Greetings, and welcome to my guide for completing the game "Age of Empires II: HD Edition".
In this guide I will help you earn all of the achievements related to the game.
This means I will provide step-by-step explanations as well as give you links to steam workshop scenarios which will help you to easily complete this process.

Warning! For alot of the achievements, you will require the expansion packs for the game. These expansion packs are:
- African Kingdoms
- Rise of the Rajas
- The Forgotten
All three of the expansion packs are available through the Steam Store.

Without further ado, let's begin.

The Achievement "Dark Ages Rush or Early Adopter" is an achievement which has been granted to players who had pre-ordered the game, therefore is not available to people who have purchased the game later. However, I have been told this particular achievement is not necessary to complete the game.

EDIT: There are players who have gotten this achievement by putting the game in patch 4.3, playing a (multiplayer) game there and then reverting the game to the current patch and playing a (multiplayer) game on that version as well. I myself cannot confirm this, however if you still need that achievement, this is something you could try. If this does work for you, I would love it if you can confirm this. Source: Sasha Ermakov

EDIT: There are a lot of players in the comments telling me that they got this achievement without having bought the game or DLC's in a specific time period. Due to this I can not tell you how accurate other information about this is.

EDIT: NihlusGreen:
Quote:
"Dark Ages Rush or Early Adopter" You can remove one of your DLC, start a campaign SP game, quit straightaway to main menu and boom got it! Be sure to get any achievements related to the DLC first.

This has just worked for me today.

Special thanks goes to JimmidyJimJam's post on astats.nl http://astats.astats.nl/astats/Steam_Achievement_Info.php?AchievementID=1&AppID=221380#tabs-2
End Quote

EDIT: For a step by step explanation (with pictures) on how to do the afore mentioned, you can check out this guide

For some achievements, it is impossible to obtain them in the current version of the game. For this reason I have added a section that contains an explanation as to how you can set up a version of the game which does award these specific achievements.

Step 1: Find Age of Empires II: HD Edition in your steam library. Right-Click and select Properties. The following screen should pop up.

Step 2: Click on Betas.

Step 3: On the dropdown menu (which should say 'NONE - Opt out of all beta programs', select 'patch43 - patch 4.3'. This should make steam download a previous version of the game.





Revert: To revert to the current version of the game, simply follow the previous steps again, except this time, on the dropdown menu, select 'NONE - Opt out of all beta programs'.

There are a couple of achievements that are currently unavailable in the current version of the game. For an explanation on how to set your game to a previous version, please refer to that particular section of the guide.
Currently, the achievements that can only be obtained in a previous version are:


- You were the Most Valuable Player!
- Rising Star
- Incredible Team Leader!
- Humanity Victorious
- Two Challenging
- Triumphant Three
- Four Scored
- Five Golden Victories
- Superior Six
- Seven Sealed Fates

Three of these achievements are only available in multiplayer, and thus you need a partner (Don't worry, these are in fact the ONLY three achievements that actually need to be completed through multiplayer). The requirements for these three are that you are the mvp in a game once, 20 times and 100 times respectively.

EDIT: Apparently it is no longer necessary to revert the game to a previous version for the achievements regarding MVP.

I have created a scenario for use in patch 4.3 specifically for these achievements.
You can find this scenario with this link

To earn these three achievements, from the main game lobby, click on multiplayer.
Click on create.
For data set, it doesn't matter what it says.
Set the lobby to Friends.
Uncheck Ranked.
Click Create.

You should now be in the lobby.

You will now set the game mode to 'Scenario ...' and select the scenario created for the achievement.








Next, add 1 AI and invite your partner via the Invite button in the bottom middle.
Your lobby should look like this:
















If you are the person trying to get the mvp achievements, you should be player 1, your partner should be player 3. If you partner is trying to get the achievement, these should be reversed. Also, make sure you and your partner are in team 1, and the AI is in team 2.

Next, both of you click the 'I'm Ready!' button and start the game.
Let the scenario play out. When it's done, click the menu, select Quit Game. Click on OK and return to the main game lobby.

To get 100 mvp's you need to repeat this process 100 times.

The seven other achievements can be obtained as follows:

With the game in patch 4.3.
In the game main lobby click on map editor and select 'create scenario'.
Whether you pick 'The conquerors' or 'The forgotten' as Data Set does not matter.
Select Create.

Click on the 'Players' menu and in the bottom left corner, under "number of players", put in 8 players.

Now go to the 'Units' menu and select 'Arbalest' in the list. Put them in a rectangular shape, like this.



















Next, in the bottom corner select Player 2. In the list, select Villager and put it in the rectangle of arbalests. Do this for player 2 through 8. Your rectangle should now look like this:

Next go to the 'Options' menu. Now in the bottom left corner, you will select player 2 through 8 and put their difficulty from 'easiest' to 'moderate' or higher.






You will also put the starting age for Player 1 to 'Post - Imperial Age', to make this scenario end a bit faster.

Next up is to click on Menu in the top right corner and select Test.

If you have done everything correctly, you should have acquired the 'Seven Sealed Fates' achievement.

!!!!!Before going to the next part, I suggest you SAVE this scenario for later!!!!!

For the other six achievements you simply remove a player and his villager accordingly, until you have all 7 achievements, 'Humanity Victorious' through to 'Seven Sealed Fates'.

Before continuing in this guide I suggest you put the game back to it's original version (see section 'How to set up a previous version of the game').

There are 6 Achievements that you would think you would need to complete with a partner, or online.
These achievements are:
- First Victory
- Fifty Victories
- Five Hundred Victories
- Loyal Ally
- Marking the First Hundred
- Day of a Thousand Stories

This is not true, however. It is possible to acquire these achievements solo. In the same way that you acquired the achievement 'Seven Sealed Fates' (I refer you to the section 'Achievements obtainable in a previous version'), you will use the scenario you just created.
If you have not yet created this scenario, I suggest you go back to the
afore mentioned section to set it up.

In the main game lobby, go to Multiplayer. Select Create. For Data Set, select the expansions if you have them. Set the game to private. Uncheck Ranked. Click Create.

On the Right hand side, you will see different options.
Where it says 'Game', in the dropdown menu select 'Scenario...'.
Here you will select the scenario that we created earlier.









On the Left hand side put in 7 more players and give them either random civilizations, or specific civs you still need an achievement for (e.g. Conqueror of the Britons).

Next, check the box "I'm ready" and click on Start Game.

Now just let the scenario play out.

Once it has finished, click on the menu (the scroll-like button in the top right corner) and click on Quit game. Next click on OK.

If you have done this right, you will have gotten the achievement 'First Victory'.

Now all that is left, is to repeat this 1000 times to get all 6 of the afore mentioned achievements.

NOTE:
'Day of a Thousand Stories' is by far the achievement that takes the longest to get. It is normal to get burnt out by trying to get this achievement as the setup for it is very tedious. It takes me around 20 seconds a scenario from setup to end of the game and going back to lobby. Seeing as you have to do this 1000 times, it can easily take you over 5-6 hours of pure grinding to get this achievement.

The game style achievements are achievements which are earned by playing 'x' amount of games in a specific style, e.g. Deathmatch.

The different game style achievements are:
Turbo:
- The Quickening
- Gathering Speed
- Lightning General
-> 250 games of turbo

Deathmatch:
- First Deathmatch
- Deathmatch Master
- Deathmatch Legend
-> 300 games of deathmatch

King of the Hill:
- King of the Hill
- Ten Hills
- One Hundred Hills
-> 100 games of king of the hill

Wonder Race:
- Peaceful Builder
- Fifth Wonder Race
- Wonder Race Mastery
-> 50 games of wonder race

Wonder Defense:
- First Wonder Defense
- Builder and Destroyer
- Wonder Defender
-> 50 games of defend the wonder

Random Map
- First Random Map
- One Hundred Random Maps
- Anytime, Anywhere

The way you are going to earn these achievements is not necessarily by playing entire games of these matches. The thing is, with these achievements, the game doesn't really register if you play the game or not. It will only check if you started the game. So we are going to abuse this and when we start one of these games, we will simply click the menu in the top right corner. Click Quit game. And then select Play Again. We will repeat this process until we have earned the final achievement for every game style.

In AOE II: HD Editions, there are a lot of different civilizations you can play as. As of making this guide there are 31, to be exact.
All of these civs have achievements where you have to beat that civ a number of times, or you have to win as that specific civ a number of times.

Getting these achievements in a normal way, by playing thousands and thousands of games would take years.
That is why we will use the scenario we have created in the second part of section 'Achievements obtainable in a previous version'

From the main game lobby click on Single player and select Standard Game.
For Game Mode, you will select 'Scenario ...' and load the scenario you want to use.








Set up your lobby like this:
















For your civ, put in the one you need achievements for, and for the enemies' civs, do the same.
Now just press Start Game, and let the scenario play out.
When the scenario is over, click on the menu and select Quit Current Game.
Press Yes and in the post-game lobby press play again.
Do this until you get all the achievements you need.

Achievements you will get from this:
- Champion of the (Civ name)
- Defender of the (Civ name)
- Hero of the (Civ name)
- Foe of the (Civ name)
- Enemy of the (Civ name)
- Conqueror of the (Civ name)
- Master of all Civilizations
- A Taste of History
- Twenty Scenarios
- Fifty Scenarios Completed

Using this setup you can also get the achievements
- Random Civilization Victory
- Random Civilization Twenty Victories
- Random Civilization One Hundred Victories
- Mysterious Foes
- Any Opponent
- Random Master

However, after the scenario has played out, you can not use the Play Again button from the post-game lobby. Instead you have to set up your scenario again in the Standard Game lobby, much like the way you have to set up the multiplayer games for the multiplayer achievements. (See section "Multiplayer" Achievements.)

For this section we will be using a bunch of Achievement maps available through Steam Workshop.

Conversion

The first I'm going to talk about will be for the Conversion Achievements.


The Scenario that I used for this can be found with this link.

To get these, once again, from the main game lobby click Single Player.
Select Standard Game.
For Game Mode, select 'Scenario ...' and load up the scenario you subscribed to.

Once you are in the game, this is what you will see:


Simply select some monks and convert as many units as you can in a single session. Look at your mini map, because there are a lot more units than you see on just the game screen.

When you are finished, click on the menu and click on Quit Current Game. In the post-game lobby press Play Again.

Repeat this process until you get all the conversion achievements:
- Wololo - Enemy Unit Converted
- Protecting the Priests
- Master of Conversion
- Power of Persuasion
- Embracing my Enemies
- Converting the World

Kill

In this section we will be talking about the achievements for killing units. I used a scenario from Steam Workshop for this as well.
You can find this scenario via this link.

The achievements you get for this are:
- Skirmisher
- Commander
- Emperor

If you want to get the achievements:
- Just a Flesh Wound
- And Yet, I Lived
- Massacre

In the Standard Game lobby, simply reverse the players around so that you are the player who's units are getting killed.

Side Note: Using this map you can also get the achievements for constructing Castles.
- First Castle Constructed
- Century Castle Celebration
- One Thousand Castles



Simply replay the scenario until you get all of the achievements.

Destroy

In this section we will be talking about how to easily get the achievements for razing buildings (or losing yours).

For this, I have created another scenario available through the Steam Workshop. You can find it using this link.

Again, just play the scenario from the Standard Game until you get all the achievements:
- No Backing Down
- Leave No Stone Unburned
- Master of the Siege
- Burned
- Rubble Piles Everywhere
- No Stone Left Standing




To get the achievements for losing buildings:
- Live to Rebuild
- Phoenix Rising
- Live to Fight Another Day
- A Thousand Heaps of Rubble
- Ten Thousand Ruins
- Time to Stop Counting Buildings


In the Standard Game lobby, simply reverse the players around so that you are the player who's buildings are getting destroyed.

This section will contain how to get the achievements for building wonders.
Unlike the achievements for building castles, you cannot just make a scenario with 50 wonders and get the achievement when you test it, or run it in a single or multiplayer game. For this achievement you actually need to play until the end, where you win by constructing a wonder (Wonder rush game mode), or if the time runs out after building a wonder.

Achievements:
- Creation of your first Wonder of the World
- Five Wonders
- Will Wonders never Cease

The way you can speed this up, instead of building 1 wonder every time and only getting the count up by 1 every game, is by playing a game against 7 enemies (put the difficulty on easy). Other settings should be:
Map size: as big as possible
Resources: High
Starting age: Post - Imperial Age
Your civilization: Incas (for their reduced stone cost)

When you enter this game build 2 houses and create 15 villagers in your Town Center.
After that, put 1 villager on stone and divide the rest on wood and gold.
As Incas, you will need 1000 Wood, 1000 Gold, and 850 Stone to build a wonder.
Once you have collected all those resources, start building the wonder, as well as make 1 villager wall in your base with pallisade walls. This is to prevent the unlikely case where an enemy comes to attack you. (On easiest, this shouldn't happen, but it does happen on games with a higher difficulty.)

Now all you have to do is wait until the timer runs out. You can do anything you want during this time, but I suggest trying to build a small military for the unlikely case that your base does get attacked.

Now since you put the game to 7 enemies, every time you win a game by building a wonder, the achievement will progress 7 steps to completion!

Since it does take a while for the timer to run out, it can take about an hour, to 2 hours for you to complete this achievement.

In previous patches, wonders would have a smaller countdown timer when finished, so you could put the game in a previous patch to do this achievement a bit faster.
For steps on how to put the game in a previous patch, refer to the section 'How to set up a previous version of the game'.

EDIT: For acquiring these achievements even faster, you can save your game just before the countdown ends. After that, finish the game, reload the save and repeat.

This section will help you get the achievements awarded to you for completing a (part of a) campaign.


There are two ways you can get these achievements. One way that takes a very long time, especially for players who are not experienced in the game. And another way, which might seem bad in some of your eyes, however, it saves several hours in achieving 100% in the game.

The first way is simply: Play through all of the campaigns and get the achievements accordingly.

The second (easy) way is: Start up a campaign scenario. Press Enter on your keyboard. Type in the cheat code 'i r winner'. This triggers an instant win for this scenario. Do this for every campaign scenario in the game.
You will notice that you have not gotten any achievements for completing the scenarios. This is because when you use a cheat code, the game disables you getting any achievements for that game.
However, you can easily circumvent this for the campaign achievements by simply replaying the very first chapter in the William Wallace campaign/Learn to play.

After you complete that campaign, you will notice you get all of the other campaign achievements all at the same time.

EDIT: It seems for some people that beating all of the campaigns in the current version no longer grants them the achievements like "Master of the forgotten world" and other achievements like that one. My recommendation is to try putting the game in a previous version, like 5.8, in the way that is mentioned earlier in this guide, and beating the campaigns again there (perhaps you'll only need to beat the final stage). If you do not feel like playing through the entirety of the stages again, you can use the in-game cheat 'i r winner', and after having won the campaigns, play an extra short match to trigger the achievements. I can not yet confirm whether or not this works, since I don't have an extra account to get the achievements on. Any help on this is appreciated.

EDIT: thanks to FxMxRx: « I got the "Conquerors Campaign Completed" achievement on open beta patch 5.8, looks the problem was the 4.3 version. »

Tip 1. If you are dedicated and absolutely want to achieve 100% in this game. I suggest combining the acquiring of some of the achievements, to minimize the time lost for getting them all.

Tip 2. When going for the achievements listed in section 'Game Style Achievements':
In the loading screen of your game, it is possible to stand in the corner and click on the menu button before your game is loaded. With a bit of practise, you can even click on 'Quit current game', 'yes', and 'Play again' before the game is even fully loaded up. This can save you a significant amount of time when going for these specific achievements.

Tip 3. Once you have completed all of the 'Conqueror of ...' achievements, instead of keeping the same scenario with 7 enemy villagers, create a new scenario with only 1 enemy villager. This will speed up the rate at which you can get the 'Hero of ...' Achievements.

Tip 4. Some achievements will be completed whatever you do, due to the use of scenarios, or hosting online games. These achievements are:
- A Taste of History
- Twenty Scenarios
- Fifty Scenarios Played
- Hosted First Game

Hi there!

You have reached the end of this guide. If you have made it all the way through: Congratulations! You now have all of the achievements obtainable in AOE 2: HD Edition!

First I want to say that this is the first guide that I have ever made, so if you have any feedback or suggestions, don't hesitate to tell me. If you disliked part of it, or the entire thing, please also tell me and why. If you think I have missed an achievement, please do tell me so I can add how to get it in this guide.

Second I would like to thank Hamstersex for helping me test the scenarios for the mvp achievements in patch 4.3 as well as helping me get to the achievement for 100 mvp's.

And finally I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my guide and for possibly leaving a rating and feedback.

Now I won't take up your time any longer and leave you be.

Xorta Clanc