One of the most fun and interesting parts ofSid Meier’s Civilization 6is its copious amounts of quirky and sometimes hilarious achievements. These achievements can sometimes have ridiculous requirements that seem next to impossible, but, in my view, give the player something to strive for aside from simply playing the game and trying to win. This is a feature that’s sorely missing fromCivilization 7, but it’s always possible that interesting new achievements will be rolled out in the future.
Lately, there’s been a re-sparked interest inCiv 6, one of thebest-sellingCivgamesof all time, thanks to recent discounts on Steam and an upcoming inclusion as afree weekly game on Epic. If you’re new to the game, these 10 achievements will give you a unique challenge and might also help you learn some of its complex features. If you’re aCiv 6veteran, these achievements are incredibly rare, and are well worth trying to unlock for the experience alone.
9100th Anniversary: Only 0.5% Of Players Completed This American Challenge
As America, Make A National Park of Crater Lake & Yosemite In One Game
The"100th Anniversary"achievement has a very specific set of requirements that only 0.5% of players on Steam have completed.It relies on your map seed loading two distinct natural wonders: Yosemite and Crater Lake. To get this achievement without using mods, your best bet is to load a gamewith only these two natural wonders includedusing the Advanced Settings. The exact achievement language reads,“As America, make a National Park of Crater Lake and both tiles of Yosemite in one game.”
The odds of this happening at random are abysmal, which is why loading a game with these specific natural wonders is your best bet. Even then, you’ll need to do some work to be able to build National Parks on these wonders, andit might take you more than a few tries.This achievement can definitely help players master the Naturalist unit, however, and is well worth trying to unlock.
8Missed That Day In History Class: Clear Nuclear Contamination As Rome
Less Than 1% Of Players Clear Nuclear Contamination With A Roman Legion
Once again, only 0.5% of Steam users have unlocked the"Missed That Day In History Class"achievement, which asks players to clear nuclear contamination with a Roman Legion. This is no easy task, asit requires keeping a Roman Legion unit alive and not upgradedto the final stages of the game, when you alsohave nukes available. You’ll have to keep them safe from harm for the entire match, otherwise you’re out of luck.
Clearing nuclear fallout with a Roman Legion is a unique ability that most units cannot do, butthe Legion unit has many of the same abilities as an Engineer.This means that, assuming you’re able to keep a Roman Legion alive until the Nuclear Age, you can send them to a city that’s been nuked and use the clear contamination option for their unit.
7Wat Is Love: It’s Luck Of The Draw With City Names
Build Angkor Wat & A Wat In Angkor Wat
The"Wat Is Love"achievement is a frustrating one that relies heavily on RNG in that you’ll have to play as the Khmer civilization and hope that one of your cities ends up being called Angkor Wat. Unfortunately,renaming your city to Angkor Wat will not unlock the achievement,so the only way to get this is with a little bit of luck. However, once you have a city named Angkor Wat, that’s just the first step.
The Angkor Wat wonder is also one of the featuredAntiquity Age wondersinSid Meier’s Civilization 7.
You’ll then have to verify you select the Wat building as one of your Religion features and hope that no other civilization in the game has beaten you to it, and then build that Wat in Angkor Wat. Similarly, you’ll have to create the Angkor Wat wonder in that same city, which explains whyonly 0.4% of players on Steam have unlocked thisachievement.
6Luftballoons: Not Quite 99, But Still A Lot Of Balloons
Use A Bomber To Detonate A Nuke, With A Base & 9 Balloons On Nuna
This is possibly one of the most convoluted achievements inCiv 6, but it isn’t that difficult to get once you understand what’s required. For starters, it’s worth looking at the exact verbiage for this one:“Use a bomber class unit to detonate a nuclear device, as long as its base and 9 Observation Balloons are located on the continent of Nena at the time of detonation.”
The Jet Bomber unit only has a range of 15 hexes, so the target city can’t be too far away.
This means that you’ll need tospawn a map with the Nena continent loaded,otherwise you might as well start over from scratch, which is likely why the unlock percentage for this achievement on Steam is at 0.4%. Assuming you have Nena loaded and can build a base of operations there, you’ll need to make sure you have nineobservation balloons built and then launch a nuclear strike on a nearby enemy with the Jet Bomber.
5Meet the New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
Eleanor, Meet Eleanor
The"Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss"achievement is both hilarious and slightly annoying. Still, it willput your skills using loyalty pressure to the ultimate test,a mechanic introduced with theRise & Fallexpansion. For starters, you’ll need to switch off the No Duplicate Leaders and No Duplicate Civilizations toggles when setting up your game. Then, ensure you play as Eleanor and have Eleanor as an opponent.
If you want to keep things interesting, you can use both variants of Eleanor (i.e., England and France), but it doesn’t make much of a difference. To get this achievement, which only 0.4% of players have unlocked, you’ll need to convert an opposingEleanor’s city into your empire with loyalty while playing as Eleanor.
4Po-Tay-Toes! Get Your Aqueducts In A Row
Construct A Terrace Farm Adjacent To 2 Aqueducts & 4 Mountains
This achievement requires players to construct a terrace farm adjacent to two aqueducts and four mountains while playing as Pachacuti, and it’s challenging to visualize without an actual image as an example. I’ve included two screenshots above fromReddit usersu/Original_Ad8594 and u/kcarter80 as an example, becauseit simply makes the requirements much easier to grasp.
Basically, you’ll need to make sure you have an area between a set of mountain ranges that you can run two different aqueducts through, and you’ll need to build the terrace farmaftercompleting all the other requirements.Make sure you build the terrace farm last, or the achievement will not unlock.
3Man On The Moon: Get A Science Victory With Newton & Darwin
Complicated Description, Straightforward Achievement
Unlike many other achievements on this list, the"Man on the Moon"achievement is relatively straightforward, but the description makes it seem more complicated than it is. It reads,“Win a Regular game with a Science Victory on any difficulty with any leader with a captured Egyptian city - having also activated Newton and Darwin.“Only 3% of players have unlocked this one,which is far more than others on this list, but still relatively low. This is likely because players pursuing a Science victory aren’t expected to capture other Civ’s cities.
However, the conditions for this being so open-ended with any difficulty and any leader means many people can get this one quite easily if they pursuea Science Victoryand make sure to stay at the head of the packin terms of Great Scientist unlocks. Also, capturing any Egyptian city is very simple, but you’ll need to make sure Egypt is in the game first.
2Seven Wonders Of The Post-Apocalyptic World
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
This is a very destructive but extremely fun achievement to unlock, and unlike the previous entry on this list, it has a very straightforward description yet is somewhat difficult to complete. The"Seven Wonders Of The Post-Apocalyptic World"achievement is all in the title, and you’ll literally need to launch a weapon of mass destruction that destroys seven wonders in a single blast. This can be done in a few different ways, but the easiest is tobuild one of your own cities with seven wonders and nuke it to oblivion.
Many people don’t realize you can nuke your own cities because, well, why would you want to in most cases?
Many people don’t realize you can nuke your own cities because, well, why would you want to in most cases? But this achievement warrants self-destruction, and even when nuking yourself, you’ll need to be careful about where you place each of your wonders. A thermonuclear device has a range of two tiles, so you’ll need to keep these wonders tightly packed. Remember,you can always revert to a previous save after you’ve blasted your city to smithereensand unlocked the achievement.
1Pizza Party! Cowabunga Dude
Activate Leonardo In NY With Michelangelo & Donatello Great Works
Easily my favorite achievement inCivilization 6,“Pizza Party!“has players tapping into their turtle powers with a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To get this, you’ll need to complete a very specific set of steps.You need to activate the Great Engineer Leonoardo da Vinciin the city of New York after having Great Works from Donatello and Michelangelo and constructing a sewer in that city as well. It’s a lot of work, and is yet another rare achievement that many players don’t end up unlocking.
Pizza Party is just one of the many complicated achievements that are a prime example of howSid Meier’s Civilization 6offers players really fun and unique ways to enjoy the game, even if these challenges are somewhat convoluted and frustrating at times. Overall, these quirky achievements giveCivfans a new set of goals and add to the replay value of the game significantly, and for many, they are more fun than trying to win a game of Civ 6 itself.
