A Guide to Glorious Acheivements?

[Peasant Phill]

Glorius achievements are diverse and differ from faction to faction.

-Start with a bigger faction as they will get more and better GA goals (England, France, Turks, HRE, Italians, Egypt, Byz, ...)

- Don't follow other peoples strategies when it comes to GA's, it's much more fun to make up your own way to handle them. Different situations demand different priorities

- Don't try to find out all the GA goals in advance as it's more challenging when you only get a limited span of time

- Don't go on a conquering spree. Rivaling with other factions with GA points gets moot when you conquer half the map

[Maloncanth]

In Glorious Achievement, GA points are given occasionally in 1100, 1125, 1150, 1175, 1205, 1225, 1250, 1275, 1300, 1320, 1350, 1375, 1400, 1425, and 1453, the final year of which is when they're finally totalled up and the side with the highest GA total wins. There is no hard line that has to be crossed, hence your victory can involve overwhelming point gain on your part, or eliminating everyone that does better than you by 1453.

There are three ways to gain GA points:

Homelands is the control of certain provinces which are worth more to you than to all/most other factions. (Some factions share homelands which can lead to angry wars.) In GA Mode, the AI will often make some effort to control its own homelands which may be worth 1-6 points for the relevant faction.

Conquest is the control of any provinces but depending on your faction and the mod you're playing, your homelands may or may not count towards this total. Some of the new factions in XL get conquest points that stack with the homelands points from their homelands provinces. Additionally, there is a maximum cap of 32 points gained through Conquest.

Each faction also has a set Conquest Ratio which determines how many points they get. Some factions have an excellent conquest ratio. Some sides in XL will gain three GA points for each and every province they control, making them very quick to gain these points but absolves them from conquering large tracts of land. Some have more moderate ratios such as 3 points per 2 provinces or 1 for 1, making Conquest profitable but still requiring relatively large scale expansion. Some factions will gain 1 point for every 5 provinces or something similarly bad. Such factions necessarily gain most of their points either by disrupting the point tallies of the leaders or by gaining points through ancillary goals.

In both cases above, it is only necessary to control the relevant provinces on the year of the point tally as noted above. You should still gain the points even if you are at the time sieging an enemy fortress.

The third way to gain points is from various other arbitrary goals set by the game which generally pay some lip service to history. Some factions do not have them at all while some goals are shared, such as the "Iberian Civilization" (shared among the Iberian factions) and the Crusades (shared by all catholic crusading factions). Some factions are very dependent on these if they lack significant points from homelands or conquest while others can get by without them. The new factions in the XL mod do not have these due to programming limitations.

These points will still only be actually tallied in one of the dates listed above but the GA Points menu will indicate so if you're on the way to getting them. On one hand, it is thus not necessary to actually seize those goals prior to those dates. On the other, it is very helpful to plan well ahead of them and shape your game towards those goals.


Playing a GA game still allows you to conquer the map, but gives you a (generally less tedious) alternate victory and allows more room for error since your performance early is (in theory) as important as your performance late in the game. It does however require that you play all the way to 1453 as well as to keep tabs on the point gain of other factions to prevent them from exceeding yours. Additionally, some of the GA points will not be available if you start after Early and some will be much harder to achieve due to having less preparation time. As far as I know, MTW is not balanced to take this into account. Some faction AI's are also naturally better than others at gaining GA points (watch out for the Russians in Late VI).

A final note is that elimination from the game resets any faction's points to 0, even if they subsequently revive. This is the human player's last, most powerful weapon against an AI ahead on points. Having the capability to execute this strategy on any AI faction anywhere on the map will secure victory.

[Fate]

Thanks for the advice Peasent Phil and Maloncanth, this is rather enlightening, as it eally is an area that i know less about than most other aspects of Total War.
Can someone tell me if there'd be a big difference in playing say, The Turks, to playing the HRE, as one side can jihad, and the other can crusade?
In GA mode, as a Muslim faction are you more likely to have more Crusades launched at you?
Cheers in advance guys.

[General Dazza]

The new factions in the XL mod do not have these due to programming limitations.

Hey Maloncanth - I'm playing the hospitallers after reading your campaign story. I've started in high though so I have Antioch and Tripoli as well as Rhodes. Makes for a different game.

So with GA you have to play all the way to 1453? I btake it that means that if you get the 60% of provinces you still have toi play on.

[dknight]

I understand that finding the GA goals may not be fun, but does anyone know where to find the goals ? (that is in the MTW vanilla version)

[Mithrandir]

Reading all this talk about GA makes me reinstall MTW... now if only I can find the time to play...

[Roark]

I'm disgusted that it was ever uninstalled, Mithrandir.

May the Camels of Doom befoul your harem.

[Martok]

I understand that finding the GA goals may not be fun, but does anyone know where to find the goals ? (that is in the MTW vanilla version)

If you're playing MTW in GA mode, look at the lower left corner of the campaign map. Along with all the usual buttons for finances, agents, etc., you should also see an extra symbol in the shape of a wine cup or chalice. If you click on that chalice symbol, it will show the Glory Goals for your faction, how many GA points you've accumulated thus far, and how many GA points the other factions have as well (along with their respective Glory Goals if you click on a particular faction's shield).

I also hear a lot of talk of the XL mod, and while i am familiar with modding (RTW and BI in particular), i am not too familiar with the modding of MTW.
What bonuses does this mod add, and if applicable, will it effect my version of VI (which i assume means im patched up, as i personally dont have the same level of knowledge of MTW as RTW).
Cheers in advance.

In addition to numerous new factions and units, the XL Mod rebalances the game, most notably with farm & trade income -- the former is raised while the latter is reduced. The AI generally does better financially because of this (it's better at building farm upgrades than it is at managing trade networks). Peasants cannot be trained in XL, and everyone starts with improved infrastructure. These two changes mean the computer-controlled factions generally train better troops as a rule -- you see less "spamming" of armies consisting of crap units.

Installing the XL Mod doesn't affect the VI campaign, so you can still play it normally. For a more detailed rundown of XL and its features, go here.

[Peasant Phill]

I understand that finding the GA goals may not be fun, but does anyone know where to find the goals ? (that is in the MTW vanilla version)

What I meant by not looking up your GA goals is not to look them up on the internet. You can't win a GA game if you don't know your present goals (chalice button). It just gets boring when you prepare to conquer/build/defend something a century in the future if this is not relevant at the present time. Think about it like preparing for the arrival of the golden horde decades before they even get near your borders: it's not realistic and it kills the challenges in this game.

[Fate]

One last thing, as i figure it makes more sense than starting a new thread on the subject, for XL (which i've now downloaded, but not yet installed), are there tech trees available? Be it in PDF or just around online? as with GA i know you'll have to say "build a university by such and such a year", and you'll obviously need to know the path for how to build it, so yeh, any takers?

[Martok]

As far as I'm aware, there is unfortunately no printable tech tree for XL (or any other mods, for that matter). It shouldn't really affect your GA goals one way or the other, however. Most structure-related Glory Goals (such as building a Cathedral, Grand Mosque, or Citadel in a particular province) still have the same building prerequisites as vanilla MTW/VI.

[Innocentius]

Hey Maloncanth - I'm playing the hospitallers after reading your campaign story. I've started in high though so I have Antioch and Tripoli as well as Rhodes. Makes for a different game.

So with GA you have to play all the way to 1453? I btake it that means that if you get the 60% of provinces you still have toi play on.

If I'm not mistaken there are no Hospitaller Order faction in High, I believe you're talking about the Crusader States who start with Antioch, Tripoli and Cyprus. Rhodes belong to the Byz in High.

[History Geek]

I actually find it tedious to play all the way to 1453, and make som "home rules" instead. If I for instance play an early campaign I only go on 'till 1205, and *have* to lead in GA to win. This gives an extra challenge.

[King Kurt]

I always play GA - it gives such a better feel to the game. If you then add a few more home rules like not attacking anybody from your own religion unless they attack you first, then you get a far more challenging game. I tend to play until I am getting the you have the highest income/ biggest army messages on a regular basis. I normaly then set myself some short term goals or role play a situation to finish the campaign off. Once you get to a certain critical mass, I think you are certain to win. GA points give you a good cross measure on this.

[The Unknown Guy]

Start with a bigger faction as they will get more and better GA goals (England, France, Turks, HRE, Italians, Egypt, Byz, ...)

Note that Byz has NO GRAND ACHIEVEMENTS WHATSOEVER. Just Homelands and Conçuest (and the latter is nerfed. If you start in High-which means starting with just one province in practice, and literally if you play the pocket mod, I highly advise raising the conçuest Glorypoints of Byz a bit. Otherwise your lack of GA&conçuest points will mean that you will be at a severe disadvantage. In Early this is not so, as you already own half the world, so a worse conçuest/point ratio is in order.)

[General Dazza]

If I'm not mistaken there are no Hospitaller Order faction in High, I believe you're talking about the Crusader States who start with Antioch, Tripoli and Cyprus. Rhodes belong to the Byz in High.

Indeed I expect you're right Innocentius

It's often a struggle remembering the details when at work!

[Maloncanth]

Hey Maloncanth - I'm playing the hospitallers after reading your campaign story. I've started in high though so I have Antioch and Tripoli as well as Rhodes. Makes for a different game.

So with GA you have to play all the way to 1453? I btake it that means that if you get the 60% of provinces you still have toi play on.

Oh, you can still win by conquest. But to win by actual glory points only happens in 1453.