Some tips on how to get all of the achievements, and what exactly they entail.
General Advice and Notes
1. I highly recommend playing each scenario, especially New Home, blind before trying to earn achievements. This guide will spoil all of them, and at risk of sounding like a pretentious ♥♥♥♥, you might miss the point of the game if you’re too well prepared.
2. All achievements, unless the requirements specifically state otherwise, can be earned on easy difficulty.
3. In addition to playing on easy, many achievements can also be earned on endless serenity mode. You can’t earn any achievements that require you to complete a scenario in a certain way, like Vegetarian (complete a scenario with only hothouses) but you can earn achievements with requirements that can be completed at any point, like Shai Hulud Summoner (have 4 thumpers working at the same time.)
4. For the achievements that require you to play an actual scenario, I highly recommend the Arks scenario for most of them because I find it to be the easiest and shortest. Make sure to discover New Manchester and accept the quest to rescue its people, but never actually complete it. This will allow you to play through to the end of the scenario. Otherwise the scenario automatically ends when you complete all of the objectives, even if you have more time left. Also, note that the game will shower you with steam cores, but for some reason you need to run out first or it won’t provide you with the scouting locations you need. Of course, your mileage will vary, so go with whichever scenario you prefer.
5. Some achievements are notoriously vague, and possibly bugged. The Golden Path achievement is most infamous for this. If anything you find conflicts with the information in this guide, please leave a comment to let everyone know.
6. This guide doesn’t include the Last Autumn, but that might be in the works at some point.
The Golden Path
I’m giving this achievement its own section because it’s quite infamous.
The requirements are to “Finish the New Home scenario without passing severe laws and using harsh abilities.”
There is an existing guide by ExplodeySquirrel that you should check out here.
But I’ve seen all kinds of disagreement on various sites about what exactly the requirements are. There are lots of people who say they didn’t get the achievement despite following the requirements, and even some people who did get the achievement even though they shouldn’t have. My intention with this section of the guide is to update it as people provide more information.
You DEFINITELY need:
-No laws that “cross the line” (The final three laws in either purpose tree.)
-To be playing on the “New Home” scenario.
You PROBABLY need:
-No preventable deaths (sickness, hunger, etc.)
-To rescue everybody in the Frostland and accept all refugees
-To refrain from passing certain laws, even though they don’t cross the line
-No emergency or extended shifts
-To make certain decisions
-To provide for your people anytime they make a demand, and maybe to prevent them from needing to make demands in the first place
It is PROBABLY okay if:
-Scouts die during events
It is DEFINITELY okay if:
-Your decide not to slow down the dangerous automatons
-You pass any of the laws listed below (Although you might need to make certain decisions as a result of passing them)
List of laws that are confirmed safe:
-Soup
-Child Shelters
-Engineering Apprentices
-Sustain Life
-Extra Rations for the Ill
-Care House
-Cemetery
-Ceremonial Funerals
-Prosthetics
-Fighting Arena
-Public house
-Moonshine
-Neighborhood Watch
-Guard Stations
-Patrol
-Morning Gathering
-Foreman
New Home and Ark
New Home
Some tips:
-Child labor is effective in the early game, but quickly becomes obsolete as you’ll eventually have more labor than you know how to use. Medical apprentices are a lot more powerful, and stay relevant for the entire game.
Leader
*Finish the New Home scenario*
The Saviour
*Finish the New Home scenario with no deaths from cold, hunger, sickness or overwork*
Save every day and reverse your mistakes, if you make any. You cannot use emergency shifts unless you’re willing to be cheesy and move people around mid-shift. Note that it’s okay for scouts to die, or for people to die in events.
Iron Man (New Home)
*Finish the New Home scenario on Hard difficulty*
The Iron Saviour
*Finish the New Home scenario with no deaths from cold, hunger, sickness or overwork on Hard difficulty*
New Home Survivor
*Finish the New Home scenario in Survivor Mode.*
Notably this one doesn’t have a “Saviour” counterpart, because it would be absurdly difficult. Keep in mind that finishing a scenario doesn’t mean your people have to be happy or healthy, barely scraping by works just fine.
Lost Souls
*In the New Home scenario, save every person in Frostland*
I got this one through a bug, and I’m guessing a lot of people did considering a surprisingly high percentage of players have it. If you want to earn this legitimately, just scout the Frostland and rescue everybody you can find. Keep in mind that new locations are added throughout the scenario. Does “save” simply mean escorting them to New London, or do they actually need to survive to the end? I have no idea, but if you’re trying to keep everyone alive, you should end with 691 population.
United
*In the New Home scenario, don’t let anyone leave for London*
I recommend Faith, because it has much better options for increasing hope and reducing discontent. You can also postpone passing some popular laws until after the fall of Winterhome for some easy hope.
Compassionate
*In the New Home scenario, accept all groups of refugees*
You should probably be doing this anyway, there’s really no reason not to go for the max population possible.
Golden Path
*Finish the New Home scenario without passing severe laws and using harsh abilities*
See above
Each of these Londoner-based achievements may require you to intentionally raise discontent in order to make sure the events occur.
Banksy
*Deal with the Londoners’ graffiti peacefully*
Requires guards or faith keepers. Keep removing the graffiti until your guards get attacked, and don’t punish the attackers.
Negotiator
*Deal with the Londoners’ thievery peacefully*
According to the wiki, you need to get a guard murdered by investigating the theft, and don’t punish the person that wasn’t involved in the murder. I did this on my first playthrough and didn’t get it, so maybe there’s something else to it.
My Turn to Speak
*Let the Londoners speak and have the last word*
Anytime there’s a Londoner protest, let them speak. After you do this enough times, you can say it’s your turn to speak.
Arks Specific
The Arks is probably the easiest scenario because there aren’t any events that shake things up, even the discovery of New Manchester just expands your checklist of resources to collect. It’s also the shortest. You don’t actually need to save New Manchester or gather enough resources to survive the storm to earn achievements, simply waiting out the clock also counts as completing the scenario. If you accept the New Manchester quest and never send them relief, this allows you to wait out the clock even if you have enough resources to survive the storm; otherwise the scenario will end automatically.
Some tips:
-You can deconstruct the roads around the arks for some easy wood.
-The game will shower you with steam cores, but it doesn’t give you the scouting locations you need until you first run out of cores.
-You don’t immediately lose an ark if it drops below chilly; instead it creates a circular countdown timer above the ark. If an ark is below chilly, this timer will always drop at the exact same rate, regardless of temperature, so there’s no point in heating it if you can’t make it at least chilly.
-This timer will also reverse if the ark is at least chilly. It won’t reverse faster if the ark is hotter, so there’s no point in heating it to warmer than chilly.
-On most difficulty modes, you can ignore the arks for the first couple of cold snaps because it will warm up again shortly afterward, and the timer is very slow and gives you a couple of days before the ark actually dies.
Technocrat
*Finish The Arks scenario*
Iron Man (The Arks)
*Finish the Arks scenario on Hard difficulty*
The Arks Survivor
*Finish The Arks scenario in Survivor Mode.*
Conservationist
*Save all the Seedling Arks in The Arks scenario*
You don’t actually need to prepare for the storm; simply keeping the arks alive to the end is enough.
Everybody Lived for Once
*Finish The Arks scenario, saving both cities*
Sprinter
*Find New Manchester before Day 15*
The old man will stumble into your city either on Day 13 or when you complete the “Autonomous City” objective, whichever comes first. Complete the objective as soon as possible, making sure you have a scout on hand, and sent it straight to New Manchester. Scout upgrades can help, but even without them you should have time to spare.
Refugees and Winterhome
Refugees
Refugee
*Finish the Refugees scenario*
Iron Man (Refugees)
*Finish the Refugees scenario on Hard difficulty.*
The Refugees Survivor
Finish the Refugees scenario in Survivor Mode.
The Union
*Finish the Refugees scenario, accepting all the lords and resolving the class conflict*
I recommend Faith, because it has much better options for reducing discontent and increasing hope.
Search and Rescue
*Rescue all of your people coming to the City*
Just scout the surrounding area and find everyone you can. The game will tell you where to scout after some time has passed.
Unknown Ship
*Find the unknown ship in Frostland*
This is referring to the ship that the lords used. It’s all the way to the right on the scouting map.
Fall of Winterhome
This is probably the hardest scenario. Half of the city has been burnt down, and the other half is a monstrosity of terrible city planning. You really want to play this one on easy.
Some Tips:
-You need so much steel to fully upgrade the dreadnought that you absolutely need the outpost as soon as possible, fully upgraded steel mills alone won’t cut it. Send your scouts to the weather station and have them cross the bridge from there. Do not remove the automaton from the bridge.
-The hardest part of making it past day 8 is getting hope above 50%. Choose the faith tree, because it offers much better tools for restoring hope, and go for temples.
-There are a lot of useless and/or redundant roads that you can deconstruct for some easy wood.
-You will probably need to move your snowpit anyway to get it out of the heat, use the space this gives you to build a gathering post.
-Construct a storage depot for coal as soon as you can. You start out with an outpost team delivering coal, but they won’t actually drop it off unless they can do so without wasting any due to storage limits.
-There are a lot of useless steam hubs you can deconstruct to save on coal. You can also set some of them to only operate during work hours.
-Even though I generally recommend against generator range upgrades, they can be helpful in the early game while gathering if you don’t want to waste steam hubs heating the ruins.
-You need to keep worrying about hope and discontent after day 8, because there are A LOT of events that can screw you over once you start evacuating if people aren’t happy with you.
-DO NOT accept any requests to be given priority on the dreadnought, except for the first request to give children priority. If you do, people will call you out for your favoritism and start heading out to the dreadnought themselves.
-DO NOT lie about another city, or your engineers will know you’re lying and blackmail you into preferential treatment.
Winterhome
*Finish the Fall of Winterhome scenario.*
Iron Man (Fall of Winterhome)
*Finish the Fall of Winterhome scenario on Hard difficulty.*
The Winterhome Survivor
Finish the Fall of Winterhome scenario in Survivor Mode.
All children on board
*Finish the Fall of Winterhome Scenario, sending all children to Dreadnought.*
Full Dreadnought
*Finish the Fall of Winterhome scenario, fully upgrading the Dreadnought and filling it with people.*
Endless Mode Specific
Endless mode has several cosmetic buildings under the “public” tab. Just build enough of them for some easy achievements. Note that they have to be heated and connected to roads to count.
Let There Be Light
*Build 10 Street Lamps*
Walk on the Grass
*Have a Garden of each size*
Hyde Park Corner
*Have a Town Square of each size*
In endless mode, your scouts will sometimes come across relics. Once you find your first, you can build the archives. You need 15 relics to fill them. This is luck based, so just do a lot of scouting.
A Tomb for Memories
*Build the Archives*
Master Archivist
*Fill the Archives*
There was no Waldo
*Explore all Frostland sites between the storms*
Simply requires you to discover every location in the Frostland during your cumulative time playing endless mode. Doesn’t have to be done on one map. This is luck based, so just do a lot of scouting.
Full House
*Have over 700 population*
Supposedly this can only be earned on serenity mode due to population limits.
Backup Plan
*Stockpile 35 000 Coal and 10 000 Food Rations*
According to the wiki, you can only earn this on endless. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to earn it in a scenario, but don’t.
Hi Marek!
*Lose in Serenity mode*
The quickest way to do this is by killing everyone in a generator explosion. Send a couple kids in first to make sure you go straight to Hell.
By the Sweat of their Brow
*Survive 75 days without having automatons*
Marathon Medium
*Survive 50 days of Endurance mode on Medium or higher difficulty*
Ultramarathon Medium
*Survive 100 days of Endurance mode on Medium or higher difficulty*
Marathon Hard
*Survive 50 days of Endurance mode on Hard or higher difficulty*
Ultramarathon Hard
*Survive 100 days of Endurance mode on Hard or higher difficulty*
Marathon Extreme
*Survive 50 days of Endurance mode on Extreme difficulty*
Ultramarathon Extreme
*Survive 100 days of Endurance mode on Extreme difficulty*
Theoretically Achievable in Endless Serenity
In endless serenity mode, the only limitation to your achievement hunting prowess is how many storage depots you can build before your computer crashes.
Build to Serve
*Build an automaton.*
I’m pretty sure acquiring an automaton through scouting also counts for this.
City of Steam
*Have 15 automatons working at the same time*
Quicker to do in the Arks scenario, since you’ll be building lots of automatons anyway. Note that they have to be actively working, not just constructed. A general note on buildings and automatons: You always get back 100% of the steam cores you put in when deconstructing, so you can always repurpose them after getting the achievement.
Rise of the Machines
*Have 20 working automatons*
This is the same as the last one.
Advanced Designs
*Have an Advanced Coal Mine, Advanced Wall Drill and Advanced Steelworks at the same time*
Shai Hulud Summoner
*Have 4 Coal Thumpers working at the same time*
Note that they have to be working, it isn’t enough to just build them.
Politician
*Stay in power after your people threatened to overthrow you*
Requires you to get hope to 0 or discontent to 100, and then turn things around within two days. Protip: You can only have one ultimatum at a time, so you can intentionally cause one in order to avoid having to deal with the other.
The Scientific Method, vol. 1
*Finish the Automaton Project*
Sometime after building an automaton, an engineer will ask you for time off to work on improving your automaton designs. Give the engineer everything he needs for each step of the project.
The Scientific Method, vol. 2
*Improve Radical Treatment*
Sometime after passing the radical treatment law, an engineer will ask you for time off to work on reducing the frequency of amputations. Allow him to do so.
Bread and Games
*In a city of at least 200 people, ensure everyone has access to the Public House and a Fighting Arena*
You should be aiming for this anyway. Note that the public house has an infinite radius and can be placed anywhere.
Promised Land
*Have maximum hope and no discontent*
Power Overwhelming
*Have a fully upgraded Generator (power, range and overdrive)*
Please, Sir, I Want Some More
*Give child workers extra rations*
You have to pass the child labor law. I’m not sure whether safe jobs are enough or if you have to go all the way. After some time, you’ll get an event that allows you to unlock the achievement.
Oxbridge
*Have 4 Workshops doing research at the same time*
Once More unto the Breach
*Provide an amputee with a prosthesis*
City of Man
*Have more than 650 people in the city at the same time*
Notting Hollow
*Have over 600 population living in Houses only*
Hyperefficient
*Have a workplace with efficiency greater than … [200%]*
This is a non-exhaustive list of everything you can do to raise workplace efficiency:
Medic Apprentices: +20% efficiency in one medical building per every five children in a shelter
Foreman: +40% efficiency
Agitator/Shrine: +20% efficiency (Workplace must be fully staffed to get full 20%)
Give Amputees Wood: +40% efficiency in cookhouses (Only available via random event)
Urban Planner
*Have 300 people living in the heat zone of a single Steam Hub*
Requires the range upgrade on steam hubs.
Not Achievable in Endless Serenity
I recommend reading my tips on the Arks scenario, since I suggest you use it for most of these achievements.
Bad at Politics
*Keep every promise made during a playthrough*
Play on Arks easy. Only proc one needs crisis, and make sure to fulfill it. Pairs well with Better than London, because they’ll demand housing while you’re busy researching bunkhouses.
I’m not sure whether denying a request outright counts as breaking a promise.
Better than London
*Finish a playthrough without building a single Tent*
Play on Arks easy and build bunkhouses.
Worse than London
*Finish a playthrough without building a single House or Bunkhouse*
Could also be pretty easy on Arks, but you might as well get this one on Refugees, since you probably won’t have much of a choice anyway.
Central Heating
*Finish a scenario without building a single Steam Hub*
Play on Arks easy and use heaters in the arks.
Charcoaled
*Finish a playthrough with Charcoal Kilns as the only buildings that provide Coal*
This actually isn’t a very natural fit for Arks because there’s relatively little wood, but I’m going to recommend it anyway because it’s still pretty easy. Coal piles and gathering posts assigned to coal piles do not count against the achievement.
Satellites
*Finish a scenario never expanding the range of the Generator*
I actually recommend you do this on every single scenario, even after getting the achievement. It only takes four or five steam hubs to cover the generator’s range, and it’s a lot cheaper than quadrupling your generator’s coal intake. Focus on power upgrades instead.
Tis but a Scratch
*Finish a playthrough without an Infirmary or House of Healing*
Play on Arks easy and pass radical treatment. Passing the prosthesis law prevents you from getting the event where an amputee commits suicide, even if you never actually build the prosthetic.
Unskilled Labor
*Finish any scenario without constructing Steam or Advanced buildings*
Any building that doesn’t have multiple tiers is fine. Researching upgrades for buildings is fine, as long as the upgrade doesn’t give you another tier of the building. E.g. you can research the range upgrade for the sawmill but you can’t construct a steam sawmill. Houses, medical facilities, and large resource depots are all fine. Play on Arks easy, and maybe pair with Charcoaled, since charcoal kilns don’t have tiers anyway.
Carnivore
*Having a choice, finish a scenario using only Hunters*
This achievement does not take into account any food acquired by scouting, all that matters is that you build hunters huts and don’t build hothouses. Since engineers can’t work in hunter’s huts, you can’t earn this on Arks. Hunter’s huts are a good source of food for scenarios where you have a lot of excess labor, so New Home is probably the way to go.
Vegetarian
*Having a choice, finish a scenario using only Hothouses*
This achievement does not take into account any food acquired by scouting, and it actually doesn’t even care if you’re a cannibal. All that matters is that you build hothouses and don’t build hunters huts. Since you need to have a choice, you can’t earn this on Arks.
Expats
*Set up 2 Outposts in one playthrough*
Not achievable in Arks or Fall of Winterhome.
Autonomous City
*In a city of at least 200, have automatons working in more than half of workplaces.*
You’d think this would possible in endless, but I couldn’t get it to work. I have a theory that kids in child shelters count as workers, breaking the achievement. By “theory” I mean “completely unsubstantiated hunch,” so take that with a grain of salt.
Credit to Raphael