How Do Achievements Work Exactly?

[Alsark]

There is probably no way of knowing this at the moment, but maybe people more familiar with Steam can provide some insight. As I've never used Steam, I don't know how achievements are handled in games. I'm guessing it differs a bit game-by-game, but I figure I'll ask regardless for discussion's sake.

1) Many achievements seem to just say "win the game as <leader> on any difficulty" or "win the game on <difficulty>". I'd think that, for the former, all you'd have to do is set up a duel-sized map with high water settings on Settler difficulty and rush through all of the achievements. For the latter you could adopt a similar strategy.

2) I wonder if reloading counts towards an achievement. Take "Seriously?!?", for example, where a civilization beats you to a wonder 10 times across multiple play-throughs. Could we, if beaten to the bunch, reload the game 10 times? This would result in us getting beaten 10 times, and we could potentially get the achievement this way.

I know a lot of people don't care about achievements, but I've always been one to go for them. Since I won't have time to get them "legitimately", I'll get them the quickest way possible.

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Achievements don't do anything.

So rushing to unlock them all is a pointless endeavor and basically defeats the purpose.

EDIT: Why won't you have time to unlock them in a natural manner? There's no time limit.

 

[Alsark]

Achievements don't do anything.

So rushing to unlock them all is a pointless endeavor and basically defeats the purpose.

EDIT: Why won't you have time to unlock them in a natural manner? There's no time limit.

I know. It's the completionist in me. If there is some aspect of the game that I can unlock/complete, I have to do it.

I mean I don't have time in my life, unfortunately. Whenever I'm not at class I'm at work. Whenever I'm not at class or work, I'm with my girlfriend. So when I do get to play, I'd rather play as my favorite civilization rather than a civilization I feel like I need (yes, I say need because it's in my nature) to play to get an achievement. So I'd rather power my way through the achievements of civilizations I'd rather not play as.

 

[bhavv]

Steam achievements have nothing to do with completing the game. There is no need to play any game with the desire to unlock them, they arent even an aspect of the game.

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Ah. Well, yup, you can power and cheese your way through a lot of achievements exactly in the way you described in the OP.

Shouldn't be too difficult.

 

[SirTurtle]

Unfortunately you are probably right. In addition to the methods mentioned in the OP there may be a few other easy ways to get the achievements:

1. Using World Builder
2. Using mods

Of course it's possible that either of these will disable the possibility of getting achievements; I don't really know.

Another problem is that most of the achievements are rather trivial. There are only a few achievements that will require a special strategy throughout the game, notably:

Bollywood
As Gandhi, win a cultural victory with 3 or fewer cities in your empire.

Conquest Of The World
As Alexander, defeat every known player by 350 BC.

More of these would be nice, especially with difficulty and other restrictions.

However there are 17 (I think) secret achievements. So there will be some fun in discovering these... Of course somebody on the internet will always discover them before you and post about them on these forums.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

I just want to get "My Little Pony" and I'll be happy.

 

[Yosomono]

Conquest Of The World
As Alexander, defeat every known player by 350 BC.

I find it interesting that it says every known player.
Could be that you could start a game and have yourself start on a continent with just one other civ, all others far far away. If you defeat the only one you know about, it might suffice.

I just want to get "My Little Pony" and I'll be happy.

Yes, absolutely. Most important one ever.

 

[Alsark]

Unfortunately you are probably right. In addition to the methods mentioned in the OP there may be a few other easy ways to get the achievements:

1. Using World Builder
2. Using mods

Of course it's possible that either of these will disable the possibility of getting achievements; I don't really know.

Another problem is that most of the achievements are rather trivial. There are only a few achievements that will require a special strategy throughout the game, notably:

Bollywood
As Gandhi, win a cultural victory with 3 or fewer cities in your empire.

Conquest Of The World
As Alexander, defeat every known player by 350 BC.

More of these would be nice, especially with difficulty and other restrictions.

However there are 17 (I think) secret achievements. So there will be some fun in discovering these... Of course somebody on the internet will always discover them before you and post about them on these forums.

I'd imaging world builder and mods would disable them.

Bollywood, yes, may require a different strategy - but that's probably how I'd play as India, anyway. Conquest of the World shouldn't be that bad, actually. This should again be achievable on a duel-sized map on settler difficulty.

Ah, I didn't know there were secret ones. That'll be interesting.