If you’ve ever spent 6 hours pushing for a science victory only to realize you missed a random hidden achievement half-way through your playthrough, you know how frustrating chasing Civilization 7 achievements can be. I’ve put 120+ hours into the game across 8 different civs and difficulty levels, and I’ve put together all the tricks I learned to avoid wasted runs and unlock every reward without unnecessary grind. This guide breaks down every category of achievement, common pitfalls to skip, and workarounds for the trickiest unlocks that most players miss. You won’t find any vague advice here, just tested steps that I used to 100% the base game achievement list in under 3 weeks.
Core Civilization 7 Achievements: What You’ll Unlock During Normal Play
Roughly 60% of the base game achievement list is made up of core milestones that you’ll probably unlock without even trying if you play a variety of playstyles. These include rewards for your first win of each victory type, your first time building a world wonder, founding a religion, or forming an alliance with another civ. You don’t need to go out of your way for 60% of base game achievements, as long as you don’t stick to the exact same strategy every run.
That said, there are a few small catches to these core unlocks that a lot of players miss. For example, if you only ever play domination victory runs, you’ll automatically miss all the culture, science, religion, and diplomatic core achievements. I recommend cycling through victory types every 2 runs if you’re working towards 100% completion, so you knock these out without extra work. You also want to avoid toggling custom game rules like “no barbarians” or “no natural disasters” for these runs, as those settings disable most achievement unlocks even if you hit the required milestone.
A common mistake I see new players make is reloading old saves every time something goes wrong, like a wonder being stolen or a city being attacked. Reloading doesn’t block core achievements, but it can slow down your progress a lot, since you’ll spend twice as much time on each run. Unless you’re going for a very specific time-sensitive achievement, it’s usually better to roll with the punches and adjust your strategy on the fly.
Hidden Achievements Most Players Never Unlock (And How To Get Them)
Hidden achievements make up around 20% of the total base game list, and they don’t show up in your achievement menu until you unlock them, so it’s hard to tell what you’re missing if you don’t know what to look for. These are tied to very specific, often counterintuitive actions that you’d never do during a normal playthrough. Below are three of the most commonly missed hidden achievements, plus step-by-step ways to unlock them fast:
Keep in mind that some hidden achievements are tied to specific civs, so you’ll need to do at least one short run with every base game civ to unlock them all. For example, the Egyptian-specific achievement for building 3 pyramids before turn 100 only triggers if you’re playing as Egypt, so you can’t unlock it with any other leader even if you hit the build requirement. I recommend doing 2-hour Settler difficulty runs for civ-specific achievements, so you can blast through the requirements without wasting time on harder settings.
Difficulty and Multiplayer Achievement Tips for New Players
A lot of new players avoid the difficulty-specific achievements because they assume you need to be a pro to beat Deity level, but there’s a simple trick to cut your grind for these unlocks in half. You don’t have to beat Deity on your first try to get difficulty-specific achievements – the game counts all lower difficulty achievement unlocks automatically when you beat a higher difficulty. That means if you beat Deity once, you’ll get all the Prince, King, Emperor, and Immortal difficulty achievements at the same time, no extra runs required.
If you’re still struggling to beat higher difficulties, you can make the process a lot easier by picking civs that are overpowered for your chosen victory type. For example, Rome is perfect for domination wins on any difficulty, Korea makes science wins trivial, and France is unbeatable for culture wins. Stick to these S-tier civs for your difficulty runs, and you’ll cut hours off your playtime.
Multiplayer achievements are another set that a lot of players skip because they don’t like playing with random strangers, but you don’t have to join public lobbies to unlock them. Almost all multiplayer achievements work in private 2-player lobbies, so you can team up with a friend, set the difficulty to Settler, and blast through the requirements in 2 hours or less. For example, the “Team Player” achievement for winning a team victory only requires one other player, so you don’t need to gather a full lobby of 8 people to unlock it. Always double-check that mod support is turned off before starting a multiplayer run for achievements, even cosmetic mods will disable unlocks, and you don’t want to waste 2 hours on a run that gives you no rewards.
Common Mistakes That Block Achievement Unlocks (And How To Fix Them)
There’s nothing more frustrating than hitting the requirement for an achievement only to realize it didn’t unlock because of a silly mistake you made at the start of your run. The most common mistake is using custom game rules that disable achievements. Toggles like “one city challenge”, “no barbarians”, “no natural disasters”, or “unlimited production” will all block achievement unlocks, even if you hit the exact criteria for the reward. Only use custom settings if you’re playing for fun, not if you’re chasing achievements.
Using console commands is another easy way to lock yourself out of achievements, even if you only use them once for a small boost like extra gold or a free unit. As soon as you enter any console command in a run, all achievements are disabled for that save, and there’s no way to re-enable them. If you’re prone to using console commands to fix bad luck, I recommend turning off the console entirely in your game settings before you start an achievement run.
Time-sensitive achievements are another common source of wasted runs. A lot of achievements require you to hit a milestone before a specific turn, like researching 3 techs before turn 20, building a wonder before turn 50, or founding a religion before turn 80. If you miss that window, you have to restart the entire run, so I always write down any time-sensitive achievements I’m chasing at the top of a notes app before I start a new playthrough. I once missed the “Early Adopter” achievement for researching 3 techs before turn 20 because I got distracted building settlers, so now I set a timer for turn 15 to check my progress on any time-sensitive goals.
Chasing Civilization 7 achievements doesn’t have to be a tedious grind if you plan your runs ahead and avoid the common mistakes most players make. I used to spend 10+ hours on runs that ended up giving me zero new achievements, but once I started following the steps in this guide, I knocked out the entire base game achievement list in less than 3 weeks. Take it slow, mix up your playstyle, and don’t be afraid to lower the difficulty for specific tricky unlocks – there’s no shame in playing on Settler to knock out those hidden achievements you’ve been missing for months. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, and the point of chasing achievements is to have fun, not to burn out on impossible Deity runs.