Full Achievement Guide (2024)

Given the lack of a consolidated guide for achievements within the community, this comprehensive guide aims to be the primary point of reference for all those who wish to unlock all fourteen achievements in SuperPower 2 Steam Edition.

Introduction and Preparation

Overview

Greetings, everyone. I recently embarked on an achievement run for SuperPower 2 Steam Edition and throughout the run, there were numerous challenges that I simply did not know how to overcome. After trying to look up achievement guides, I noticed that some achievements had no guides at all and there was a distinct lack of a comprehensive guide for all achievements. Therefore, this guide is created to fill that gap and to help you unlock all of the achievements. This guide will be both an amalgamation of existing guides (credit given where due) and courses of action from my own personal experience.

Preparation and Notes

Before embarking on an achievement run, there is thankfully only one thing that needs to be prepared beforehand. It is installing the Human Development Mod (HDM), in which the installation process is described in the same page. There are two reasons why this is critical, namely :

• Some achievements are bugged in Vanilla. HDM fixes this.
  
• It has some important commands that will help significantly.

After installing the mod, it is time to begin.

Notes
- 'Phase I' refers to straightforward achievements that will take very little time and/or very little effort. 'Phase II' refers to achievements that may require far more time and meticulous planning. There are four in this category, namely 'Big-time Friend', 'Big-time Conqueror' and 'The Destructor'.
- Avoid choosing any of the in-game objectives when setting up your custom game. At least in my experience, it ended the game immediately upon achieving all of them and thus prevents any continuation in trying to unlock the other achievements.
- The guide will be based on the assumption that console commands (except set_speed) will not be used. However, due to some complications that may occur, this guide will have a section detailing what you can do to resolve these problems with commands.
- For 'Phase II' achievements, the guide assumes that there is a basic understanding on how to manage the economy (or more specifically for this context, avoid economic failure long enough to attain the achievements).

Achievements (Phase I)

Small-time Conqueror
Conquer a single territory


Select any of the major countries. Merge all units at the border of any weaker opponent. Start an invasion and occupy a territory.

Destructor
Nuke something


Select any of the nuclear-armed countries. Head over to 'Strategic Warfare' under the Military tab and you are free to choose the specifics. You may fire when ready.

Fire Baptism
Win your first conventional battle


Select any of the major countries. Merge all units at the border of any weaker opponent. Start an invasion and win a battle. The AI will automatically move all their forces to where your forces are at (as long as you continue to occupy the AI's territory).

Innovator
Create a new military design


Select any country. Head over to 'Design' under the Military tab and create a new design.

Medium-time Conqueror
Conquer a complete country


Select any of the major countries. Merge all units at the border of any weaker opponent. Start an invasion and defeat their forces. After that, right-click on any of the opponent's territory and select 'Occupy Territory'. Ensure that all territories are occupied (i.e. note overseas territories, if any).

Star Wars
Build the AMDS


Select any of the major countries. Head over to the Military Tab and create 'Missile Defense' which is N/A by default. Wait as required.

Ruin Friendship
Conquer a friend


As the United States, merge all your units at the border of Canada. Immediately invade, occupy and annex as required. Your forces should be able to take on the entirety of NATO, should they choose to support Canada in your peaceful integration of your northern neighbour.

Beloved
Attain 95% approval and 90% stability


Credit to Axiinos for their guide on this achievement.

As quoted directly,
"1. Choose denmark as nation to start with "Custom Gameplay"
2. go into internal law's, and allow "Same Sex Marriage"
3. click apply
4. ACHIVEMENT WON."

Sneaky Baptism
Mastermind a Coup D'État


As the United States, head over to 'Covert Actions' under the Military tab. Send all your cells to Syria (or any weak country for that matter). Have them all plan coup d'etats. Wait for the mission's completion and execute as needed. Repeat if luck is not in your favour.
Tip : You can shift-click on the cells to select them simultaneously.

Psilon
Reach level 10 in all technology fields


As the United States, maximize funding for Research under your budget. After that, head over to the console (the other application that opens alongside the game when you start SuperPower 2). Type in 'set_speed <number>'. The higher the number, the faster the game. Wait as required.

In the meantime, you may create Research Partnerships to speed up the process. You may also head over to 'Research' under the Military tab to see your progress.

Don't need Anybody
Become self-sufficient in all resources


I'm certain there is a country that can unlock this achievement more efficiently. However, I did this as the United States and I continuously increased production of resources in 'Resources' under the Economy tab. The basic idea (at least from what I understand) is to ensure Production exceeds Consumption (also equals to Trade value being positive) for all goods and services.

Achievements (Phase II)

As stated in the notes, the achievements under this category will take far more time and planning to successfully achieve them. Furthermore, it is also here where you will be most vulnerable to bugs and complications given its sheer scale and time requirements.

Nevertheless, it is possible to achieve all of them within one game, thankfully. The ordering of the achievements corresponds to which ones you will most likely unlock first. The descriptions have also been written in such a way where it follows up from the previous. For my run, I played as the United States.

Big-time credit to Aynshtaynn for their guide on 'Big-time Friend' and 'Big-time Conqueror'. It is exactly these two achievements that will give you the most headaches during your special achievement operation. Our biggest thanks to Aynshtaynn.

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Big-time Friend
Alliance with the world


[STAGE ONE]
Start as the United States. With your overwhelming superiority in military forces, categorically invade as many countries as you can (but avoid nuclear-armed states, especially Russia and China. I will go through how to deal with them). With your special military operations across the world, we must establish three key concepts :

• A hostile AI will send all their forces against your forces (even if yours is overwhelmingly stronger) if your forces are standing within one of their provinces. For example, your forces in Azerbaijian will cause all hostile Azeri forces to engage them. However, nearby hostile Turkish forces might ignore the battle.
  
• A hostile AI will move its forces to 'liberate' your rightfully-occupied territory if they are adjacent to it by land if the above concept is not triggered. For example, the same Turkish force may proceed to occupy your newly-annexed Armenian territory instead.
  
• If a country is undergoing annexation and hostile forces move those territories, it would become liberated and will force you to re-occupy and re-annex said territories.

Now that we know these concepts, ensure that you plan your path of conquest very carefully. Because neutral countries can declare a new/join an existing war against you, it may be incredibly annoying when they proceed to liberate the territories undergoing annexation and/or occupying your already-annexed territories (which slows down movement speed) in your rear away from the frontlines.

The Problem of Nuclear-Armed States
All it takes is a direct hit from one single nuke to wipe out all your forces. Therefore, to avoid a lengthy re-militarization process, we need to understand how the AI treats nuclear warheads :

• The AI does not immediately fire warheads at the start of war.
  
• The AI will immediately fire warheads if they are themselves targeted with nukes.
  
• When you occupy most/all of the AI's territory, it will almost certainly fire nukes.

Therefore, the solution would be 'salami tactics'. Basically, defeat their forces in one of their provinces and proceed to only occupy a fraction of their country, before going for an annexation treaty. This will mean that the country will only be partially annexed and they will likely not fire nuclear warheads. Declare peace with the said country and repeat the process as necessary.
Tip : To end a war, head to the Military tab and select 'War List'. Find the war and select 'Peace'. The war will only end if the AI decides to end it as well.

The Question of Russia and China
While the above applies to Russia and China, their massive militaries also pose quite a problem when combined. My recommended strategy is as follows :

• Engage Russian forces directly within a Russian territory (forcing the entire Russian Armed Forces to engage them, as we learned earlier).
  
• After defeating them, withdraw your forces (both land and sea) to somewhere far away from China (e.g. Portugal). Immediately after, order your forces to move to some other place.
  
• While their green loading bar is approximately 75%, fire nuclear warheads at China's People's Liberation Army. This will wipe out their forces but will also trigger retaliatory strikes. However, by the time their nukes reach your forces, their green loading bar would have been completed and they would be moving (i.e. China's retaliatory nukes will miss).
  
• After that, proceed with the necessary 'salami tactics' and establish American hegemony over Moscow and Beijing.

[STAGE TWO]
MAKE SURE TO LEAVE TWO COUNTRIES INDEPENDENT BY THE END OF YOUR CONQUESTS, PREFERABLY WEAK AND POOR COUNTRIES. When selecting which countries to leave, check the diplomatic relations between the two. You may do this by either going to the 'Diplomatic Relations' thematic map or the 'Relations' tab at the bottom of the screen, after selecting one of the two. The higher, the better.

With these two countries, provide them with a lot of money without requesting anything in return. You may do this through 'Trade' within the Economy tab. Repeat as needed until relations are beyond 60. After reaching that threshold, head to the Politics tab and select 'Treaties'. Create an alliance between your countries (NOT separately). If it fails (meaning the two countries do not like each other enough), launch trilateral cultural exchanges, economic partnerships or the sort and wait as necessary. After that, attempt the same. This step will unlock your hard-earned achievement.

Big-time Conqueror
Rule the world


Following up from the last achievement, march your glorious forces towards the borders of the remaining countries. You know it is time. You know your suffering will soon end. You may finally announce the beginning of special military operations against those two remaining countries, in order to end the suffering once and for all.

The Destructor
World population cut in half since start of the game


With the world under your belt, Congress has decided that it is time to establish a paradise no different from that of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984. Head towards your budget and remove ALL funding from all budgetary items (except Propaganda). Head towards the console and type 'set_speed <number>' (the higher the number, the faster the game) and simply wait.

Your people will relish in this new paradise you have created for them. Rest assured, it is not alarming that the Death Rate is far higher than the Birth Rate (which can be checked in 'More Info' at the bottom of the screen after selecting your country). It is simply part of life. As you wait, you will notice that your (and that of the world's) population is declining for unknown reasons (which can be checked in Statistics, the computer icon at the bottom of the screen). Once your population has declined to approximately 2.5 billion for reasons unknown, this achievement will unlock and you may finally uninstall the game from your computer.

Complications and Bugs

Throughout my achievement run, I ran into some complications and bugs. Some were mild while one in particular threatened to completely derail the entire run despite being so close to completion. In this section of the guide, we will run through how to proceed when experiencing these problems. If you run into any problems not stated in this section, feel free to comment them below. Plus, if you found solutions to problems mentioned in the comments, it would be deeply appreciated if you shared them! It will be added to the guide and credit will be given as due.

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List of Complications and Bugs

"I am unable to move forces into a certain territory on land."
Save the game and reload the save. If it fails, try to move into the territory through a different direction.

"I am unable to move my land forces across the ocean."
Have your fleet head towards the coast of the province you're trying to land on. If your land forces still cannot move across the seas, have your fleet bombard the region (as it will force the fleet to move into the proper location). If that still does not work, simply save the game and reload.

"My game crashes when having treaties with a certain country."
This bug caused me a lot of pain when I was close to world domination. One country that I had occupied (but not under annexation) caused the game to crash whenever I attempted to launch an Annexation Treaty. After attempting some compatibility fixes found online (which failed), I thought of a solution that saved my game. It is as follows :

• Head to the console.
  
• Type in 'print_relations 184' (184 is the country ID of the United States).
  
• Identify the country ID of the country causing the crashes.
  
• Type in 'force_occupy 184 <target country ID>'. This causes the target's territory to be occupied by you.
  
• Type in 'annex 184 <target country ID>'. This causes the target's territory to undergo annexation by you.
  
• Wait for 6 months and they will be off the map.

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We have reached the end of the guide. I hope that this has been helpful and has provided insights into some of the game's mechanics. I wish you all the best in your achievement run!

[lifesearch]

Hello, thanks for your guide, this was a reason to play the game again in 2023 and make it perfect.
A little hint: To conquer the countries you can also simply use the console command: transfer_country. It couldn't be any easier then.