Possible workaround for 90% of the achievements? And question about mods.

I'm just curious, I'm not gonna try this because I don't care for steam achievements anyway I only play multiplayer but for example if someone had a hard time defeating Deity AI couldn't they just mess with the handicap info file in the xml directory and make the deity AI as challenging as the settler one and just grab it in a few minutes?

Secondly do mods like http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=78295051 Vanlilla Enhanced restrict you from playing "officially" and thus any game/feat you finish in a custom game would NOT be recorded as a valid achievement? I'm thinking about playing all nations at some point on a high difficulty in single player just to grab the achievements IF I am bored but the AI and everything are a bit repetitive, so a mod that alters that while still allowing me to grab the achievements would be awesome. Are they possible?

Ty

No, mods automatically disable achievements.

HOWEVER, you don't need to actually modify any XML files, all you need to do is make a custom modless scenario in World Builder, set up the map to nearly match the goal-oriented achievements, then jus tplay them. That's how i got 375 ships, 10 dromons, Sea Beggar achievement, and pretty much all of Difficulty-based Scenario achievements too (just make surey ou don't modify the actual scenario map files,b ut make a copy of them)