Crusader Kings III

There will always be someone in the world willing to marry you. Open your character window, hit Find Spouse, accept anyone at all, and this pops when the wedding concludes - first five minutes of any campaign. For real play you'll want a decent match ofc (genetics and alliances matter), but for the achievement, anyone with a pulse will do.

Fastest route: open your Lifestyle window and reset your perks - the refund inflicts a whopping stress hit that shoves you straight into a mental break. Or just play against type: an Honest character spamming hostile schemes gets there quickly too. You'll pass this on the way to Turning to Diamonds anyway.

Any rank-up of your primary title counts (duke to king and so on). Instant route: start the 867 Great Adventurers bookmark as Rurik of Novgorod - he can create the Kingdom of Novgorod from day one, popping this on the spot. Forming Ireland for The Emerald Isle does it too if you'd rather roll it into a proper campaign.

Needs the Royal Court DLC. Take the Commission Artifact decision (or sponsor any inspired character who turns up at court), fund their project, and see it through the occasional choice events until the finished artifact is delivered to you - it unlocks on receipt, not on funding. A project takes months to a few in-game years, so start one early and let it run in the background. Pairs naturally with I Made This in the same campaign.

A Peasant Rabble uprising does NOT count - it has to be a proper faction civil war. Easy setup: the 867 Umayyads start on the brink of one, especially if you surrender the opening wars and let vassal opinion crater. Refuse the faction's ultimatum, crush the rebels to 100% war score, done. Or engineer one in any big realm - raise crown authority, imprison a few people, and someone will oblige. The dread you farm for Dreadful Ruler is a reliable way to provoke it.

Start the 1066 Fate of England bookmark as Harold - he begins with a strong hook on a vassal. Open that vassal, Modify Feudal Contract, tick Use Hook, change any term (one step of taxes will do) and confirm. They can't refuse when the hook is spent. Done inside the first minute.

Needs Royal Court, and comes in two parts: loot an artifact you hold no claim on, then have your heir inherit it. The tidy setup is to gift one of your starting artifacts to a weak neighbour, declare an easy war, and take it back in the peace deal - the wiki-endorsed route for a claim-free loot. Then it's a waiting game: keep the artifact, grow old gracefully, and this pops on succession when your heir picks it up. Works nicely alongside Patronage.

The Found Holy Order decision needs a castle or city holding that isn't a county capital to act as the order's headquarters, plus a pile of resources. Louis II of Italy in the 867 Carolingians bookmark starts closest to qualifying - a king with money and spare holdings. Secure a non-capital castle, take the decision from the Decisions tab, done. Slots neatly into a faith-flavoured run with For the Faith!.

You just need to be on the winning side of a Great Holy War - you don't need to lead it or be the beneficiary. Play any modest Catholic ruler in 1178, wait for the Pope to call a Crusade (he almost always does within the first twenty years), pledge on the Great Holy War screen, stack your armies with the AI's and stay pledged until it's won. Successfully defending against one as a Muslim ruler counts too - it says "on either side" and means it.

The ruler designer makes this a formality: build a married ruler with nine children plus Lustful and Fecund (comfortably inside the 400-point achievement cap), then get to work on number ten - run the Seduce scheme on your own spouse or just wait for the pregnancy events. Concubinage or polygamy faiths multiply the rate if you'd rather not designer it. Bastards count; all ten just need to be alive at the same time. Feeds straight into Prolific if you're doing that one organically.

The 867 Carolingians bookmark exists for this - the brother-kings all start with claims on each other's kingdoms. Pick any of them, declare war on a sibling using the claim CB you already hold, and the requirement is satisfied on declaration - you can white-peace out afterwards if you'd rather not actually fight your brother. Very medieval. Same bookmark serves A Legacy to Last the Ages and Non Nobis Domine, so consider one Carolingian mega-session.

Stress level 3 is the cap, and Björn Ironside (867, Wrath of the Northmen) is the speedrun: he's Honest, so starting Murder schemes stresses him out - queue up ten of them back to back and he rockets from zero to a shattering mental break in one sitting. Cancel them all afterwards, no harm done (to you). Stressful Situation falls out en route if you don't already have it.

Ten secrets in your known list at the same time - spent or exposed ones stop counting, so sit on them. The seducer route is the reliable engine: every successful Seduce scheme hands you a lover secret you know. Add your Spymaster on Find Secrets and any intrigue perks that reveal them, and hoard until the counter hits ten. Resist the urge to blackmail anyone until it pops. The same campaign sets up Seductive nicely.

Design a ruler with Arbitrary, Sadistic and Wrathful and take the Torturer intrigue focus - Sadistic conveniently removes the stress cost of being a monster. Then farm: imprison on any pretext, torture, revoke titles, and publicly execute your most notable prisoners (higher rank means more dread). 100 dread arrives disturbingly fast. The factions this provokes are a free setup for Know Your Place.

Devotion accrues over a character's lifetime, so this is a long-lived-and-pious game. The wiki's route: replace the Abbasid Caliph in 867 with a custom Muslim ruler carrying Just, Generous and Temperate (all monthly piety), then go on Hajj as often as the game allows, taking the piety-boosting options each time, funded by the Caliphate's deep pockets. The Theology lifestyle stacks on top. The mirror-image grind of Celebrity - same pattern, different currency.

Jarl Hæsteinn of Montaigu (867, Great Adventurers) starts at Illustrious - one fame level from the cap. Fame comes fastest from creating titles and winning battles, and as a Norse raider he does both for a living. Stack monthly prestige, conquer, create duchy and kingdom titles, and don't torch your progress by breaking truces or losing wars. Saint is the same grind in piety flavour.

The classic first campaign, and still the best tutorial the game has. Murchad of Munster, 1066 (Rags to Riches bookmark): Ireland is a patchwork of independent one-county counts, so park your chancellor on fabricating claims and eat the island county by county - nobody can resist your starting stack. Hold the de jure counties, save up the gold and prestige, create the Kingdom of Ireland, and it pops. Moving up in the World comes along for the ride if you don't have it.

Instant: pick any Rurikid ruler in the 1178 start date - the dynasty already has over 100 living members, so it pops the moment you unpause. Doing it organically is a genuine multi-generation project (marry everyone fertilely, no matrilineal matches for the men, keep the kids out of the clergy), but there's no shame in taking the freebie.

Needs Legends of the Dead. Set Plague Frequency to Doomsday in the game rules at setup - it makes the game harder, so achievements stay enabled. When a plague hits your capital (move your capital into an infected barony if it's being shy, revoking a title if you must), start an activity that travels - a Pilgrimage is ideal for the distance - and arrive at a plague-free barony while the capital is still infected. Pops on arrival.

All three trees of a single lifestyle, so pick one at game start and never switch focus off it. This is pure patience - perk points arrive on an XP cadence, so the game is maximising monthly lifestyle XP and keeping one character alive as long as possible. The wiki's recommended designer build stacks XP modifiers (Coptic faith and Syriac culture among them) to roughly 56 XP a month, which fits all three trees into one lifetime. Longevity perks and a good court physician are your friends.

All five legacies of one track. Charles the Bald (867, The Carolingians) starts with enough renown banked for two levels immediately, which takes the sting out. You must be dynasty head to spend renown, and renown flows from living dynasty members - especially landed ones - so marry your kin far and wide, land the spares, and let the generations tick over. Bad Blood is sitting right there in the same bookmark.

Be someone's heir, murder them, inherit. Ibrahim ibn Ahmad, Duke of Gabes (867) is the ready-made setup: he's heir to his brother, the Aghlabid ruler. Check the succession panel to confirm you're primary heir, start the Murder scheme, pad it with high-intrigue agents who dislike the target, and when it lands the title passes to you along with the achievement.

The big gotcha first: legitimacy is a free base-game mechanic, but this achievement only fires with Legends of the Dead owned and enabled - plenty of players have sat at max legitimacy wondering why nothing popped. With the DLC on, the wiki's designer build (Virtuoso Arbitrator, Just, Diplomat and Sayyid, age 33) spawns you at legitimacy level 4 with half the bar to 5 already filled; take the Diplomacy lifestyle with the Writing History perk and top up the rest with prestigious marriages and well-hosted activities.

Antso IV of Navarra (1066, Iberia in Pieces) can create a cadet branch from the literal first day - open the dynasty menu, Create Cadet Branch, name it, done. You become the new house's head, yay. Any qualifying ruling dynasty member can do the same mid-campaign, but Antso is the zero-effort route.

Start at count tier or lower, end holding an empire. The cheeky route: Ayaz Alp Arslanoğlu of West-Tokharestan in 1066 - he's the Seljuk heir, so you can simply wait for (or hasten) the emperor's death and inherit your way from count to emperor in one lifetime. The long way is the classic count → duchy → kingdom → empire climb over generations; creating an empire title needs roughly 80% of its de jure land plus a pile of gold and prestige. Later expansions add the even sillier Rags to Riches to Rags to Riches if you enjoyed this arc.

Creating a faith costs piety scaled by how much you change, so change almost nothing. The wiki build: a custom Catholic ruler aged 27+ with a theology education, who starts with enough lifestyle XP to take the Prophet perk (Learning lifestyle) immediately - it slashes the piety cost. Tweak a tenet or two, hit Create Faith, done within the first year. Design the virtue list thoughtfully and you've set up Paragon of Virtue too.

It has to be your own murder scheme - a spouse dying any other way doesn't count. Design a married ruler with Schemer and Impatient, open the Intrigue menu, and target your beloved. Spouses have precious little protection early on, so one scheme cycle usually does it. Marry, murder, achievement - the full CK3 experience in miniature. The Things We Do for Love is the same energy pointed at someone else's marriage.

Court Grandeur 10 is the ceiling, and it's mostly a money question - grandeur drifts towards a baseline set by your amenities, displayed artifacts and court positions, so push that baseline above 10 and wait. The Holy Roman Empire in 1066 makes the upkeep trivial: max every amenity (food, lodging, fashion, servants), fill the court slots with skilled characters, and display artifacts in every court slot. Needs Royal Court. Working on Hoarder feeds this directly.

The trick is keeping your expected grandeur tiny, not making your actual grandeur huge. Any king in the 867 Iberia in Pieces bookmark has an expectation of just 1, so grandeur 7 unlocks it - far cheaper than the level 10 needed for Crème de la Crème. Pump amenities, artifacts and court positions exactly as for that one, and crucially do NOT expand: rank and realm size raise your expectation and move the goalposts. Stay small, live large.

Needs Royal Court. "Mythological rarity" means the unique/historical artifacts - relics, famous gems, the crowns and weapons of dead kings - not the ordinary commission tiers. Start as an emperor for the best flow of inspired guests and the gold to indulge them, then sponsor characters with the Adventurer inspiration, favouring high-skill adventurers (skill drives both quality and the option to hunt something unique). It's RNG on what they bring home, so expect a few sponsorships before the special one lands. The same adventurer sets up They Belong in a Museum, and it all counts towards Inspirational.

Legendary splendour is the top of the dynasty ladder, and almost any long campaign gets there eventually - renown flows from living dynasty members, especially landed ones and those married into power. If you want it fast, the Yamato dynasty in Japan starts at Fabled (one level short) in every start date, with landed members to play from 867. Otherwise just let it accumulate alongside A Legacy to Last the Ages and Prolific - the same dynasty-growth engine drives all three.

Needs Royal Court or Khans of the Steppe (hybrid cultures come with either). Instant route: Ivar the Boneless of the Isles, 867 Wrath of the Northmen - he qualifies at game start. Open the culture window, Establish Hybrid Culture, pick your traditions, pay up. In general you need counties of both parent cultures in your realm and decent acceptance between them (the cost falls as acceptance rises), and the child culture inherits all innovations of both parents - which is exactly why Beacon of Progress runs on hybridisation.

Virtues are faith-relative, which is the whole trick. Bayajidda of Kano (867) starts with two virtues and his faith counts Possessed as a third - take the Seek Aid of the Spirits decision at game start and reroll (restart if it doesn't grant Possessed) for a near-instant unlock. The slower generic route: stack decision- and event-granted traits on a faith whose virtue list is actually achievable, or define your own convenient virtues via It's not a Cult!.

The Claim Throne scheme lives behind the Meritocracy perk (Stewardship lifestyle), targets your liege's primary title and runs on Learning. The wiki build: replace any duke-tier vassal with a custom ruler - Midas Touched education, Impatient and Schemer, points into Stewardship - take the Domain focus and spend the free perk on Meritocracy, then scheme away. You only need the scheme to SUCCEED (a pressed claim lands in your lap); pressing it is optional. NB the scheme route does not count for Upward Mobility - that one wants the diplomatic interaction instead.

The honest route is building a duchy building in your duchy capital and paying through every upgrade tier - years and a small fortune. The wiki's delightful shortcut: create a faith with the Megalithic Constructions tenet, whose unique duchy building (the Great Megalith) has no upgrade tiers - so it counts as "fully upgraded" the moment it finishes, popping the achievement on completion. You must personally hold both the duchy title and the county. Creating the faith en route is It's not a Cult! anyway.

Needs Tours & Tournaments, and the clean way is to be one of the spouses yourself: arrange a betrothal, host the Grand Wedding, and set your activity Intent to Seduce with your betrothed as the target - the wedding's relationship events can escalate you to soulmates by the ceremony. Higher-grandeur weddings throw more events; Seducer-tree perks tilt the odds. It's not guaranteed per wedding, so budget for a couple of attempts. There were reports around the T&T launch of this not firing when it should; nothing recent confirmed, but if it misbehaves, another wedding is the fix.

Every innovation in every era (regional and culture-specific ones excluded), which means playing deep into the late game - so start late: the wiki recommends an Iranian culture in 1178. The engine is hybridisation: set the "Divergent and Hybrid Culture Cooldowns" game rule to Faster, then repeatedly create hybrid cultures - a hybrid inherits ALL innovations known by either parent, so merging with cultures that know different things leapfrogs whole eras. Between hybrids, stay culture head, pump county development (development gates era progression), and point your cultural fascination at whatever's missing. Converging Paths pops on the first hybrid, naturally.

Needs Royal Court. Divergence cost scales with how much of your parent culture you control, so the trick is controlling almost none of it: any duke-tier vassal of the Byzantine Empire holds a tiny sliver of Greek culture and can diverge at game start if they change only the ethos. Culture window, Diverge Culture, confirm - minutes. The sibling of Converging Paths, and the same mechanic later powers Nobody Comes to Fika and Beta Israel.

Needs All Under Heaven. Build a fresh character who has never sat an exam - the wiki's pick is a custom 16-year-old landless character with Erudite Oracle and high Learning (landless starts want Roads to Power; a landed character in or near China works too). Enter a Chinese examination and pass it - with maxed Learning and that trait, the entry-level exam is a formality. This is deliberately the first rung of the ladder: Flying Colors, Upper-upper and Grand Governor all continue from here.

Needs Legends of the Dead. Before starting, set the Legend Cost game rule to Very Low - the wiki recommends it and it keeps achievements enabled. Then: acquire a legend seed, start the legend from the legends view, and keep funding it while promoters spread it chapter by chapter. Any quality tier counts - completion is all that matters. The rest of the legend family (Neverending Story, Pay Respects, Canonized, Local Legend) shares the same campaign happily.

Needs Roads to Power, and it must be the "Adopt Centralized Administration" DECISION - starting administrative or being absorbed into an admin realm doesn't count. The wiki's shortcut: swear fealty to the Byzantine Empire (already administrative), which puts the decision's requirements in easy reach, then take it from the Decisions tab. Check the decision tooltip for the exact prerequisites in your situation. New Management, same as the Old Management is the same decision taken from a much stranger angle.

You must hold a KINGDOM title, be a vassal of an emperor, and out-grandeur his court. The wiki's lazy masterpiece: Qocho in 867 - swear fealty to the Kirghiz Khanate, keep your own court funded, and simply wait; your grandeur climbs while your poor nomad liege's decays, and it fires at the crossover. Same levers as Crème de la Crème if you want to force it faster. Worth knowing: a "Confirmed" bug report exists from the Royal Court launch era (2022); nothing recent, so treat it as history unless proven otherwise.

Needs Royal Court. Sponsor a courtier or guest with the Adventurer inspiration, wait for them to complete the adventure and come home, then appoint that same character as your Antiquarian from the court positions screen. The one way to fumble it: letting the adventurer wander off after their return - keep them at court until the appointment is made. Do it with the same adventurer you're using for One of a Kind and the whole thing is one workflow.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. Confederations form between tribal or nomadic rulers of the same culture, so the wiki build is a custom tribal/nomad duke with the Diplomat trait whose culture matches a neighbour's. Butter up that neighbour (high relations are the acceptance driver), take the Call for Confederation decision, and have them say yes. About an hour's work, and it slots into the same steppe trip as Blood of my Blood and Settling In.

Every slot means every slot: the inventory wants a crown, journal, weapon, armour, regalia and four trinkets; the court wants three large wall ornaments, three small ones, four pedestal items, two furniture pieces, two books and a throne. Most of it can be brute-forced with the Commission Artifact decision (crown, weapon, armour, regalia, wall ornaments, furniture, books). Trinkets drop from hunts; journals come from events, the Create Travel Itinerary decision (Wandering perk) or Commission Epic (Diplomacy perk); pedestal items come from reforging inventory artifacts. The throne is the awkward one - Scotland in 1066 starts with one, which is the wiki's recommended shortcut. Needs Royal Court; feeds Crème de la Crème the whole way.

Needs Roads to Power. The wiki build: replace Harold of England in 1066 with a custom character with a spouse and nine children, all points into Diplomacy - then go landless, and the ready-made family becomes the backbone of a big camp. Grow to ten-plus followers and keep every temperament positive at once: healthy provisions, favourable camp-event choices and high Diplomacy do the work. Check the camp view and sort out (or replace) any grump before the last one turns cheerful. Cousin to the rest of the adventurer family - Historically Inaccurate, Birthright and Started from the Bottom now we're ERE.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. The Wanderer track fills with distance travelled - tours, pilgrimages, attending everything - but the Seasoned track ONLY progresses through danger events, so counter-intuitively you must travel dangerously: riskier routes, lighter escorts, and survive what happens. Both tracks on one character means starting young and making travel the whole personality; Wandering perks and a good travel leader keep "dangerous" short of "fatal". Pairs with Pathway to Heaven and I'm in my Element(s), which want the same lifestyle.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. Hastiluder XP comes from competing in tournament contests, so enter every Grand Tournament you can and always compete in the SAME discipline - one track filling fast beats four filling slowly. Perks in the Strategist (Martial) and Gallant (Diplomacy) trees boost the XP gain, and the fifth Activities dynasty legacy adds more on top. Start young. If you catch the bug, Like No One Ever Was is this times four.

Character-locked: Jarl Hæsteinn in 867 (the Steam text still says "of Nantes"; in current versions he sits in Montaigu - same chap). The wiki route: declare war on Cornwall with the Conquer Duchy CB - it's a walkover unless Cornwall lands a strong ally, in which case just restart. Move your capital there, convert to the local culture, recreate the Duchy of Cornwall, then take the Restore the Kingdom of Cornwall decision for your kingdom-tier title. Hæsteinn is also the star of the far madder Fishing in China, so you may meet him again.

One of the game's great long hauls. The Restore the Roman Empire decision requires holding the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, or an Empire of Italia formed via Unify Italy - then a very large amount of reconquest. 867 is the best runway: play Byzantium directly, or the sneakier route of starting as Bulgaria, swearing fealty to Byzantium and working your way onto the throne from inside. Build a military-first dynasty and expect this to span generations. Pairs naturally with Wily as the Fox or Miklagarðaríki depending on which route you take.

Alfonso VI of León (1066, Iberia in Pieces) starts with a lover, which does the hard part for you. Marry the lover off to someone with terrible intrigue, then run a Murder scheme on the unlucky new spouse - low intrigue target, high success chance, achievement. Same start covers Keeping it in the Family, so do both in one gloriously dysfunctional session.

Alfonso VI of León (1066, Iberia in Pieces) starts as lovers with his own full sister, Urraca. Keep producing children with her until one arrives with the Inbred trait - full-sibling children roll the dice hard in that direction. NB the wiki flags this achievement may not be available for ruler-designer characters, so use a historical start like this one. The Things We Do for Love is sitting in the same save.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. Start as Temüjin in 1178 - his real-life blood brother Jamukha is right there as his vassal, and the brotherhood is available at or near game start. Minutes of work. You're already in position for This Chinggis Everything and The Stallion that Mounts the World if you fancy staying a while.

Needs Legends of the Dead. Start promoting a legend and deliberately don't finish it before your character dies. The one real gotcha: when you take over as the heir, claim ownership of the legend BEFORE unpausing, or another relative can snatch it. Then complete it as normal. Combos with Legendary! and Pay Respects in a single legend-flavoured campaign.

Read this bit first: only the diplomatic "Claim Liege's Title" interaction counts. The Claim Throne scheme does not, and winning a claim war doesn't either - there are confirmed reports of players winning the war at higher legitimacy and getting nothing. You don't even need to fight; the claim itself fires it. The wiki setup: in 867, replace the duke of the Doolani Amirate (in the Habbari Sultanate) with a custom Just + Sayyid diplomat - you start at legitimacy 4 against a liege on 1. Farm prestige with hunts and feasts to the 1500 the interaction costs, use it, done. Needs Legends of the Dead.

Three strong hooks on direct vassals at once. Pick your poison: (1) Björn Ironside in 867 with the Homosexuality game rule on "predominant" - his faith criminalises it, so wait a few years and expose vassals' criminal love affairs for strong hooks; (2) the Truth is Relative intrigue perk lets your spymaster fabricate strong hooks via Find Secrets - it mostly hooks courtiers, so hook them first, then land them as vassals; (3) an Igbo chief raiding with capture intent - the Recognition of Talent tradition recruits prisoners as courtiers who each arrive pre-hooked, then grant three of them chiefdoms. The skills transfer directly to Above God.

Thirty successful sponsorships in one campaign - this is the Royal Court long haul, and it spans generations, so start early and make sponsoring a habit every time an inspired character appears at court. The Seljuks in 1066 are the wiki's pick for fastest progression: a big, rich realm that attracts plenty of inspired visitors and can always afford the funding. That same start pops Rich in Diversity instantly and feeds Hoarder, so it's an efficient home for the whole artifact family.

Ten cultures at 95%+ acceptance with yours - and your own culture does NOT count towards the ten. The wiki start: High Chieftain Radomil of Lusatia in 867, Polabian culture. Slavic cultures begin at 50% mutual acceptance in that era, and Polabian skips the Staunch Traditionalists tradition that would drag acceptance growth. Expand across Slavic lands until 10+ foreign cultures live inside your realm, then push acceptance up patiently; an Administrative royal court type helps once you have one. A proper multi-generation project.

Needs All Under Heaven - Merit Rank 1 is the top of China's celestial bureaucracy. Play any vassal under Celestial government with high Learning (or design one). Then it's the scholar's life: join every Examination you can (Capital Examinations first), always take the Merit-granting options, and run the Study scheme between them. Once you land a governorship, Military governors should recruit men-at-arms while civil ones build and raise tax income - both feed passive Merit - and hosting Examinations and Inspections tops it up. The wiki's own words: it will take quite a while, so be patient. Grand Governor is this plus one more step, so consider going straight through.

The trigger is the date hitting 1452.12.1, and the only way to fail is your dynasty dying out or losing every title. Don't run it on its own - fold it into other achievement runs and speed-5 the remainder once you've exhausted a save. If you want maximum safety, the Rurikids in 1178 have over a hundred living dynasty members (which also pops Prolific on the spot) - that dynasty is not going extinct by accident. From 1178 it's 275 in-game years; from 867 nearly double, so pick your start date accordingly.

Hold an empire title. Be naked. The game rewards you for this. The reliable route: replace the Byzantine or Holy Roman emperor with a Cynical piety-farmer, take the Theology focus, and once you've banked enough piety convert to Adamitism - the nudist faith whose adherents are, as required, naked. Slower alternatives the wiki notes: the Lunatic trait has a small chance of a nudity event, and a high-danger Pilgrimage towards Jerusalem can bump into Adamites in the Balkans or Anatolia with a convert option. NB the wiki flags it may not be available for ruler-designer characters, so playing it safe means taking over a historical emperor rather than designing one.

Needs All Under Heaven. Two routes: a random event that can fire while playing anywhere in Asia, or just take the Invite Religious Exiles decision yourself. Either way it's a freebie that falls out of any Asia campaign of reasonable length - stack it with Stamp of Approval and friends rather than making a trip for it.

Needs Royal Court. The wiki build: a 21-year-old custom character with the Erudite Oracle trait and spare points into Learning, from a culture with Astute Diplomats (+1 language limit, +25% Learn Language scheme power - Franconian, German, Nubian, Croatian and friends) or Culture Blending (+30% power, +1 concurrent scheme - Mon, Avar, Merya and co). Take Pedagogy and Open-Minded with the free perks, then cycle Learn Language schemes back to back; the Diplomacy lifestyle's Adaptive Traditions perk adds another concurrent slot. Sneaky shortcut: converting or hybridising into a culture with a different language teaches you it instantly - which is Converging Paths anyway.

Needs Northern Lords (and there are reports of it failing precisely because the DLC was disabled - check your playset before starting). You need North Germanic heritage (any culture in it, or Norman) and to be Catholic, then join the very first Crusade as an attacker the moment the Pope calls it - historically around 1100 from a 1066 start, give or take. So: start 1066 as a North Germanic ruler, convert to Catholicism if needed, keep the save achievement-valid, and pledge immediately at the declaration. Stay on the attacker side to the end. If it succeeds, For the Faith! pops in the same war.

Needs All Under Heaven. Four exams, one character: the Children's Examination, the Provincial Examination, the Capital (Metropolitan) Examination, and the Palace Examination - and the Palace exam only opens if you score top-10 in the Metropolitan. Start via the Stamp of Approval route (a character who has never passed an exam, sitting the Children's Examination), pass the Provincial when it comes round, then build Learning and Confucian Education hard - the Study scheme, a Mentor via Request Mentorship, and Learning lifestyle perks. A well-prepared scholar can clear the Metropolitan top-10 and the Palace exam in one sitting. Rolls naturally into Upper-upper.

Needs All Under Heaven, and it's the full rags-to-robes arc: start landless, climb the exam ladder and the Merit ranks exactly as for Upper-upper, and then - the extra step - once you're at Merit Rank 1, boost your ministry candidacy score and wait for a Ministry appointment. A whole character lifetime of patient bureaucracy, possibly more. The wiki's own summary is literally "same as Upper-upper, plus the final step", so run them as one campaign along with Stamp of Approval and Flying Colors.

Instant: load the Seljuk emperor in 1066 and unpause - his realm already has ten-plus vassals of other faiths under his Jizya-doctrine faith, so it pops on the spot. (Needs Legacy of Persia.) While you're there, the same start is the wiki's pick for Inspirational, so consider staying.

Needs Legends of the Dead, and it's a rated very-hard for good reason: you need a barony that is simultaneously infected AND sitting in a county at 100 plague resistance. The wiki route: Mahasamanta Parakkirama of Pandya, 1066. Build temple holdings in Madurai and upgrade everything; put the Burial Site duchy building in your capital, plus Hospices and Monasteries in every Madurai barony. When a plague reaches the realm, take the Isolate Capital decision and set your best Personal Physician to Control Plagues - the stacked sources push the county to 100 while the infection is live. NB there are unresolved reports of this not unlocking even when the conditions look met (Paradox has it "In Review") - it does unlock for most, but if you're unlucky, re-trigger with a later plague.

Ten independent kingdom-tier realms all ruled by your dynasty at once. The wiki's clever start: in 867, replace the Kirghiz khagan with a custom ruler with nine sons. The Kirghiz fully control the de jure land of three kingdoms and half of two more - and crucially the Khanate itself has no de jure territory, so you can hand out kingdoms' independence without dismantling your own title. Create the kingdoms you control, conquer a few more, grant one to each son, then release them all as independent in one glorious act of nepotism: you plus nine kings = ten. Keep everyone alive until it counts.

Character-locked: Álmos Árpád, 867. Open with the Migrate to Pannonia CB - it spawns two powerful armies in your capital and you'll outnumber the Bulgarians roughly two to one. Once settled in Pannonia, form the Kingdom of Hungary, then convert to any Christian faith (any flavour counts, despite the old Xbox wording saying Catholic). Two boxes ticked, achievement.

Character-locked: Count Eudes of Anjou, 867 (the game's Robert the Strong lineage - the Steam text calls him Eudes Capet). Your dynasty must come to hold the Kingdom of France. The wiki's patient route: consolidate Anjou and the surrounding duchy first, then use your feudal contract as a tool - offer the liege high levies for Protected Title Revocation, later high taxes for March status - to expand safely inside West Francia without royal interference. When you're strong enough, the Claim Throne scheme (requires the Meritocracy perk, Diplomacy lifestyle) puts the crown in reach - which conveniently is exactly Not So Feudal System. Usually a two-or-three-generation job.

Ten successful Seduce schemes on one character. The wiki build: a 40-year-old custom ruler with an Intrigue education and the Diplomat trait, free points poured into the Seducer tree perks. With the tree pre-loaded, back-to-back schemes on your own courtiers land easily. Every conquest also hands you a lover secret, which is most of Followed by Shadows done at the same time.

Every county in Iberia Christian, while you control the region as an Iberian-heritage Christian. The wiki route: in 867, replace the Umayyad Sultan with a custom Andalusian-culture Christian (learning education; Gregarious, Just and Temperate keep your Muslim vassals from hating you on sight). Surrender the starting wars, work the Theologian tree for cheap county conversion, and eat the independent Iberian counties before Asturias does - then the eastern islands, Navarra, and Asturias last. With Fate of Iberia installed, hold the Struggle in its Opportunity phase as long as you can (or start Mozarab to be auto-Involved and use Struggle CBs) - which also lines up The Andalusian Inquisition.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. Host or attend a Hunt, set your activity Intent to Murder, pick a participant with rubbish Intrigue, and let nature take its course. Quick, quiet, and technically an accident. The same hunting habit serves Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! and eventually Ahab.

The Pope is just a man with secrets like everyone else. Take the Truth is Relative perk (Schemer tree) to unlock Fabricate Hook, run it on your Head of Faith, and deliberately hold off completing the scheme until the offered outcome is a STRONG hook - then take it. A few in-game years, most of it waiting on the scheme wheel. The same technique carries Trapped in the Web.

Character-locked: Rurik, 867. Create the Kingdom of Novgorod on day one (which also pops Moving up in the World), convert to the local culture and faith so the de jure neighbours will accept vassalage - gifts help - and spend your once-per-lifetime Subjugation CB on Minsk, then chain Conquer Duchy wars towards the Empire of Russia. Any dynasty member holding the empire counts, so it can span lifetimes. Grim but effective tip from the wiki: Rurik is old, so some players stress-murder him early and continue as his 17-year-old heir for the longer runway.

Win every contest at one Grand Tournament with three-plus contests. Rig it shamelessly: host the tournament yourself, pick exactly three contests, and choose only one-vs-one types (board game, duel, wrestling, joust) so your own high-stat subjects fill the brackets and concede to their liege. Bring elite personal prowess anyway - some opponents won't roll over. Historical note: this was genuinely bugged before patch 1.9.2 (only the campaign's first-ever tournament could count); it's been fixed since, so no workarounds needed nowadays.

Needs Roads to Power. Five living House members (not you) holding Theme governorships at once, while you're not the Emperor. The wiki's shortcut: set the "Extra Administrative Realms - Players" game rule to Always, then in 1066 create a custom 50-year-old King of France with five sons and hand each son a Theme governorship via the grant-title flow - near-instant. Organically it also just happens while playing a landed family inside Byzantium, where it stacks with Chaos is a Ladder.

Needs All Under Heaven. The Confucian Education track fills to 100 through normal Chinese gameplay (exams, study, the meritocratic climb - see Upper-upper). The five disciples are the fiddly half, and the wiki's tip is charmingly direct: if nobody's volunteering, right-click YOURSELF and use the Request Mentee interaction - immediate family members, spouses included, always accept. Mentor your own household to glory.

Character-locked: Vratislav Přemyslid, 1066. Bohemia first: wait a few months for gold, create the Duchy of Moravia, save a few years, create the Kingdom of Bohemia. Then the Holy Roman Empire, by election fraud: take Truth is Relative, fabricate a hook on the Kaiser, and spend it to force his elector vote onto you - you plus the Kaiser outvote the rest. Then murder the Kaiser and inherit the imperial title. Democracy in action. Your dynasty just needs both titles, so successions don't reset anything.

The golden rule: do NOT land your lover - a lover holding titles can't trigger the save event. Count Otger of Spreewald (1066) is the ready-made setup: a soulmate wife and a high-intrigue rival who'll oblige with murder attempts. (Post-1.13, Jarl Hæsteinn in 867 works too: soulmate your wife, sack your spymaster, and let Charles the Bald come to you.) Then it's an RNG wait for the rescue - the Mortal Adoration perk isn't required but noticeably improves the odds.

Needs Tours & Tournaments, and the trigger is strict: each holy site needs its OWN pilgrimage - passing others en route doesn't count them. So pick a faith whose sites are close together: the wiki's build is a custom central-African ruler of a local pagan faith (martial education, Forder + Pilgrim + Hajji, Hausa culture, spare points into Stewardship for travel speed, Organized March perk), chaining pilgrimages back to back while young. There were reports at T&T launch of it not unlocking when it should; nothing recent confirmed, but do the one-pilgrimage-per-site routine to be safe.

Needs Fate of Iberia (Ritualized Friendship is an Iberian cultural tradition). The wiki setup: Ibn-Marwan of Badajoz in the 867 Struggle bookmark starts friends with Emir Sa'dun of Burtughal, who will usually accept an Oath of True Friendship - upgrading him to Best Friend. Set the Sexuality Distribution game rule accordingly at setup (it doesn't disable achievements), swear the oath, then run the Seduce scheme on your best friend. History remembers them fondly.

Sounds like dynastic genocide; is actually a 1066 shortcut. Count Herbert of Vermandois is the ONLY landed Karling at that start, so the whole achievement reduces to "become independent". The reliable route: ally big names who'll join an independence war (William the Conqueror and Kaiser Heinrich are both willing), wait until they're at peace, declare, call them in, enforce demands. The wiki also documents a cheeky alternative: declare independence and surrender - if you're banished into landless adventuring, it can pop on the spot. Rated very hard by Paradox; from this start it isn't.

The Dominance ending of the Iberian Struggle - and you must be properly Involved (Interloper status doesn't count). The wiki route: in 867, replace the Umayyad Sultan with a custom Andalusian ruler of the Muwalladi faith, surrender the starting wars, convert your capital kingdom's counties and create a second kingdom title before a vassal beats you to it. Push the Struggle into the Hostility phase (repeatedly building tax buildings in castle holdings nudges it), then drive it to Dominance. One ending per campaign, so Iberian Compromise and Iberian Conciliation each need their own run - and Holidaying in Iberia can ride along with whichever you pick.

Needs All Under Heaven. You need to own the Hegemony of China title - seized through the expansion's Dynastic Cycle, whose instability windows are your opening - and then name your new Imperial Dynasty when prompted; the achievement wants both the title and the naming. The wiki is light on a step-by-step here, but it explicitly pairs this with Fishing in China (same Hegemony requirement, from a Norse count, no less), so if you're going for the mad one anyway, this falls out of it.

Start as one of the Jimena siblings in 1066 - Sancho II of Castille, Alfonso VI of León or García of Galicia - and end holding the Empire of Spain. Alfonso VI is the pick (best Intrigue): murder both brothers early (agents may refuse plots in the first few months - persist), press your claim on Navarra, then take the Unite the Spanish Thrones decision to merge the kingdoms and expand until the Empire of Hispania is creatable. Two Fate of Iberia warnings: either disable the DLC (so you needn't end the Struggle before forming Hispania), or play to any Struggle ending EXCEPT Status Quo - that one destroys the Hispania title. It doesn't need to fit one lifetime; the dynasty carrying on is fine.

Any child of Ragnarr Loðbrók, 867 - all the Wrath of the Northmen scenario characters except Alfred of Wessex qualify, with Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Whiteshirt the strongest picks. You need to completely CONTROL the de jure territory of the Empire of Britannia - England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland - but you do not need to create or hold the empire title itself. Classic Norse steamroll: tribal-era conquest CBs, big stacks, sweep the isles county by county until the region map is all yours. Pairs naturally with a raiding-heavy run at A True and Perfect Knight.

Needs Northern Lords, and you must start AND stay North Germanic Ásatrú. The wiki build: in 867, replace the Chief of Gotland with a custom 34-year-old Norse Ásatrú ruler with six children plus the Diplomat and Witch traits. From day one, run Convert to Witchcraft schemes on your children - your HEIR must be among the converted, that's a hard requirement of the decision - and once three are witches, take the Found Witch Coven decision. The family that hexes together, stays together.

Needs Legends of the Dead, and the ORDER matters: make the dead character your legend's Protagonist first, THEN host the Funeral for them. Easiest with your freshly deceased predecessor - claim/start the legend with them as protagonist, then arrange the send-off. The launch-window reports of this not unlocking look like people doing it the other way round, so respect the sequence. Fits the same campaign as Legendary! and Neverending Story.

Character-locked: Matilda di Canossa, 1066, with three boxes to tick. Italy: fabricate claims on the independent Italian counties (restart if your Realm Priest has poor Learning - he's your claim engine), and get the Duchy of Lombardy claim by befriending or hooking the Pope; that's enough to form the Kingdom of Italy. The 50 dynasty members are the long pole: land every son and matrilineal son-in-law you can - rulers and their spouses get a fertility bonus. The Holy Order is the easy bit once piety allows (Non Nobis Domine pops if you haven't got it). A proper single-run project, but very doable in Matilda's lifetime plus a bit.

Character-locked: Duke Nuño of Portucale, 1066 (Steam calls him Nuno II Vimaranes) - and per the wiki you must still be playing HIM when Portugal is formed, so this one's a single-lifetime job. He sometimes spawns with the Meritocracy perk for an immediate Claim Throne scheme - check at start. The dependable route: divorce his first wife to free the alliance slot, ally France on day one, declare independence immediately, then use the French to smash the two back-to-back southern wars for Portugal's de jure land. With Fate of Iberia active there's a softer path: while the Struggle sits in its opening phase you can take the Found Portugal route without even being independent.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. The Greatest of Khans trait comes from winning the Great War of Defiance that fires when you take the Become the Greatest of Khans decision - Temüjin in 1178 is the natural start (and the stepping stone to The Stallion that Mounts the World). The condensed wiki playbook: yearly Nerges with Substantial Party Size as your gold/prestige/legitimacy engine (Prolific Hunters halves the cooldown - and one Excellent result is Shut Up, Nerge); expand with Nomadic Quarrels, Bring under Tribute and Expand Dominance CBs; build Heavy Horse Archers; raise Dominance, Dominate Title, then take the decision and win the war - battles cap war score at 100%, so hunt the enemy hordes while a second army takes holdings. Do NOT take Settle the Steppe, Forsake Nomadism or Convert to Local Culture along the way; they break eligibility.

Needs Tours & Tournaments, and it's mostly an RNG stakeout. Employ a Master of the Hunt with the Hunter trait and high Prowess, set their task to Track Legendary Game, and keep hosting hunts until a legendary sighting appears - then run the Legendary Hunt and succeed. At T&T launch this was properly wonky (sightings not spawning outside falconry, hunts refusing to launch), which is where its fearsome rarity comes from; it has been attainable since, but expect the sighting to take its sweet time. Hunting Accident and Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! keep the waiting productive.

Two halves: a rank-6 accolade, and its acclaimed knight carrying Crusader, Mujahid or Warrior of the Faith (any of the three counts). Accolades gain glory from battles the knight fights in, so the wiki recommends an 867 Norse start - +20% accolade glory from culture and faith, and endless raiding for battle volume. Farm to rank 6, always keeping an accolade successor appointed so the rank doesn't decay. For the trait, either convert and join a Crusade (send the knight to fight in the target kingdom), or reform a faith with Armed Pilgrimages and declare your own Directed Great Holy War - you don't need to WIN it, the knight just needs to fight there. Known wrinkle ("In Review" at Paradox): accolades can merge messily on succession and block the rank-6 reinstate - freeing accolade slots and reinstating the knight has fixed it for affected players.

The seven Saptapuri counties, all in your realm at once, as any Hindu ruler - the holders don't need your religion, they just need to be yours (or you). Maharaja Bhoja of Pratihara, 867, starts controlling all but ONE of them, so this is nearly a one-war achievement: grab a CB on the remaining holder, take the county, done. Convert to Smartism (or Kalikula Shaktism) if you want the faith view to track the exact sites for you - their site list matches the achievement's set.

Be pedantic with this one - the conditions are stricter than they read. As William in 1066: win the Invasion, move your capital into de jure England to unlock the Embrace English Culture decision, and take it. Then the fiddly bit: every DIRECT vassal holding a county or duchy in de jure England must be English - revoke non-English dukes, transfer non-English counts under an English duke (keep at least one English duke to transfer to), and don't overlook stray direct vassals like landed bishops; more than one player has been blocked by a single forgotten bishopric. Players also report it should be completed as William himself, not a descendant, so don't dawdle across successions.

Needs Roads to Power - it's a construction checklist on your admin-government Estate: villa to level 5 (Grand Estate) and something built in every external slot. Easy mode per the wiki: set the "Extra Administrative Realms - Players" game rule to Always and play the Holy Roman Empire in 1178, which starts with a half-built estate and the income to finish it fast. It also falls out naturally during a Byzantine run - Against the Odds hands you a suitable estate along the way.

The trigger is the DECISION - "Secure the High Kingdom of the North Sea" - and you must be tribal and unreformed when you take it; forming the empire any other way doesn't count (there are confirmed reports from players who found this out the hard way). The decision wants England, Denmark and Norway held for 30 years within ONE ruler's lifetime, so: play a son of Ragnarr from 867 (Ivar, Sigurðr or Björn snowball fastest), conquer the three kingdoms young, then keep that ruler alive - Whole of Body perks, good physician - while the clock runs. Do NOT reform Asatru and do NOT go feudal at any point; either permanently voids it. Overlaps heavily with Blood Eagle territory-wise.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. The Pleasure Dome comes from the Devise Pleasure Dome decision: you need at least a kingdom-rank title and a held barony that's its county capital, not leased out, with no existing special building slot. Start as any emperor-tier ruler on the Steppe and the rank requirement is already sorted - take the decision, pay, wait for the builders. A stately pleasure-dome, decreed on schedule. Slots into the same campaign as Shut Up, Nerge and Tribute Band.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. Host a Nerge (the nomadic great hunt) and land the maximum "Excellent" result. Temüjin in 1178 has the ideal stats - the wiki reckons an Excellent lands within a few attempts with him - so host, take the success-maximising options throughout, and re-run it if the score falls short. You'll be Nerge-ing constantly for This Chinggis Everything anyway, so this tends to pop en route.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. Thirty tributaries at once sounds like thirty wars; it isn't. Play a big nomad realm and release your vassals as tributaries - nomads can convert vassals to tributary status, which mass-produces them in one administrative sweep. Top up with the tributary CB on small neighbours if you're short of 30. Another one for the grand steppe campaign with This Chinggis Everything.

Every Hastiluder track, one character, one lifetime - the tournament grind in its final form. Host tournaments yourself so frequency is never the bottleneck, pick contest types for whichever tracks are unfinished, and stack every XP modifier going: the Strategist and Gallant perk trees, and the fifth Activities dynasty legacy. Start young, stay healthy, and treat The Very Best and Sir Lance-a-Lot as milestones along the way rather than separate jobs.

Needs Fate of Iberia: every county in the region on Mozarabism specifically. The wiki route: in 867, replace the Umayyad Sultan with a custom Andalusian Mozarabic ruler (learning education, opinion-friendly traits), surrender the starting wars, and settle in for a multi-generation conversion campaign - Theologian tree, a good realm priest, county by county. Keep the Struggle in its Opportunity phase as long as possible; conversion is easier there. And since Mozarabism is Christian, run it as an Iberian-heritage ruler and Reconquista completes with it - two birds, one very long stone.

Needs Northern Lords; you must start AND stay North Germanic Ásatrú, and it's not available to ruler-designer characters - use a historical start. The qualifying capitals are the Lanka duchies, Socotra, the Maldives or Kutch. With Roads to Power the wiki route is delightful: start as Ubbe of the Scourge of the Saxons (867, landless), simply travel your camp to Socotra - the camp counts as your capital, so it pops on arrival. Without RtP, it's Hæsteinn: conquer down through North Africa to get in diplomatic range, Varangian Adventure CB on Socotra, move your capital. Same constraint family as Faster than the Fox and Miklagarðaríki.

Needs Northern Lords: full control of the Kingdom of Sicily's counties, independent, BEFORE 1047, while staying North Germanic Ásatrú (the Steam text says "tribal" but the in-game condition now allows any government - feudal Hæsteinn qualifies). Not available to ruler-designer characters. As Hæsteinn (867): Duchy Conquest CB on Sicily early while the local Muslims fight the Byzantines, capital to Palermo, mop up southern Italy's minors. For the Byzantine-held counties, either hit them in a moment of weakness, or the sneaky route: swear fealty (the emperor tends to grant you the remaining de jure counties), then win an independence faction war - independence being required, it pops as you break free.

All of Thessalonika's counties as a French Catholic - without holding (or serving a liege who holds) the Byzantine or Roman Empire titles. The wiki's cheeky route: in 1066, replace the Byzantine emperor with a custom French Catholic. You start controlling Thessalonika but the Byzantine title blocks it - so conquer into Hungary/Pecheneg lands, create the Empire of Carpathia, make it primary and DESTROY the Byzantine Empire title; it fires the moment the disqualifying title is gone. Or, with Northern Lords: finish Miklagarðaríki, then move your capital to France and convert to French culture and Catholicism for an instant follow-on unlock.

Needs All Under Heaven. Your starting culture must have NO Silk Road innovations, so the wiki setup is a custom ruler of a distant culture placed on a Silk Road seat, with high Stewardship and Learning. Take the Visit a Silk Road Market decision, pass its skill challenge, and the discovered innovation triggers the unlock - a single decision and event chain, minutes of work once set up.

Needs Legends of the Dead, and the recipe is precise: unlock the THIRD Heroic Bloodline dynasty legacy, then create a Holy-type legend with YOURSELF as the protagonist, promote it to Mythical quality and complete it - that combination grants the Venerated Ancestor trait, i.e. sainthood, to the protagonist. The wiki stresses the protagonist choice because doing it for someone else's glory doesn't pop it for you. The cheap-legend game rules (Legend Cost Very Low, Spread Chance Very High) keep the promotion phase painless. Legendary! comes free.

The commonly missed condition first: you must START as an IBERIAN-culture Muslim - Andalusian, Castilian, Basque, Portuguese, Catalan, Visigothic or Suebi. Arab and Berber don't qualify, and this hidden requirement is behind most "why didn't it unlock" threads. The wiki route: in 867, replace the Umayyad Sultan with a custom Andalusian Muwalladi ruler (this also fixes his dire starting opinion). Surrender the scripted wars, take the independent Iberian counties before Asturias can, then the island counties, and reclaim the rebel duchies once strong. With all of Iberia controlled, take the Avenge the Battle of Tours decision and it pops. Stacks with Iberian Hostilities if Fate of Iberia is running.

Character-locked: Robert de Hauteville, 1066. You need a Sicilian kingdom title (Sicily, Naples or Trinacria) plus complete control of Epirus, Thessalonika or Hellas with ALL its counties Catholic - independence NOT required. Early on, take the event offering a free ~750-man army, and let your bishop fabricate a claim into Epirus; Byzantium is reeling from the Seljuks and Robert is a monster in the field. Watch for the event offering to back a monk's claim to the Byzantine throne in exchange for the Kingdom of Epirus - it brings 3,000 special troops and a pile of gold, but must be won while Robert lives. Then convert Epirus county by county. A very characterful campaign - one of the game's best.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. The Falconer track lives in the Hunter trait and fills through falconry choices on hunts, so this is hunt-on-cooldown for a large chunk of a lifetime. The wiki recommends Bedouin culture (their tradition boosts falconry) and taking the fourth Activities dynasty legacy for extra Hunter XP. Practical tip from the wiki: stop inviting far-flung guests - shorter hunt lead times mean more hunts per lifetime. Pairs naturally with Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!.

Needs Legacy of Persia - the Iranian Resurgence ending of the Iranian Intermezzo. The wiki's power move: replace the Abbasid Caliph with a custom Persian-culture ruler, which both cancels the Caliphate's scripted opening war and hands you the region's dominant realm, making the struggle trivially steerable. Push Persian-heritage dominance through the struggle phases and take the Iranian Resurgence ending when it's available. One ending per campaign - the Abbasid endings (Abbasid Might, Shia Reborn, All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us) each want their own run.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. Max the HORSE track of the Hastiluder trait, then joust in person - your character, not a champion. Jousts need the Horseshoes and Arched Saddle innovations plus a European capital (or the Chivalry/Chanson de Geste traditions), and can't be held in mountains or wetlands, so site your tournaments sensibly. Grind Horse XP by entering every joust going (Strategist and Gallant perks plus the fifth Activities legacy speed it up; travel adds a trickle by distance), then ride one more tilt once the track is maxed. A milestone on the road to Like No One Ever Was.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. On a hunt, target a lynx, bear, leopard, lion or tiger, choose to CORNER it (not the ambush-with-bow option), then choose capture. Terrain sets the menu: big cats in African desert or Indian jungle, lynxes and bears in Europe, the steppe and Tibet. Very high Diplomacy opens a second path - befriending a randomly encountered animal captures it too (wolves and hyenas count that way, though not as deliberate targets). RNG-gated but each hunt is quick; combine with the Fly, My Pretty! grind and it'll pop on its own.

Needs Fate of Iberia, and it must happen before the year 1200. The decision is "Champion the Faith of the Country Basques", and it wants 1,000 prestige, 1,000 piety and the right counties - so the wiki simply starts as the counties' owner: replace the King of France in 867 with a custom Basque-culture ruler (Cynical, so the faith swap doesn't sting, plus prestige- and piety-generating traits). Farm the two currencies for a decade or two and take the decision. Euskal Erlijioa lives again.

The Status Quo (Compromise) ending of the Iberian Struggle, as an Involved ruler. Steering: build tax buildings in CITY holdings to push towards Conciliation phase, then in CASTLE holdings to reach Compromise. The ending's awkward requirements: control LESS than half of Iberia (release a couple of large vassals as independents - few but large keeps things manageable - while keeping every holding of your primary kingdom), and have 60+ opinion or strong hooks on all independent involved rulers. One ending per campaign: Iberian Hostilities and Iberian Conciliation need their own runs.

Needs Northern Lords; start and stay North Germanic Ásatrú (no ruler-designer characters), control ALL of Thessalonika's counties, and hold any empire title that is NOT Byzantium. As Hæsteinn (867): first, a quick conquest war on Napoli purely to get in diplomatic range of Byzantium (hire mercs, ransom nobles). Then Invade Kingdom on Thessalonika, ideally while the empire is distracted - siege inside the war goal and force strait crossings for the field battles. For the empire title, the wiki suggests the delightfully obscure Empire of Ajuraan (only 18 counties, reachable via Naqis while dodging the Tulunids). Once it pops, the wiki's follow-on is Frankokratia: capital to France, convert culture and faith, second achievement free.

Needs Fate of Iberia (far easier with Roads to Power too, which makes El Cid directly playable from the Wandering Exiles screen in 1066). No ruler-designer characters - you must be related to Rodrigo. Play his unique story content through to its end as a vassal of Castille, build power, take your liege's throne, then engineer Valencia: claim any county in de jure Valencia (pick a duchy mostly held by one realm - your realm priest will hand you a duchy claim off the religious differences), take it, and use the Struggle Clash CB to reach the six counties needed to create the Kingdom of Valencia. Create it, rule it, done - and Mio Cid is explicitly designed to combo with this run.

Character-locked (Daurama Daura, 867) and one of the game's longest hauls: reform an African pagan religion and convert every county in Africa to it. Two facts do a lot of work: it checks RELIGION not faith, so counties still on the unreformed version count; and reformed Achamán does NOT count (it was added after the achievement's faith list - stick to Mandé, Yoruba, Hausan, Senegambian, Akan, Kordofanian, Oromo-Somali or North-African). Take Prophet to halve reformation cost; reform with Fundamentalist + Mendicant Preachers + Sanctioned False Conversions for conversion speed. Watch fervour - below ~40% risks heresy outbreaks - and consider adopting Administrative government late (Roads to Power) so succession can't shatter the realm. Avoid carrying the save across patch versions; an old report ties a non-unlock to exactly that.

Needs Northern Lords. The Varangian Adventure CB is Norse-specific, so design a Norse dwarf - the wiki suggests Duke of Småland, 867. Raid and hunt to build troops and prestige, then launch the Varangian Adventure on the nomadic duchy of Karayedisan: outside Europe, within diplomatic range, and winnable. Win the war as your dwarf and it pops. One of the game's more specific job descriptions.

Needs Fate of Iberia, and it's specifically the BEST FRIEND hook (from an Oath of True Friendship) - ordinary friendship doesn't cut it. Ready-made setup: Alfonsu III of Asturias, 867, starts friends with Sheikh Lubb of Najera - a Muslim, struggle-involved ruler who'll usually accept the Oath. Swear it, then spend the resulting hook on him. A few in-game years, and a trivial add-on to any involved-Christian struggle run like Reconquista.

Start OUTSIDE the Iberian Struggle, wade in, and see it ended (any of the three main endings counts). The wiki's route: the 1178 Mu'minid ruler - invasion CB on Castille, then give away your non-Iberian domain, move your capital into the conquered land, drop the head-of-faith title so you can convert to Muwalladism, and ride it to the Status Quo ending. Or the greedy route: Eudes of Anjou in 867, stacking this with Kings to the Seventh Generation - as King of France nobody stops you conquering into Iberia, converting to Mozarabism and ending the struggle at your leisure. The wiki's own phrase: three achievements in one run, at minimum.

Needs Roads to Power - and despite the description, ANY administrative empire counts, not just Byzantium. Which enables the wiki's lovely shortcut: set the "Extra Administrative Realms - Persia" game rule to Administrative and start as Jahan Pahlavan Mohammed IV of Azerbaijan in 1178 - his family already qualifies as Dominant, so it unlocks at game start. The long way is the proper Byzantine noble-house climb: influence, family power, and patience - which you'll be doing anyway for Not Content to Serve.

Needs Roads to Power and a 1178 start, and the Re-Establish the Theodosian Borders decision wants a LOT: Syria, Jerusalem and Egypt, plus specific duchies (Diyarmudar, Amman, Shammar, Syrte) and every Byzantine kingdom bar Serbia, Croatia, Armenia and Georgia. The wiki's route is a heel-turn for the ages: play Saladin. Holy-war Jerusalem immediately, conquer the southern requirements while banking piety, then convert to Christianity, swear fealty to Byzantium, adopt Administrative government and use his superb stats to scheme your way onto the imperial throne. Seize whatever's left and take the decision. In Good Estate falls out of the estate you'll build along the way.

Playable WITHOUT Roads to Power, per the wiki - a rarity among the Byzantine set. As Alexios Palaiologos (1178), you must take the Byzantine throne within his own lifetime, and NB the achievement is blocked if your Palaiologos successor is female - manage the family tree accordingly. The method is pure court shark: Skullduggery focus, murder-scheme the top succession candidate immediately, then run political schemes non-stop - promote yourself, slander rivals (skip Challenge Status; too slow), farm influence from governance issues and gifts to powerful family heads. Only murder candidates hundreds of points ahead; slander handles the rest. Top of the line? Wait for the emperor to die. Chaos is a Ladder tends to come along for free.

Needs Roads to Power. Master Todor (1178) is the intended start: a landless adventurer inside imperial borders with money and prestige - though NB with Khans of the Steppe enabled the wiki recommends Robert Phrangopoulos (1066, Wandering Exiles) instead, since the Mongols make a mess of 1178. Buy the estate via Procure Estate with a duchy-plus patron in the Empire: 1,000 gold plus a weak hook, high prestige or high piety (sway the patron first if needed; you'll lose your adventurer special troops on landing). Then the imperial climb: stockpile influence, request a governorship, Influence Candidacy for your line, boundary disputes for land - or go Co-Emperor and Depose for the bloodless version, which is Your Eternal Reward adjacent. Emperor doesn't need to be the same character; the line succeeding is enough.

Needs Legacy of Persia - five Tax Collectors with Excellent aptitude at once, a clan-government mechanic. The Ghaznavids in 1066 are the wiki's pick: appoint a vizier to unlock all five slots. Aptitude tracks Learning, so send children to university, use the Search for Tax Collectors decision to refresh the candidate pool, and let your vizier swing the Scales of Power high - it boosts every collector's aptitude at once. Same government toolkit as Mulct Them Dry.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. The murder-feast option hides behind the Forever Infamous intrigue perk, so the wiki designs for it: a custom ruler with the Elusive Shadow education, aged 37+ purely so the designer gives you enough lifestyle progress to have the perk from the start. Then host a feast with murderous intent and follow it through. The Red Wedding, but it's your party.

The real condition is kinder than the description: you need no more than 12 unique characters among your ancestors out to great-great-great-grandparents (the game counts 50+ "missing unique ancestors" out of a possible 62). Watch out: a lowborn parent counts as a whole tree of unrelated ancestors, so every slot must come from your one proudly compact gene pool. The wiki setup: a designer ruler in Iceland, Messalianism faith (permits the necessary marriages, gender-equal), Pure-blooded, restricted diplomatic range, then three generations of full-sibling pairings; play a female ruler or set the sexuality game rules to minimise cuckoldry, which is the biggest threat. BIG CAVEAT: as of April 2025 the wiki reports this bugged and never triggering on the current patch - the working route was rolling back to 1.13.2 via Steam Betas. Check before you commit three generations to it.

The Fourth Crusade speedrun: a Crusade against Byzantium must deviate into founding the Latin Empire, with you on the throne. Eligibility for the deviation event chain wants you to be the strongest Catholic leading the Crusade - so play a top-tier Catholic power (England, France, the HRE, Hungary) - or, alternatively, very high Martial lets you demand the lead when invited to the deviated Crusade. Win it, take the throne, collect the Despoiler of Byzantium trait and the achievement with it. Being in a winning Crusade, it also covers For the Faith! if you somehow still need it.

Needs Fate of Iberia. In the 1066 Iberia in Pieces bookmark, Alfonso VI and Sancho II can challenge each other to a board game with land on the table from game start - use the personal interaction, stake a title, play the match out. Sibling property disputes, resolved like gentlemen. Grab it on the way into any 1066 Iberian run like Sibling Rivalry.

Needs Northern Lords. Start North Germanic Ásatrú, convert to any Muslim faith, and make every county in the "Russian Region" Muslim - and NB the wiki's definition: that's the de jure Empire of Russia PLUS the de jure Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, so don't stop at the empire's borders. Rurik (867) is the natural start - which means this stacks beautifully with Land of the Rus in one campaign. Consider lowering the Scandinavian Adventurers game rule if you convert while still weak (your old co-religionists take it personally), and the Evangelize to the Realm decision (unlocked by completing an Illustrious+ Holy Legend, Legends of the Dead) mass-converts counties impressively fast.

Needs Roads to Power. Strategos Michael of Philippopolis (1066) starts as Co-Emperor of Byzantium, which is half the achievement done at the loading screen. Swing the Scales of Power to level 3, then use the "demand a private despotate" option - Co-Emperor ruling a Despotate, done. Slots into the same Byzantine ecosystem as Byzywork and Chaos is a Ladder.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. With your capital in the Great Steppe region, take the settlement route out of nomadism - any powerful nomad can do it more or less from the start. One ordering note: settling ENDS your nomad life, so bank the nomad-side achievements (Shut Up, Nerge, Tribute Band, This Chinggis Everything) first. And note Nobody's Business wants the opposite - settling OUTSIDE the Steppe - so they're separate runs.

NB: Paradox renamed this achievement - it's now "Abbasid Might" on Steam (Abbasid Might), same unlock. The Dominance ending of the Iranian Intermezzo (shown in-game as Renewed Caliphate), as the 867 Abbasid Caliph. Beat the starting rebellion, conquer Arabia, press your claim on the Tulunids, and deal with the non-Sunni eastern rulers - conquer them, or fabricate weak hooks on Detractors of the Caliphate to flip them to Supporters. Pilgrimage for devotion while the struggle heads to its Stabilization phase, then take the ending. One ending per campaign: Iranian Revival, Shia Reborn and All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us all need their own runs.

Needs Roads to Power (Hasan's story is landless-adventurer content), must be done in Hasan-i Sabbah's own lifetime, 1066 start. His story has a hidden tracker: stay in Persia, build piety (pilgrimages, the Prolific Pilgrims perk) and your forces, and do NOT evangelize yet. You'll be called to Cairo - build the biggest army you can and wait for the Egyptian Caliph to die, converting to Nizarism when the event allows; always pick the options that advance the path. Back in Persia, NOW evangelize hard (your special soldiers scale with counties of your faith in the realm). When the Persian Emperor dies, decline the "enemy of the faith" prompt until his weaker young successor is the target, found the Assassins, wait for a civil war, and launch the revolution - usually a walkover while the emperor fights his own vassals. Destroying the empire wins Hasan his place in history.

Needs Legacy of Persia, starting as any Umayyad - in practice the 867 Sultan of al-Andalus. The trick that makes it possible: the Sunni Caliphate title is destroyed if its holder loses all land. The wiki route: conquer along the African coast to Krete so you're in range to swear fealty to the Abbasids, use the Claim Throne scheme to take the Empire of Arabia from inside, then release the Caliph to independence and strip him. Reach piety level 3 BEFORE destroying the title - otherwise someone else can recreate the Caliphate first - then take the restoration decision. Prestige isn't required for it, so ignore truces and keep conquering. Shortcut variant: the game rule making the Abbasids Administrative hands you the Caliphate together with the imperial throne. A genuine very-hard, and a magnificent revenge arc.

Needs All Under Heaven. As any Ritsuryō governor who heads their house (i.e. holds the Domicile), the conversion decision is available in every start date - the only actual work is upgrading your Domicile Mansion to level 2, moving the domicile into a county inside your own governorship, and paying the decision cost. Under an hour. A natural warm-up in the same Japan run as Shōgun.

The Détente ending of the Iberian Struggle, as an Involved ruler. The wiki setup: replace the 867 Umayyad Sultan with a custom Andalusian Muwalladi ruler with prestige traits and several daughters - the daughters matter, because the ending wants alliances with all independent involved rulers. Build tax buildings in CITY holdings to push towards the Conciliation phase, then release one or two LARGE vassals until you control under half of Iberia (keeping every holding inside your primary kingdom - a hard requirement), marry the daughters around for the alliances, and take the ending. One per campaign: Iberian Hostilities and Iberian Compromise are separate runs.

The joke: Iberian-heritage culture, Caucasian Iberia - the nine counties of Hayk, Hereti, Kakheti, Kartli, Klarjeti, Lori, Tao, Tbilisi and Vanand. Not available to ruler-designer characters, so the wiki route is pleasingly roundabout: play the 867 Abbasids, who already hold about half the required counties. Conquer the rest of the Caucasus, then work west through the Mediterranean to Mayurqa in the Balearics, move your capital there and convert to the local Iberian-heritage culture - condition met, while the Caucasus stays yours. Needs Fate of Iberia.

Needs Northern Lords, and it's a genuine monster: every listed Atlantic and Mediterranean island - the duchies of Iceland, the Northern Isles, Sjælland, Visby, the Isles, Mann, Canarias, Mallorca, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Venice, Cephalonia, Krete and Cyprus, plus the counties of Bornholm, Aland, Öland, Osel, Anglesey, Wight, Chios, Lesbos, Naxos and Rhodos - as a North Germanic Ásatrúan who never exceeds 80 realm size. As Hæsteinn (867): take part of Sardinia for diplomatic range, then invade Thessalonika immediately with mercs to grab its islands and cripple Byzantium. Do NOT form a kingdom title - it blocks the Elevate the Kingdom of Mann & the Isles decision, whose event troops carry the rest of the campaign. The realm-size condition was famously coded backwards at launch in 2021 (acknowledged and long since sorted), which explains the achievement's terrifying reputation; nowadays it's merely very hard.

Play Rodrigo Díaz himself (1066 - directly playable from the Wandering Exiles screen with Roads to Power) and, in the wiki's own words, simply make the loyal choice each time one of The Song of El Cid story events fires. The chain runs across his whole life, so the real work is keeping the man alive and being patient. Pairs by design with Legacy of The Campeadores - the loyal ending on the way to Valencia.

Needs Royal Court (divergence), no ruler-designer characters: a Jewish ruler in East Africa with a kingdom-plus title creating a divergent culture. The route: King of Abyssinia (any start date), bank piety and convert to Haymanot - restart-scum for Cynical if you want the conversion cheaper - then diverge. Divergence cost scales with realm size, so if your realm has grown, hand vassals to someone outside your de jure land and release them independent to shrink it before paying. Changing Course pops on the same click if you don't have it.

Piasts, 867: rule a feudal Poland while owning a Famed-or-better regalia, crown, weapon AND armour at once. Feudalism fast: conquer in Poland until you outmuscle Great Moravia's ruler, convert to Catholicism, swear fealty, and take the Adopt Feudal Ways through Liege decision - then either fight free or eat Moravia from inside, keeping the Kingdom of Poland. For the artifacts, run a Scholarly court with high grandeur and the first Erudition legacy to attract inspired characters, and shop aggressively: sort the character finder by artifact rank, use the Accomplished Forger perk to buy claims on the good stuff, then demand, steal or fight for it. The same machinery serves Hoarder.

Needs Legends of the Dead, and it's exactly what it sounds like: catch the Black Death on purpose, then live. Game rules: Plague Frequency to Doomsday, Black Death allowed at any point. Build a survivor (Herculean, Strong, Temperate work well), take the Medicine focus and Whole of Body perks, and employ the best Personal Physician alive. When an outbreak lands, go and catch it - raising an army with yourself as general stationed in an infected barony is the highest-odds method. Then either recover naturally, or take the physician's risky treatment when the event fires (it must come within a year - fire and rehire the physician if it's being shy). Both recovery routes count.

Baudouin IV, 1178 - the Leper King versus Saladin, and the clock is part of the challenge. Setup tip from the wiki: set Conquerors Frequency to None so Saladin doesn't get the conqueror trait. Jerusalem out-earns the Ayyubids at the start, so recruit men-at-arms hard (crossbowmen especially) and marry your sister to a heavyweight ally - Hungary and Georgia both work. Then bait the war: declare on something adjacent, wait for your ally's stacks to arrive, and break Saladin's armies decisively. NB: at the Roads to Power launch there was a Paradox-confirmed bug where beating Saladin didn't unlock this (the in-game menu even showed it unavailable); if the achievements tab in your campaign says it can't be earned, start a fresh save rather than pushing on.

Chéchentsa Tsédé of Gugé (1066) is the pick - the wiki reckons a couple of decades. Restart until you roll a Diplomacy education, respec into True Ruler, and vassalise your way to empire: almost everything in de jure Tibet can be swayed into your realm diplomatically except Maryül (claim it as dynasty head) and Mjinjaa - which, helpfully, is NOT needed for the empire title (subjugate it with high fame only if you fancy completeness). Create the de jure kingdoms above your targets to unlock more vassalisations, and prioritise gold for title creation. Then re-create the Empire of Tibet. The wiki's follow-on: vassalise into India afterwards and The Grandest Tour is right there.

Needs Roads to Power. Historical characters spawn during play, and you can switch to one and send them adventuring. The wiki's near-instant route: start as Count Werner of Worms in 867, unpause, and the chronicler Regino of Prüm should spawn in your realm almost immediately - switch to playing him, choose to set out on an Adventure, done. Minutes. The full spawn list lives on the wiki's Historical Characters page if you'd rather meet someone else.

Two jobs as a 1066 Seljuk (the current in-game check is broader than the old Steam text - any House Seljuk except Alp Arslan; the wiki rates Khuzestan the best seat): form the Sultanate of Rum via its decision (push west into Anatolia for the required de jure duchies - the Conqueror trait helps), and create an Oghuz-Greek hybrid culture (counties of both cultures in realm, acceptance up, Establish Hybrid Culture). Order doesn't matter. Historical footnote: this was broken at Royal Court's launch and fixed in 1.5.1.1, but only for NEW games - ancient history now, just don't resurrect a 2022 save for it.

Needs All Under Heaven. Two stages: first manufacture a FEUD - keep murdering one house's members via schemes and events until the Feuding house relation forms (an intrigue build accelerates the grieving process, so to speak) - then declare war with the Eradicate CB against that house and win. The wiki's one tactical note: pick a house outside any Bloc, so the war stays a private matter.

Needs Khans of the Steppe. Declare an Overrun war on a realm OUTSIDE the Great Steppe, win, and settle your people there. The Khazars in 867 are the wiki's pick - parked on the steppe's western edge with several non-steppe neighbours in reach, so it's one war from more or less the start. NB settling ends your nomadic days, and Settling In wants you to settle INSIDE the Steppe, so the two are separate runs.

Duke of Ghur, 867 or 1066 - the wiki prefers Muhammad Abbaszde in 1066. Restart for decent stewardship/learning traits, then play the inside game twice: reroll perks into Meritocracy, Claim Throne your liege, and back it with marriage alliances and a claimant faction; later swear fealty to the Seljuks and repeat the trick at imperial scale, sieging county by county while the emperor's stacks starve. Between coups, fully control Ghur and Kabulistan with income buildings everywhere and a couple of mangonel regiments. Then paint the historical Ghurid borders. The wiki also suggests converting to Afghan culture for tribal elective law and repeated invasion CBs off the antagonistic house-unity stance.

Needs Legends of the Dead: complete the Sons of Scota legend - Scotland's claimed descent from Ancient Egypt - as a Scottish character. The seed requires holding the Kingdom of Scotland with West Germanic or Goidelic heritage, so the wiki route is a designer Scots king in 1066: set Legend Cost to Very Low, ally William once he's taken England and use him to hoover up your de jure Scottish counties, build prestige to level 4 (legend seeds want fame), then start the legend and let it run - NO quality upgrades needed, completion alone counts. Same campaign absorbs Legendary! trivially.

The Habsburg pacifist run (Werner of Aargau 1066, or Albrecht 1178): the Archduchy of Austria, five-plus Grand Weddings, and NO wars where YOU are the primary aggressor - defensive wars, revolts against you, crusades and allies' calls are all fine. The Archduchy decision needs a strong hook on your liege, and Grand Weddings themselves can grant exactly that (tier-1 Activities legacy raises the odds; schedule weddings when the Kaiser is free to attend). Land acquisition without war: papal duchy claims, petitioning your liege, marry-and-murder inheritance into Austria, fabricated claims pressed by OTHERS. Known wrinkle: there are "In Review" reports of non-unlocks despite clean runs, with a save-edit workaround (deleting the player_declared_war flag) - so be extra careful never to be the aggressor, even once, even briefly.

Iranian HERITAGE is the operative word - and the obvious start, the 1066 Seljuks, are Oghuz, which doesn't qualify. So: take the Seljuk Empire, create/usurp the Empire of Persia, CONVERT to an Iranian-heritage culture (Persian will do nicely), then carve the kingdom titles of Thessalonika and Hellas out of Byzantium. You need the three TITLES simultaneously, not every county underneath them, which makes the Greek half far less painful than it sounds. Achaemenid grudges: settled.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. Kaiser Heinrich IV (1066) can do it from the start: Activities, Grand Tour, Intimidation intent, and put every Powerful Vassal on the itinerary - then complete the tour without abandoning it. Fewer powerful vassals means a shorter route, so if your realm is sprawling, thin the list (or the vassals) first. Pairs mechanically with The Grandest Tour if you're touring anyway.

Every royal court in the WORLD speaking your court language - one of the game's true monsters, and NB the wiki flatly states no ruler-designer characters. Charles the Bald (867) is the platform: his claims on three weak relatives' kingdoms set up Restore Carolingian Borders, a huge de jure empire with early Primogeniture. From there the realistic method is subtraction: destroy every other royal court by conquest (the By The Sword tradition removes the once-per-lifetime cap on kingdom holy wars). AI courts of a different religious group or with distant capitals will essentially never adopt your language voluntarily; for vassal kings, convert their capital county to your culture so they follow suit, and if a stubborn one still won't switch, revoke the kingdom and hand it to someone of your culture. There's also a report of a completed world not firing it - between that and the designer exclusion, use a historical character and keep expectations patient.

Needs Tours & Tournaments and an empire with ten king-tier vassals - which you may have to manufacture: granting kingdom titles to loyal family members is the quick route if your realm is short of crowned heads. Then one Grand Tour visiting all ten courts; budget for the long itinerary and run it while at peace. The wiki's favourite setup is the aftermath of Bod Chen Po: with the Empire of Tibet formed, vassalise into India and the kings pile up fast.

Three things in one barony: 60+ income, a stationed Heavy Cavalry regiment of 500+, and a mine. Two trigger details matter: the income check is the barony's TAX value in the holding view (monthly-income modifiers like Greedy don't count), and mines are special buildings only certain baronies can have - the wiki's best picks include Bambuk and Bure in Mali and Göttingen in Germany. Make a mine county your capital and stack holding tax: income buildings, duchy Tax Offices, development, tax-collection activities, Avaricious (+15%), Absolute Control (+10%), and serving as your liege's steward (+10%). Grow the regiment past 500 with size-boosting traditions and buildings. Realistic from High Medieval tech onward; comfortable by Late Medieval - a patience build, not a puzzle.

A hundred runestones sounds wholesome until you learn the Raise Runestone decision has a ten-year cooldown - the wiki's own verdict is that normal play would take about a thousand years, so don't. The documented fast route is a cooldown-reset exploit: build a custom Norse ruler replacing the 1066 Seljuk emperor (46, unmarried, one son, max Stewardship), bank ~6,000 gold, land your son, then deliberately cycle your rank - provoke deposition factions with failed imprisonments and surrender - because the decision refreshes on rank change rather than the timer. Each stone costs a minimum of 50 gold; any dynasty member's raises count towards the hundred. Ugly, effective, wiki-endorsed.

Every terrain type - all fifteen land terrains plus both naval ones - in a SINGLE travel. The wiki's blueprint: a custom Pilgrim character at the Chiefdom of Obran Osh (867) with the Vaishnavism faith, pilgrimage to Ujjayini, with manual detours doing the real work (the planner limits how far you can deviate, so route via the wiki's stops: Theodosia, Alexandria, Ghatagaon, Rajpipla, Baqirda). The taiga-to-jungle spine through Egypt picks up the awkward Floodplains and Oasis tiles. Survive the journey - danger events are the only real threat - and it pops on completing the route. Pairs with the There and Back Again lifestyle nicely.

Fika is a one-county backwater in Sweden, which is the joke and the challenge. Key trigger detail: Fika only needs to be your PRIMARY title at the moment you diverge - afterwards you're free. So: get Fika (fabricate a claim on it), make it primary, diverge your culture, then spread the new culture to 30 counties held by you or your vassals. Turn OFF AI culture hybridisation/divergence in the game rules first, or your vassals will wander off your lovingly crafted culture. The wiki's alt route runs it as Hæsteinn (867) with a Varangian twist, but any patient conqueror-converter works. Needs Royal Court; Changing Course pops at the divergence step.

Needs Legacy of Persia (867 bookmark - the Intermezzo only runs there). The Found a New Caliphate foundation requires you to QUALIFY to found one, so the wiki builds for it: replace the Abbasid Caliph with a custom ruler carrying Sayyid and Wise Man, convert to Isma'ilism, then steer the struggle to the Abbasid Humiliation ending and pick Found a New Caliphate. One struggle ending per campaign - All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us is the other Humiliation foundation and needs its own run, as do Iranian Revival and Abbasid Might.

Needs All Under Heaven - Blocs are a Japan mechanic. Cohesion climbs easily to about 75 and then crawls, so the wiki's answer is violence: as a Sōryō governor, use the Bloc Expansion CB repeatedly - each victory banks +5 Cohesion - and chain wars until the meter reads 100. Fits the same Japan campaign as Yes I need, I need my Samurai and Shōgun.

Needs Roads to Power. As a NON-Powerful family in an administrative realm, buy a Remit, then successfully raid a Powerful Family's estate. The wiki documents a genuinely annoying quirk: the remit can vanish without warning or feedback - so run it backwards: start the raid scheme FIRST, buy the remit only when the scheme is ready to fire, and fire immediately. Target an estate without guardhouse upgrades for the best odds. White-collar crime, medieval edition.

Needs Khans of the Steppe: start as an eastern-steppe nomad and migrate your horde all the way west. The wiki's practical notes: you can SHRINK your horde for the migration target - dropping to a county-level horde for the final hop avoids fighting confederations (whose coalition stacks can hit five or six digits), and there's usually at least one independent or herder-held county in the west to slot into. Watch the books after shrinking - too many men-at-arms on a county-sized income goes negative fast, but keep enough army to survive the trip. Go west, young khan.

Every county on the map, starting as Temüjin. The real Genghis only managed a chunk of it; you're expected to finish the job. Phase one is This Chinggis Everything - the full Greatest of Khans playbook (Nerges on cooldown, Dominance, the Great War of Defiance). Then the world tour: swap your regiments to Keshig and Cataphract Archers (available via Khitan or Tangut vassals), lean on the Offer Submission interaction to absorb realms without fighting every single war, and hand conquered land to local-culture rulers with high Martial so the empire holds together behind you. Wiki-rated very hard and among the rarest in the game - this is the campaign you tell people about afterwards. Expect it to take a very, very long time.

Needs Roads to Power. As a landless adventurer with the Legitimist purpose, win a claim war for a kingdom or empire. Master Todor (1178) makes it almost unfair: 10,000 special troops, deep pockets, high prestige, aged 24. Get a royal claim - Orthodox adventurers can simply BUY one from the Patriarch in Constantinople - declare, and let the doomstack argue your case. Alternative entries: lose as Harold in 1066 and carry on landless, or unland yourself as Prince Pascueten. Same adventurer toolkit as Band of Brothers.

Needs Legends of the Dead: complete a MYTHICAL-quality legend while ranked a mere Count - both checked at completion. Game rules first: Legend Spread Chance Very High, Legend Cost Very Low. The wiki build: replace the Chief of Gotland (867) with a custom ruler carrying the Holy Monarch trait, whose legend seed needs no fame or piety - then petition every Norse neighbour to promote it and keep the gold flowing. Gotland is nicely out of harm's way. Sneaky alternative: build the legend as a king, die, use Choose a New Destiny to hop into a Count, claim the legend and finish it small.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. The wiki's stage: the Emir of Alexandria, 1066 - the Fatimid Sultanate starts already in a regency with the Scales of Power maxed towards the regent, and Alexandria is its richest vassal. Overthrow Regent to take the job yourself, then govern your way to a coup: marry a 20+ skill spouse matching the mandate skill, succeed at mandate events, use Swing the Scales to hold level 6, and join (or found) the dissolution faction purely so you can stop it firing. The wiki's best tip is gloriously cynical: kidnap your liege - a man in your dungeon cannot swing the scales back - then release him and coup once everything's in place. No war, no schemes, just paperwork with menace.

Needs Roads to Power, and ONLY the "Choose a New Destiny" option on succession counts - other character-switching events don't (though they don't reset progress either). So: play a dynasty too big to die out - the 1178 Rurikids, who also hand you Prolific - and simply choose a new destiny at every death. To die more often, the wiki suggests high-danger pilgrimages to the furthest holy site, always taking the riskiest option, with maxed stress as an accelerant. Five deaths, five new lives, achievement.

Needs Tours & Tournaments. Host or attend a Grand Tournament with a Joust and rig the entry list: in the downtime before the Joust, open "Your Knights" (bottom right) and allow ONLY your lowborn knights to compete, disallowing everyone else. When one of them takes the laurels, grant them a landed title and it pops. William Thatcher would be proud. Pairs naturally with Sir Lance-a-Lot tournament-wise.

Needs Legacy of Persia. The Dominate the Caliph foundation has two sneaky requirements beyond the Abbasid Humiliation ending: the Caliph must hold the Arabian Empire, and YOU must personally hold the County of Samarra (not via a vassal) for five years before the decision unlocks. The wiki start: Amiran Ya'qub of Makran, 867. Win the opening war, steer House Unity to Antagonistic for unlimited Subjugate Kingdom CBs, subjugate Mesopotamia and Jazira, and bite counties directly off the Caliph in the dense Levant rather than racing him for land. Outgrow the Abbasids, sit on Samarra for the five years, take the decision. One struggle resolution per campaign - Shia Reborn, Iranian Revival and Abbasid Might all need separate runs.

Needs Roads to Power: count → emperor → adventurer → emperor again, the full boom-bust-boom. The wiki's choreography (867, custom baron/count under the Khazar Khagan, intrigue monster, one son): Claim Throne plus Abduct on the Khagan - do NOT complete the abduction before the claim lands - imprison him, press the claim, wear the crown. Then get yourself deposed on purpose: surrender all foreign wars first (you can't lose the title mid-war), attempt a 0%-chance revocation to spark a tyranny war, and surrender to become an Adventurer. Your son is now Khagan; murder him and it fires within days of retaking the throne. NB the wiki warns it may not award if OTHER titles are held in between, and there are confirmed reports of an "invalid adventurer state" blocking it when the adventurer title already existed - keep the sequence clean and title-minimal.

Needs Legacy of Persia and a faith with the Fedayeen doctrine - then it's three successful murder schemes: a lowborn, a king, and an emperor. The wiki start is the Vali of Bam: appoint a Master Assassin, take the Intrigue focus, and swear fealty to the Saffarids to stretch your diplomatic range. Any lowborn courtier covers the first slot, pick the lowest-intrigue nearby king for the second, and the Byzantine emperor is traditionally the softest imperial target. A full house, as the name suggests.

Princess Tamar, 1178, within her lifetime: all of Georgia, Armenia and Daylam. Check the Gender Equality game rule lets you play her (the wiki suggests Inverted), or start as her father Giorgi III - he's in poor health, and on his death the achievement opens up for Tamar; grant her a duchy meanwhile. Strategy: take Armenia FIRST - it's the piece most likely to vanish into Byzantine, Abbasid or Rum hands. Pikemen love the terrain and a full trebuchet stack is essential (mountain forts siege slowly); Hungary and Byzantium make solid allies. If the Mongols arrive on historical timing, it's legal to swear fealty to them - just control all three kingdoms before Tamar dies.

The maddest sentence in the game: a Breton-coast Viking becoming Hegemon of China - and per the wiki the check is PLAYING as Hæsteinn, so it must happen in his lifetime. Needs All Under Heaven. The whole problem is distance versus mortality: Adventure CB out of the King of France's reach (more than once if needed), then puncture a corridor east with ordinary county-conquest CBs - Dalmatia, Sinai, Oman, Gujarat, Bengal, Vietnam - hoarding your special troops, which never repopulate. On reaching the Chinese border you get the Claim the Mandate CB: pick your moment, smash one army decisively, enforce demands, and Hæsteinn takes the Dragon Throne. Mandate of Heaven falls out of the same conquest, and the truly unhinged can layer The Heavenly Kingdom on top.

Needs Legacy of Persia, and it's a 16-year farming operation by design. Appoint a vizier (right-click a tax collector, peacetime only). Extravagance modifiers stack in four tiers - Notable, Remarkable, Famous, Illustrious, checked every 12-18 months against the vizier's gold (100/200/300/400) - and the next tier only starts once four of the previous are held, so keep the vizier above 400 gold with intermittent gifts to make every roll count. Critically, pick a vizier who'll LIVE: if they die, the stacks die with them (though if you die, they persist). Four Illustrious modifiers banked, right-click, Mulct Vizier with Aggressive Auditing. Same government as Fiscal Responsibility - one campaign covers both.

Needs Roads to Power, and the wiki's route is Saladin (1178) doing everything at once: max your starting Mubarizun and Trebuchets, add three-plus maxed Pikemen regiments, subjugate the Sultanate of Rum (you must HOLD that title), conquer Constantinople, then swear fealty to Byzantium and take the Adopt Centralized Administration decision as an Islamic Rum owning the City of the World's Desire. The same decision as Epic Paperwork, from a much funnier angle.

Needs All Under Heaven, and it's a four-generation project by design: the devotion ladder to Godlike only climbs when a ruler DIES at the previous rung (Religious Icon unlocks Divine for the heir, Divine unlocks Demigod, Demigod unlocks Godlike) - and each death must be "acceptable" to your Mandala Aspect, with natural causes safe for all of them. Stack piety income early (Mandala Rituals, tributaries, pilgrimages), hold an empire and 100 Radiance when the Godlike generation arrives. BIG caveat, stated on the wiki itself: there's a known bug where the max piety level fails to upgrade across succession - the workaround is using the designate-successor button at EVERY succession so the game recognises the heir. Do that religiously (sorry) or you'll lose generations of progress.

Needs All Under Heaven. The Found Dai Viet decision wants the Kingdoms of Viet and Champa, independence, Viet culture, your capital in Viet, and 2,000 prestige. Start Viet in 1178 (quickest - Champa isn't your tributary at that date, so no truce slows the conquest), take Champa with county-expansion CBs, and mind the wiki's observation that the PRESTIGE is usually the slow part: hold a Coronation and swear an Expand the Realm Oath before the first war to get the meter moving. Then take the decision. Rolls naturally into the Mandala family - Humble Beginnings, Devaraja, A Living God on Earth.

Needs All Under Heaven: max your Mandala Aspect and build the Grand Temple Complex - which is the FOURTH level of the Capital Temple Complex, so budget accordingly. Aspect and temple levels share the same per-level requirements, which vary by Aspect (competent knights and prowess, siring children, and so on); the wiki tips the Aspect of Destruction as the easiest path, though age-related prowess loss means this usually spans more than one ruler. Same campaign as Humble Beginnings and A Living God on Earth - Southeast Asia rewards settling in.

Needs All Under Heaven, and the Unite the Husamguk decision is only available to the Buyeo culture group from the 867 start - so play Silla, 867. Handily, the one county you're missing starts independent: take it, grow the realm to the decision's threshold, and take it. Korea united, achievement done - and once Tang China starts wobbling, the same campaign can wander into the Chinese achievements (Stamp of Approval and friends).

Needs All Under Heaven. As Raja Indra Warmandewa of Kutai (867): submit to Raja Aditya of Tanjungpura as a tributary immediately, and the adopt-Mandala-through-your-Suzerain decision is available on the spot. The Capital Complex needs Legitimacy 1, Devotion level 2 and at least one tributary of your own (war or the Embrace as Tributary interaction), then gold, piety and legitimacy - Mandala Rituals and Pilgrimages feed the latter two - to fund the Great Project (Projects tab of the Decisions menu) and five years of construction. Note the Rite of Worthiness varies by Aspect; Destruction is fastest but wants a high-martial spouse set to Chivalry. The gateway drug to Devaraja and A Living God on Earth.

Minamoto no Yoritomo, 1178, within his lifetime. The wiki's programme: leave your Bloc at game start and found your own, inviting independent house heads; run hunts and prestige activities; take Assert Regional Dominion when it appears; and use Demand Aspiration Change so every house in your Bloc shares your Aspiration - cohesion rockets, and you need 75 of it (which is most of Bloc Politics done, incidentally). When your Bloc outmuscles the sitting Daijō-daijin, run an Install Ruling Regent faction and press the demand - fight if you must. Then as Daijō-daijin: Legitimacy and Prestige to level 4, crown authority to 3 (Powerful Ministries), and take the Formalize Shogunate decision. Needs All Under Heaven.

Needs All Under Heaven, and heed the wiki's warning: do NOT start in 1178 - Japan is already Sōryō by then and this becomes miserable. Start 867 as Korehito (or 1066 as Chikahito). The 867 route is elegant: scheme and influence your way to the front of the succession line (the sitting Kampaku is old and obliging about dying), get elected regent, then ABDICATE - passing the ceremonial throne to your heir while you keep actual control, as the Japanese court historically did. Keep your heir first in line, wait for the Royal Prerogative innovation, and once you're playing the heir holding BOTH the Empire and the Chrysanthemum Throne (do not abdicate this time), pass crown authority 3 and take Restore Direct Imperial Rule. The 1066 route swaps the patience for a Depose scheme on the Kampaku.

Hold the Hegemony of China as the Head of Faith of a Christian faith - and the wiki's route is the Fishing in China campaign with a theological twist, since Hæsteinn's China run passes conveniently near the Nestorian holy site of Kerala. Setup: Conquerors Frequency to None (otherwise Vicayâla Chola turns Conqueror and can squat on the holy site). En route east: Adventure CB onto the African coast, raid with Capture intent, execute prisoners and pilgrimage until you've banked ~4,000 piety, take Kerala, then push to the Chinese border. Before claiming the Mandate: convert to Nestorianism and create your own Christian faith with a temporal Head of Faith - you (faiths can't be created at war, so time it between conquests). Resetting perks into Apostate and Prophet slashes the creation cost - Hæsteinn conveniently starts with a stack of Learning perks. Then take China as God's own Viking.

Needs Roads to Power (Hasan's story is landless-adventurer content), must be done in Hasan-i Sabbah's own lifetime, 1066 start. His story has a hidden tracker: stay in Persia, build piety (pilgrimages, the Prolific Pilgrims perk) and your forces, and do NOT evangelize yet. You'll be called to Cairo - build the biggest army you can and wait for the Egyptian Caliph to die, converting to Nizarism when the event allows; always pick the options that advance the path. Back in Persia, NOW evangelize hard (your special soldiers scale with counties of your faith in the realm). When the Persian Emperor dies, decline the "enemy of the faith" prompt until his weaker young successor is the target, found the Assassins, wait for a civil war, and launch the revolution - usually a walkover while the emperor fights his own vassals. (If this appears twice in the list, it's the same achievement under two capitalisations - one unlock covers it.)

Needs Legacy of Persia (owned AND enabled - a Paradox dev confirmed as much to a confused player), starting as any Umayyad - in practice the 867 Sultan of al-Andalus. The trick that makes it possible: the Sunni Caliphate title is destroyed if its holder loses all land. Conquer along the African coast to Krete for range, swear fealty to the Abbasids, Claim Throne the Empire of Arabia from inside, then release the Caliph to independence and strip him. Reach piety level 3 BEFORE the title is destroyed - otherwise someone else can recreate the Caliphate first - then take the restoration decision; prestige isn't required for it, so ignore truces and keep conquering. Shortcut variant: the game rule making the Abbasids Administrative hands you the Caliphate with the throne. (If this appears twice in the list, it's the same achievement under two spellings - one unlock covers it.)

Needs Legacy of Persia - the Dominance ending of the Iranian Intermezzo (shown in-game as Renewed Caliphate), as the 867 Abbasid Caliph. Beat the starting rebellion, conquer the Arabian peninsula, press your claim on the Tulunids, then deal with the non-Sunni eastern rulers: conquer them, or fabricate weak hooks on anyone with the Detractor of the Caliphate trait to force them to Supporter. Pilgrimage for devotion while you wait for the Stabilization phase, then take the ending. One ending per campaign - Iranian Revival, Shia Reborn and All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us each need their own run. (This achievement was renamed on Steam from "The Abbasid Restoration"; if you see both here, they're the same thing.)