. It seems to me that the "Civ X built wonder Y" notification always runs as if the player was building that wonder and lost it. Meaning that after the AI has built ten wonders, you'll get the achievement. That's what happened to me anyways.

DGMan said:

Unconfirmed Achievements:

• The Paul Murphy Award for Excellence and Attractiveness - Read 500 articles in the Civilopedia

Click to expand...

I clicked through every single entry in the civilopedia and this didn't trigger, so it's either bugged, or there's something special to get it to trigger.

• Can't We All Just Get Along? - Play and win a game without ever declaring war on another Civ (does not preclude them from declaring war against you)

Click to expand...

I just finished a game where there were only two civs and I never declared war and they never declared war. Seems bugged or disabled.

Discovered something useful to help track progress on those longer marathon type achievements.

Edit \My Docs\My Games\SM Civ V\config.ini and set: LoggingEnabled = 1

Now the game will start updating this log file: \My Docs\My Games\SM Civ V\Logs\achievements_debug.log

That file contains a list of stats that track things like # roads built, # temples built, build counts for each unit, each wonder, etc.

eviltypeguy said:

I clicked through every single entry in the civilopedia and this didn't trigger, so it's either bugged, or there's something special to get it to trigger.

Click to expand...

Looking in that log file I see "ESTEAMSTAT_PEDIA = 0". I'd guess that's the stat the achievement is based on, so it's most likely bugged.

I've conquered cities on other continents with Askia. I've also been attacked by ships with embarked units and survived. Attacking isn't an option with embarked units. If this is achievable, it isn't either of those.

DGMan said:

Discovered something useful to help track progress on those longer marathon type achievements.

Edit \My Docs\My Games\SM Civ V\config.ini and set: LoggingEnabled = 1

Now the game will start updating this log file: \My Docs\My Games\SM Civ V\Logs\achievements_debug.log

That file contains a list of stats that track things like # roads built, # temples built, build counts for each unit, each wonder, etc.



Looking in that log file I see "ESTEAMSTAT_PEDIA = 0". I'd guess that's the stat the achievement is based on, so it's most likely bugged.

Click to expand...

I...I think I love you. I have been constantly frustrated by trying to figure out which single unit I haven't trained to get credit for the "Modern Major General" achievement. Steam doesn't include a simple progress report system. You just made my life so much easier. Granted, I have to start from scratch with the log, but oh well, at least I can track my progress now.

Edit: It's even more beautiful than I imagined...it fills in all the fields with your true values once you boot the game back up.
Edit2: Apparently the game doesn't register that a Lancer has been trained. A bug? In ciV?

linearcore said:

I...I think I love you. I have been constantly frustrated by trying to figure out which single unit I haven't trained to get credit for the "Modern Major General" achievement. Steam doesn't include a simple progress report system. You just made my life so much easier. Granted, I have to start from scratch with the log, but oh well, at least I can track my progress now.

Edit: It's even more beautiful than I imagined...it fills in all the fields with your true values once you boot the game back up.
Edit2: Apparently the game doesn't register that a Lancer has been trained. A bug? In ciV?

Click to expand...

Yes I noticed that lancer and cossack appear to be bugged. They never register as being built. Also it seems to me that you need to literally build the unit, and not just upgrade it from something else. I could be wrong though. I say this because I have zero for jet fighter and something else I think, which I upgraded to, but never built.

Edit: Also looking at the count for wonders, it does indeed appear that the seriously achievement counts anytime they build a wonder and you don't. Has nothing to do with whether you were going for it. I have been beaten to 113 wonders apparently.