Getting that pesky 'Hour of the Alpacas' achievement!

Still haven't gotten that peeving alpaca achievement? Here's how to get it.

Obtaining it

The 'Hour of the Alpacas' achievement is one of those pesky date-restricted achievements - once in a while, the developers of Age of Mythology will launch the 'Hour of the Alpacas' event, which will last a few days and be the only time frame in which one can obtain this achievement normally.
I don't quite understand the use behind such an achievement, but I'm not here to question it, but here to explain to you how to obtain it without stalking the developers' Twitter page for months and then be on vacation when the next event is launched.

The technique is extremely simple and a common practice for obtaining other date-restricted achievements: Setting the system date.


Step 1: Make sure you don't have a game running. Set your system clock to February 7th, 2016. If you don't know how to set your system clock, check out this guide[windows.microsoft.com] (Windows).
Step 2: Launch the game and start a quick single player match. As soon as the game starts, the achievement should pop up.
Note: If the achievement still doesn't pop for you, roll back to Patch 2.3!


I take absolutely no credit for finding out this trick - all credits for it go to Jouni who pointed it out in this thread. I just wrote it down.

Is this considered cheating?

To put it short, no it isn't. Of course, cheating is generally subjective and everybody has their own definition of cheating. However, if you're reading this section, you're probably eager on hunting achievements and are asking yourself whether you might be pointed at for setting your system time to get this achievement.

Regarding system date changes, astats.nl states in their FAQ: "[...] While many find this to be a manner of cheating, it's currently not a rule that's enforced on AStats. In the future the site may however reward players who gained date-specific achievements on the correct dates in some way."

Thanks for reading. If this technique didn't work for you, please let me know and I'll try and help find a solution.

[Vaca]

Ok, I just found out how to make this work, if you can`t launch the game or restart the Steam after changing the windows time, set it back to normal, run Steam, run AoM WITH the launcher option, when the launcher pops up you can finaly change the time to Feb 7th 2016. Now you can play it and get the achievement

[notthisagain]

@vaca that usually happens because you can't connect to the Internet with a time mismatch. I would restart in offline mode, close steam, chang the time and then try it.

[Vaca]

Can`t make it work, when I change the time, game won`t launch, even Steam if I restart it

[Tinμ H∂nΔ AςτiΦn]

Yea, it worked, I didn't even have to downgrade the version!

[Rafael]

Please help. I change the time on my PC, but Steam stops launching. How to fix it?

[logic-bomb]

Thanks! Just got it (November 14, 2024).
Had to rollback to patch 2.3 like notthisagain mentioned.

[notthisagain]

Great guide! Got it October 18, 2024. If you are not getting it, I would recommend downgrading to the 2.3 patch. That's what I had to do for it to finally pop.

[アシェンワン]

still working
05-08-2024
tkss <3

[신하리]

Still working 14-07-2024 thanks.

[Skuzzy]

I hate event achievements.