Cossacks 3 Achievements Guide

This guide will help you gain all the achievements in the game.

Introduction

As a huge fan of the first Cossacks game, I was delighted to learn that a new game in the series was announced: even though Cossacks 3 is more a remake than a proper sequel, I must say that the game itself it's almost better than the original (even though it lacks some content at the moment), especially regarding the difficulty level of the campaigns, which I found extremely unfair in the original.

That's said, it's for my love for the Cossacks series and the GSC Game World works (American Conquest was my first RTS ever) that pushed me to create this guide, hoping it will help other players as well.

Before starting, keep in mind that the majority of the achievements can only be gained while playing on random maps; while playing the Campaigns (including the Tutorials), it's only possible to gain the Campaign related achievements, plus some others (who seem to be bugged, however).

Please note that some achievement are bugged and are impossible to obtain. Those achievements differ from player to player: for example I was unable to gain "Blitzkrieg" and many other achievement listed in the guide, while other player are unable to gain, for example, "To the Bowels of Earth", among the many. There is currently no solution to the problem: just wait until the developers release a patch that will fix that.
You can also try to contact the [e-mail] and explain your problems, they should be able to help you get your achievements (that's how I obtained all the multyplayer achievements that were bugged for me).

Tutorials Achievements

These achievements can only be gained during the tutorials, and are the only achievements gained during them, so don't waste more time than required.

Engineer's deed
Earned by player after completing the first tutorial mission successfully.


Officer's patent
Earned by player after completing the second tutorial mission successfully.


Not difficult at all, just play the tutorials normally and you’ll get them.

Sir, you're fired
Earned by player who has executed the incapable commander during first tutorial mission.


Down with the gang!
Earned by player who has forced the incapable commander to retire during first tutorial mission.

During the first tutorial mission, shortly after the beginning, you’ll arrive to your new village that was badly administrated by an unfit governor: you are given the choice to let him retire peacefully or execute him for his incompetence; the choice does not affect the mission outcome so follow your heart and get one of the achievement, then restart the mission to get the other.

Austrian Campaign Achievements

Those are the achievements that can be obtained during the Austrian Campaign, “Becoming a Generalissimo”. I suggest playing this campaign on Normal difficulty in order to obtain the achievements gained from the optional tasks and to fully understand the mechanics of the missions, in order to replay them on Impossible difficulty to gain the final achievement.

Successful pursue
Earned by player who caught turkish wagon train during first mission of Austrian campaign.

The Turkish wagon train (four donkeys) is stationed near the enemy Shipyard to the South: as soon as you will attack their position, you’ll get a message that will inform you that the enemy has started boarding the ferry. Do not worry and dispatch the enemy troops to obtain control of the Shipyard: you’ll notice that the Turkish ferry has boarded the shore to the South, but the wagon train hasn’t unloaded yet; simply send one of your newly obtained ferries next to it and it will explode, granting you the achievement and a good amount of resources.
If you are quick enough, tough, you can capture the wagon train before it boards; in order to do this, you must defeat at least half of the enemy cavalry stationed outside the Austrian city, so that you can win the enemy resistance at the Shipyard quickly. To do this, I suggest attacking the enemy cavalry with some cavalry on your own: 35 Reiters and 35 Dragoons should suffice.

Trench warfare
Earned by player who has destroyed the garrisons of turkish fortresses during second mission of Austrian campaign.

There are, in total, five Turkish fortresses, all in possess of the Black AI:
One to the North of your base, across a river (the one required to capture in order to obtain the Polish reinforcements);
One to the East, just across the bridge near the two northern Towers;
One just to the South of the last one;
And the last two across the bridge near the two southern Towers;

The troops of these garrisons are passive, and will never attack you unless you came in range of sight: destroying them is easy, since you can bombard them from distance, but requires some patience.
The first fortress to attack is the one North of your base: use some Mortars (you can gain them by paying Venice) to destroy the two Towers near the fortress, and then the buildings inside it. The reason for this is that Mortars have splash damage and can kill many troops around those buildings if you are lucky enough.
With the Towers and buildings destroyed, you must now concentrate on the North-Eastern fortress: to fully destroy it, you’ll need some Cannons and Howitzers, along with some infantry (if you’ve reached the XVIII century invest in the XVIII century Musketeer, it can do miracles both at range and melee) and cavalry (Use the Reiters, or, even better, the Curassiers). Place your infantry between the two Towers, and your cavalry just behind them; if you’ve researched the Montgolfier, you’ll see that the enemy fortress is guarded by two battalions of Janissaries on nearby hills, a small pack of Pikemen and a small battalion of Light Infantry, plus two Howitzers on a cliff near the bridge and two Cannons on the opposite side of the hill.
Place your Cannons just before the bridge and start attacking the enemy Howitzers until you can destroy them, then bombard the Janissaries on the nearby hill; if the blue and light blue AIs start to march against you, immediately retreat your Cannons to the other side of the bridge, near your own units, and bombard them from distance. At this point, the AI will either retreat, and you can continue to bombard the Janissaries, or try to attack you; if this happens, don’t lose your focus: even if they are superior in numbers, their troops are of inferior quality. Hold your position on the bridge, order your ranged units to maintain position and fire and wait until the enemy troops come nearby your Cannons: at this point, order them to fire a deadly volley that will decimate the enemy troops, leaving easy work for your infantry and cavalry.
Continue your bombardments until the first battalion of Janissaries is decimated, then bring your Cannons and a small amount of troops on the other side of the bridge, and start bombarding the Pikemen, retreating if the enemy comes too close; with the Pikemen eliminated, bring your Howitzers and start attacking the other battalion of Janissaries: note that some Howitzers will be destroyed by the enemy Cannons in the fortress.
With the Janissaries and the Pikemen eliminated, send your cavalry to attack the Light Infantry in the fortress and to capture the two Cannons; once you’ve done this, you’ve obtained free access on the other side of the river and destroyed the first and tougher fortress: the other four will be a walk in the park: just remember to destroy any nearby Tower with your Mortars, then bombard the enemy troops with your Cannons until your cavalry can easily take any survivor out.

Prudence
Earned by player who was merciful to people of the duchy of Mantua during third mission of Austrian campaign.

To obtain this achievement you must not destroy Mantua’s three Academies and Diplomatic Center and finish the mission normally.
While Mantua does not pose a threat, especially on lower difficulties, you may still want to cripple them in order to focus only on the real objective of the mission: the French base to the West. You can actually do that and still get the achievement in a very simple way: if you research the Montgolfier technology, you’ll discover a XVIII Century Barrack on Mantua’s lands that keeps producing Musketeers:
By destroying this building, you’ll effectively stop Mantua’s attempts to attack your base to the North: you can do that by sending some Mortars trough Venice’s land and bombarding the Barracks safely from the other side of the river.

Field marshal general of the Empire
Earned by player after completing the Austrian campaign.


Generalissimo
Earned by player after completing the Austrian campaign on highest difficulty setting.


Completing the campaign on Normal difficulty it’s fairly easy; doing it on Impossible, however, requires some skill and a huge amount of patience.

English Campaign Achievements

Those are the achievements that can be obtained during the English Campaign, “Roundheads vs. Cavaliers”. I suggest playing this campaign on Normal difficulty in order to obtain the achievements gained from the optional tasks and to fully understand the mechanics of the missions, in order to replay them on Impossible difficulty to gain the final achievement.

Bulldog grasp
Earned by player who has raised militia in every town during first mission of English campaign.

I strongly suggest playing on Normal difficulty and Normal speed to obtain this achievement.
First of all, you need to know the locations of the towns in this mission; the towns are located:
East of your starting position;
North of your starting position;
North-West of your starting position;
North-East of your starting position;
On the North-Western corner of the map;
On the North-Eastern corner of the map;


Seems quite easy, right? Wrong, because the Royalists will also try to recruit militia from those towns. If they even succeed in recruiting a single battalion of militias, you’ll not get the achievement.
The main thing to know is that the Royalists will recruit militias using two parties: the first one is composed by Reiters, and is already in action at the start of the match; the other one is composed by Dragoons, and will start to move after a while, or when the other party is defeated.
The only way to obtain this achievement is, in fact, to defeat both enemy parties before they can recruit any militia: it’s impossible to raise militia in every town while the enemy keeps roaming the map; in order to do this, you’ll need to use your own Reiers to defeat the enemy ones (they are more than capable of doing that). However, the difficult part is that the Reiter party does not follow a preset path, but rather a randomized one that is the same for every match: this means that, if you find the Reiter party returning from a village after having recruited militia and you reload a previous save FROM THE SAME MATCH, you can intercept them before they reach their destination. This is the only way to effectively defeat the first party.
Regarding the Dragoons party, they start the match isolated, in a small village to the West of the North-Eastern town:

After the defeat of the first party they will always try to raise militia from this town, so make sure to anticipate them, before engaging the Reiter party. This will also give you more time to intercept them using your Reiters, that should make quick work of them.
Finally, you may think that attacking the still Dragoon party before engaging the Reiters would be a good idea: it is an horrible idea, because while your Reiters will be busy with the fleeing Dragoons (The Pikemen will reach the Dragoons in ages) the enemy Reiters will have already raised militia in one or two towns.

Bloody peasants
Earned by player who was polite with the peasant during second mission of English campaign.

Very easy to obtain: at the very start of the second Campaign mission, on your way to the village you’ll find a bunch of peasants who will scold you for being too rough: just be overly apologetic (always select the third response available) to obtain the achievement and bunch of extra peasants later in the mission.

To punish the king
Earned by player after completing the English campaign.


Death to the tyrants!
Earned by player after completing the English campaign on highest difficulty setting.


Completing the campaign on Normal difficulty it’s fairly easy; doing it on Impossible, however, requires some skill and a huge amount of patience.

Ukrainian Campaign Achievements

Those are the achievements that can be obtained during the Ukrainian Campaign, “Cossacks gain fame”. I suggest playing this campaign on Normal difficulty in order to obtain the achievements gained from the optional tasks and to fully understand the mechanics of the missions, in order to replay them on Impossible difficulty to gain the final achievement.

Break your chains
Earned by player who has released more than a hundred of captives during first mission of Ukrainian campaign.

Only peasants bought from the Slave market in the South will count towards this achievement: to free one hundred of them, you’ll need 20000 units of Gold. You can try to obtain this amount by playing normally, using the Market of the Polish city and the Gold mine to its West; I suggest however to obtain this amount of Gold by selling all of your resources (You start the mission with a huge amount of Coal and Iron), quickly buy two batches of 50 peasants from the Slavers and restart the mission (or quit, if you have already beaten it).

The doom of the tsar of turks
Earned by player who has captured both turkish fortresses during first mission of Ukrainian campaign.

Shortly after having started the mission, you’ll receive an emissary in the form of a Don Cossack that will offer help in taking one (and only one) of the Turkish fortress to the South. Accept his proposal and, while waiting for the reinforcements to came, start producing at least one hundred Serdiuks and forty Sich or Register Cossacks; the reinforcements will come in the form of one hundred Don Cossacks and four Cannons: the Don Cossacks will leave you after you’ll capture one of the fortresses, leaving their Cannons, though.
Attack the Western fortress first, since it’s heavily guarded: use your Cannons to open a breach in the walls and the enemy will come out to attack you; keep yourself out of range of the enemy towers and use the Don Cossacks as a meat shield while your Serdiuks, Cannons and Howitzers (provided at the start of the mission) make quick work of the enemy. Try to limit losses among the Serdiuks and your own cavalry.
Once the garrison is defeated, the Don Cossacks will leave you, eventually returning at the end of the mission: you will be on your own when capturing the other fortress.
This shouldn’t be a problem, however, since the garrison is slightly less numerous than the other fortress. Use the same tactic as before: breach the wall, let the enemies come to you and use your cavalry as a shield for your Serdiuks and artillery and you should be fine.

Payback for Samuil Kishka
Earned by player who has destroyed the buildings of Weissenstein during second mission of Ukrainian campaign.

Weissenstein is the town to the East, where your Hetman commander will find death charging against the enemy Musketeers.
To obtain this achievement, you’ll need to be fast: before the Hetman starts attacking the city, move your Serdiuks to the western Mill and attack the enemy Musketeers; this should give the Hetman and the Sich Cossacks enough time to enter the city: they will die nevertheless, but at least they’ll open the city gate.
Use the Serdiuks to shoot the enemy units inside the city, who at this point will counterattack, and send your newly obtained Cossacks into the city: they will make short work of the enemy Musketeers; now that the city is free from enemies, you just have to capture every building (except the Barracks and Stables) and manually destroying them by pressing SHIFT and DEL on your keyboard.

The towers shall fall
Earned by player who has destroyed the buildings of Kafa during third mission of Ukrainian campaign.

Strangely enough, this achievement does not require any secondary task, as the mission requires you to destroy the buildings in Kafa to progress: to do so, capture any House, Forge or Minaret that you can, and delete them manually by pressing SHIFT and DEL on your keyboard, then use the Cannons and Howitzer obtained after eliminating every single troop in the city to destroy any other building you can capture (Barracks, Mosques...)

Ukrainian Campaign Achievements (Part II)

Good morning!
Earned by player who has destroyed the muscovite flank troops without being spotted during fourth mission of Ukrainian campaign.

I obtained the achievement in a rather dubious way, but we’ll come to that shortly.
The first thing you need to know is that there are many enemy battalions scattered across the map; the majority of them can be easily defeated without being spotted, but there are some of them that cannot be defeated, those are all next to the enemy command centre:
A small group of Turkish Cavalry South of the hill;
A formation of Strelets and Pikemen plus two Cannons to the East of the hill;
A formation of Strelets and Pikemen plus two Cannons to the Nort-West of the hill.
Don’t try to approach them or you’ll be spotted.
The remaining battalions are located:
In a small village North of your starting position;
In the North-Western corner of the map, across the river;
In a small village East of your starting position;
Across the river, near the central ford (this one is marked on your map);
In a small village North of the Eastern ford;
West of the Polish fortress;
East of the Northern ford.

You can easily defeat all of them (except the one composed by heavy cavalry; for that one, use the ambush tactic suggested by your generals) using only a battalion of 196 Serdiuks by crossing the river to the South, without alerting the enemy, but to make things faster you can also send a battalion of 72 Serdiuks and 28 Sich Cossacks by crossing the river to the North. The Serdiuks can make short work of any enemy force without even entering in melee combat.
Once you’ve dispatched all the enemy battalions far enough from the enemy command centre, send an ambassador to the Polish town and give the order to attack the enemy on the hill; the Winged Hussars will make short work of them, and the enemy will be left with only those three battalions you couldn’t defeat before: if you try to attack them, you’ll be informed that the enemy has spotted you and is converging to the command centre, however, you should get the achievement as soon as this message pops up, despite the flanking troops still alive.

Hold the wall!
Earned by player who has won the fifth mission of Ukrainian campaign with no losses among the bodyguards of the prince.

If you are playing on Normal difficulty as suggested, you’ll probably get this achievement without even trying: the Polish forces are more than capable of defending themselves, and it’s very unlikely that the Turkish army will reach the prince’s bodyguards (shown in picture below).
If you put up a good line of defence on the South (I went with two formations of 196 Serdiuks who basically did all the work by themselves, about one hundred Sich Cossacks, three formations of 40 Register Cossacks and about two dozen Hetmans and won swiftly) so that no Turk can attack the Poles from there, you’ll be fine.
The only thing you have to look off is for the final enemy assault, specifically for the Algerian Archers that will attack from the East: send your cavalry to pick them off before they can inflict heavy casualties on the Poles.

There and back again
Earned by player after completing the Ukrainian campaign.



Brothers, raise the crystal chalices
Earned by player after completing the Ukrainian campaign on highest difficulty setting.

Completing the campaign on Normal difficulty it’s fairly easy; doing it on Impossible, however, requires some skill and a huge amount of patience. I’ll write a separate guide to beat the Campaign on Impossible difficulty as soon as I’ll be able to beat it myself.

Russian Campaign Achievements

Those are the achievements that can be obtained during the Russian Campaign, “In Distress and Cold, On the Tsar's Employ”. I suggest playing this campaign on Normal difficulty in order to obtain the achievements gained from the optional tasks and to fully understand the mechanics of the missions, in order to replay them on Impossible difficulty to gain the final achievement.

Slayer of infidels
Earned by player who has saved Oryol from destruction during first mission of Russian campaign.]

Relieving Oryol from the siege is quite easy and yields good benefits, you can do it even using only your starting troops: in fact, as soon as you will attack the enemy, Oryol’s defenders will make a sally and help you defeat the besiegers; just use your Pikemen to protect your Strelets and you should be fine, the defenders will do all the heavy work.

Master of sieges
Earned by player who let no wagon train reach the besieged Vitebsk during second mission of Russian campaign.

It seems that rather than spawning indefinitely until you take the city, the wagon trains are present only in a limited number, and after reaching this number, they will stop coming. I assume this because I obtained the achievement without even conquering the city and right after I captured another incoming wagon train.
To obtain the achievement, you’ll need to place your troops to the three entrances of the city, out of the Towers line of fire; I divided my troops as it follows:
To the Northern entrance, a formation of 196 Strelets and 196 Pikemen;
To the Eastern entrance, another formation of 196 Strelets and 196 Pikemen;
To the Southern entrance, the two formations of 40 Don Cossacks.

Since the wagon trains are escorted by a small number of Pikemen, your troops will be more than enough to handle them.

Unassailable wall
Earned by player who has swiftly won the third mission of Russian campaign by defeating the besiegers.

Defeating the besiegers seems to be quite difficult, since they are superior in numbers: to make things worse, they usually strike with a handful of Winged Hussars when the majority of their troops are defeated, usually tearing all of your troops apart.
The first thing to do in order to ensure your survival is to retreat all of your troops behind the Stone walls, and immediately starting to produce more troops to replace those who will inevitably die; meanwhile, position your Cannons and the Cannons you will produce to the East of your citadel, right out of the gates: the enemy forces will gather in the valley just below before launching the assault, thus giving you the opportunity to kill some of them.
When the enemy attacks, retreat your Cannons; be sure none of your troops tries to exit the citadel by closing all the gates and use your Strelets from behind the walls. Regardless of how you defend yourself, the enemy will blow the gate to the South and the gate to the South East (It’s a scripted event): try to hold their infantry with your Pikemen until the reinforcements arrive: if you experience too many losses, retreat your Strelets into the inner citadel, eventually sacrificing your Pikemen; sometimes the AI doesn’t attack the Town Center, despite opening a breach into the inner walls, permitting you to pick the enemy units one at time from distance. It’s currently unknown if you have to defeat the besiegers before your reinforcements arrive, or if you can do it even while using them.

Blitzkrieg
Earned by player who has defeated the Lithuanians, the Poles and the Inflanty before Swedish entrance in the war during fourth mission of Russian campaign.

I suggest putting the game speed on Normal: gather all of your troops and send them North, meanwhile, build at last two Barracks, and Academy and a Diplomatic center, and start recruiting Pikemen and Mercenary Grenadiers.
Your troops should quickly reach Inflanty base:
Quickly dispatch them and capture any building you can, then send the Grenadiers to destroy the Barracks; regroup with all of your units (try to create a formation of 72 Pikeman) and march East from Inflanty; you’ll soon come to a bridge:
Across this bridge there is the Lithuanian base: if you had reinforced your army as suggested, you’ll have no problem conquering them; again, capture anything you can and destroy the Barracks with your Grenadiers.
Finally, return to your base and march East:
You’ll soon discover the Polish base: again, if you have constantly enlarged your armies, you should have no problem at this point.

Vityaz
Earned by player after completing the Russian campaign.


I am Tsar!
Earned by player after completing the Russian campaign on highest difficulty setting.


Completing the campaign on Normal difficulty it’s fairly easy; doing it on Impossible, however, requires some skill and a huge amount of patience.

French Campaign Achievements

Those are the achievements that can be obtained during the French Campaign, “Dawn of the French Fleet”. I suggest playing this campaign on Normal difficulty in order to obtain the achievements gained from the optional tasks and to fully understand the mechanics of the missions, in order to replay them on Impossible difficulty to gain the final achievement.

The devil's cunning
Earned by player who has successfully used the captured turkish ship during first mission of French campaign.

When you’re given the task to inspect the shores of the Algerian base to prepare a land assault, you will find, near the Southern inspecting point, a single Xebec:
Your advisor will suggest you to capture this ship and use it to trick the Algerian merchants into the Eastern base: send your only your Xebec to the base now showed on your map and be sure to set the game speed to Normal; the enemy will fall for your trick and you’ll obtain control of a ferry and a small caravan: now, as Johan suggested, move the ferry on the South-Eastern part of the bay, and load the merchant and his guards (If you try to load the ferry on any other point, the enemy will realize your treachery and will attack you), then keep your ferry near the Eastern promontory until you came out of the Towers' range, and unload your passengers on the Spanish port nearby.

Conscience defies compromises
Earned by player who has released the captives during second mission of French campaign.

In the South-Eastern corner of the map, there is a slave trader along with some captives; when you’ll reach their position, you’ll given the option to free the captives by fighting the slaver or just let them be. Selecting the first option will grant you the achievement.

It's all about respect
Earned by player who was merciful to the civilians of Berber Coast and to the slave trader during second mission of French campaign.

To obtain it you need, first of all, to let the citizens of the first village you come across keep their Town Center to themselves; then, reach the slave trader from the achievement mentioned before and let him continue with his “business” and, finally, after reaching the village mentioned by the peasants, keep them from looting it.

Conquest of Sicily
Earned by player who has destroyed the garrison of Palermo during third mission of French campaign.

Palermo is located to the East of the map, just South to the harbour where the Spanish fleet will try their last stand:
The city is surrounded by Towers and Walls, and its garrison is formidable: to successfully siege it, you’ll need to land your Cannons (you should have five Cannons you started the mission with, plus another five you captured from the Spaniards during the defence of Messina) to the North of the city, near the small fortress: destroy it with the help of some Musketeers, then destroy the Towers near the Walls and the Musketeers near the Mill.
You can see that Palermo is defended by ten Cannons outside the Walls, who are seemingly unguarded: if you try to capture them, however, the Musketeers garrisoned behind the city walls will quickly dispatch your troops; to prevent this, use your Cannons to open a breach in the walls, then start bombarding the Musketeers near the breach: when they are decimated, send your Reiters to kill the survivors, then retreat immediately and capture the Cannons.
With now twenty cannons at your disposal, conquering Palermo should be easy: bombard the enemy garrison from distance, then use your Musketeers or Royal Musketeers to pick any survivors from distance.

Glory of the French fleet
Earned by player after completing the French campaign.


Rule, France!
Earned by player after completing the French campaign on highest difficulty setting.


Completing the campaign on Normal difficulty it’s fairly easy; doing it on Impossible, however, requires some skill and a huge amount of patience.

All Campaigns achievements

Those achievements are not tied to a specific campaign and can be done in any one of them; some of these achievements can only be gained by playing multiple campaigns.

Practical thinking
Earned by player who has hired brigands in one of the missions.


In the first mission of the English Campaign, “Battle of Edgehill”, to the West of the North-Western town and the South of the Abbey, there is a small group of mercenaries intentioned to raze the Abbey:
If you bring your Dragoon to them, you can recruit them in your army by convincing them that razing an Abbey is an unworthy action for a true warrior (the first option).

Treasure hunter
Earned by player who has found a treasure chest.


In the second mission of the English Campaign, “Struggle in the East”, there are two treasure chests hidden in valleys behind the Eastern and Western castles.

Noble spirit
Earned by player who has shown mercy over 5 times.


Ruthlessness
Earned by player who has displayed a cruel streak over 5 times.


During the various campaigns, you’ll find, usually hidden in locations you’ll normally not reach in order to complete the mission, characters in need of help, or characters just goofing around.
You have usually two options in dealing with these characters: a polite option (most of the time just leaving them be) or a ruthless one (killing them on the spot most of the time). Here is a list of the simplest characters that can help you gain the achievement:
In the first mission of the Austrian campaign, there is a lone Commander near a ravine, to the East of your starting position, across a river;
In the second mission of the Austrian campaign, there are some priest highlighted on your map, to the South;
In the fifth mission of the Austrian campaign, there are some villagers on your way to the Turkish harbour;
In the same mission, south of your starting position, there is a small village;
In the second mission of the Ukrainian campaign, after capturing a small village to the East of your starting position, you’ll capture an enemy soldier and decide his destiny;
In the first mission of the Russian campaign, to the far East, there is a Cannon stuck in a swamp.
In the second mission of the Russian campaign, you can decide to fight the enemy garrison of the small fortress north of Vitebsk or let them retreat to the city.

These characters should provide more than enough opportunities to earn your achievements.

Sharp sight
Earned by player who has discovered 10 secret tasks.


I got this achievement during the second mission of the French campaign, playing them in order, so chances are you'll get this one too while playing normally.
Either way, there is a bit of confusion about what makes a task "secret": I can tell you for sure that attacking the Market at the center of the map during said mission is one of them (picture below).
Regarding other secret tasks, I can only guess that among them should be the task to capture the Turkish Cannons in the second Austrian mission (the ravine commander mentioned above), the task to liberate the Russian Cannon stuck in the first mission of the Russian campaign (this one mentioned above too) and the treachery involving the captured Turkish ship in the first French mission (mentioned in the French Campaign section of the guide).

Nations related Achievements

Those achievement can only be obtained while playing with the indicated nations, mainly because they require to deploy a certain amount of troops exclusive to some nations. The fastest way to obtain all of these achievements without worrying too much about gathering resources or defending your settlement is to play on a random map with only one AI, allied to the player (even though there are no enemies on the map, you’ll not be granted victory, as the match will go on endlessly, so grab your achievements and quit) with huge amounts of starting resources, building many of the required troops producing buildings and start deploying a huge army.

Two Ukrainians make three hetmans
Earned by player who has hired 3 hetmans in the course of a single game.


A bayonet is stupid, a bullet is smart.
Earned by player who has researched all attack upgrades for the Serduks.


Those two achievements can be gained only by playing as Ukraine.
The Hetman is a cavalry unit recruited at the Stable, while the Serduk is the only Ukrainian Infantry, and is recruited at the Cossacks House (the Ukrainian Barracks).
Recruiting three Hetmans is easy, as they are relatively cheap (150 Food and 175 Gold) and have a good recruitment speed, despite being cavalry units, so researching the Forge technology that doubles the cavalry recruitment speed is not required; Keep in mind, though, that they require a medium amount of Gold as maintenance (0.625 Gold per second for Hetman), so don’t recruit too many if you are running low.
The Serduks upgrades, however, are quite different, as they require a huge amount of Food, Gold, and Iron: there are five attack upgrades in total, each one requiring more resources than the last; be careful not to consume all of your Food trying to research those upgrades and cause a famine among your people.

The Hussars can't be defeated, nor stopped, nor contained
Earned by player who has researched all upgrades for the winged hussars.


The Winged Hussar is a XVII century cavalry unit exclusive to Poland: its defence and attack upgrades require small amounts of Food, Gold and Iron, and are twelve in total (six for each category), so it’s not difficult obtaining this achievement even while playing normally.

Scotland the Brave
Earned by player who has hired 200 scottish musketeers in the course of a single game.


The Scottish Musketeer (Called “Highlander” in game) is an XVIII century ranged unit exclusive to England, thus is required to reach the XVIII century before being able to recruit them at the XVIII Century Barracks.
They have low recruiting cost (50 Food and 7 Iron) and fairly high recruitment speed, so even with a single XVIII Century Barrack obtaining this achievement shouldn’t take long.

Great Bey
Earned by player who has hired 1000 algerian bowmen in the course of a single game.


As the name of the achievement suggest, the Algerian Bowman (Called Algerian Archer in game, notto be confused with the Mercenary Archer) is a XVII century ranged infantry exclusive to Algeria; they have very low recruitment cost (10 Food and 2 Wood) and high production speed, but recruiting one thousand of them will require some time, especially if you are low on population limit; luckily, you don’t have to field them on the battlefield at once, so you can manually kill some of them if you are approaching your limit by pressing SHIFT and DEL on
your keyboard while having the units you want to kill selected.

Old Fritz
Earned by player who has hired 200 prussian musketeers in the course of a single game.


Unlike other similar achievements, the “Prussian Musketeer” is no proper unique unit: it’s simply a XVIII century Musketeer, kust recruited in a Prussian XVIII Century Barrack; it costs 95 Food, 200 Gold and 45 Iron, which can be reduced to 95 Food, 100 Gold and 45 Iron by researching the proper XVIII century technology in the Academy.

The King of Croats
Earned by player who has hired 200 croats in the course of a single game.


Iron curtain
Earned by player who has researched all attack and defense upgrades for the Roundshiers.

Croats and Roundshiers are both Austrian exclusive units for the XVII century: the former is a light cavalry unit, while the latter i a light infantry; Croats are fast to produce and fairly cheap (75 Food, 2 Gold and 5 Iron) and the upgrades for the Roundshiers are only six and cost small amounts of Food, Gold and Iron, thus obtaining these achievements will be easy.


The Lion of the North
Earned by player who has hired 200 swedish reiters in the course of a single game.

The Swedish Reiter is a ranged XVII century cavalry unit exclusive to Sweden: it costs 150 Food and 20 Iron, and it’s fairly s low o recruit: for this reason, I recommend building at least three or four Stables and researching the Forge upgrade that halves
cavalry recruitment time.

Grand Sultan
Earned by player who has hired 200 janissaries in the course of a single game.

The Janissary is a ranged XVII century infantry unit exclusive to Turkey, and costs only 45 Food and 3 Iron to recruit; its recruitment speed is also fairly quick (almost as quick as a XVII century Pikeman), so obtaining this achievement should not require much time.

Heroic power
Earned by player who has hired 200 vityazi in the course of a single game.


The Vityazi is a XVII century cavalry unit exclusive to Russia: like many other heavy cavalry units it’s fairly expensive (130 Food and 25 Iron) and quite slow to recruit, so I recommend building as many Stables as you can afford and researching the Forge technology that doubles cavalry recruitment speed.

One for all, and all for one!
Earned by player who has hired 100 royal musketeers in the course of a single game.


The Royal Musketeer is a ranged XVII century cavalry unit exclusive to France: not only is one of the most expensive untis in the game (200 Food, 45 Gold and 15 Iron) but also one of the slowest to recruit, thus I strongly recommend to at least research the good old Forge technology that halves cavalry recruitment time and to build at least four Stables.

Multiplayer Achievements

These achievements can only be gained by playing against other players.

First blood
Earned by player after one victory over another player.


Duelist
Earned by player after ten victories over other players.


Old warrior makes a wise warrior
Earned by player after one hundred victories over other players.


The simplest way to obtain these achievements would be to play with a friend and making him surrender as soon as the game starts.

On your shield
Earned by player after ten losses to another player.


Similar to the previous achievement, just play with a friend and surrender as soon as the game starts.

Victory Achievements

Those achievements are related to victories in Random matches.

Captain
Earned by player after one victory on a random map.


Colonel
Earned by player after ten victories on a random map.


Field marshal
Earned by player after one hundred victories on a random map.


Ship's boy
Earned by player after one victory on a random map with a sea.


Boatswain
Earned by player after ten victories on a random map with a sea.


Sea wolf
Earned by player after one hundred victories on a random map with a sea.


Oddly enough, Mediterranean maps don’t seem to count towards the Ship boy, Boatswain and Sea Wolf achievements, so you’ll have to play on maps with proper open seas to get those achievements.
Also, unlike similar games, it seems that in Cossacks 3 you can’t rack up victories easily by saving just before destroying the enemy and then reloading until the achievements pop up; if this is intentional or just a bug, it currently unknown.

Note: I've not tested it and done it the hard way, but if it works like Age of Empires II HD, you can easily bypass this problem by creating a map in the editor with a single enemy unit surrounded by player's units (or ships, if you are going for the sea related achievements) and reloading the map multiple times.

Marching as one
Earned by player who has achieved victory in alliance with another player or AI on a random map.

To obtain this achievement it’s required that your ally (be it an human player or just an AI) survives until the end of the match; while this shouldn’t be difficult when playing with a human player, the AI can easily be overwhelmed when playing against multiple adversaries, so try to play a 2vs1 or 2vs2 game to be sure your ally survives even without your help.

Angelic patience
Earned by player who has won a game that lasted for over an hour.


You can see the length of the current match just above the minimap, on the right edge of the screen: just play on the defensive until it reaches one hour mark, maybe trying to gain some other achievements, recruiting as many troops as you can afford, and then send them to destroy the enemy camp.

Frantic struggle
Earned by player after defeating two allied AI opponents on highest difficulty setting.


Uneven chances
Earned by player after defeating four allied AI opponents on highest difficulty setting.



Surrounded at all sides
Earned by player after defeating six allied AI opponents on highest difficulty setting.


I suggest doing these achievements against Algeria, setting at least three hours of truce, in order to fully prepare yourself and upgrade all your units. The reason to play against Algeria with a truce, is that you'll effectively deny their early game vantage (Algeria is suit for fast-peaced rush tactics) and establish a vantage of your own by progressing to the XVIII century, which Algeria cannot.

A more efficient way suggested by
Firstly, make sure that your opponents are all nations that have 18th century upgrades available, have the capture option set to normal, and allow no peace time.

Choose Ukraine as your nation. Have 18th century set as active immediately, and have montgolfiers turned on. You only need to build one town centre, one blacksmith and five stables for your own base. The AI will all immediately start building 18c barracks.

Create endless sich Cossacks in all your stables, then start sending them off into each the opponents' bases simultaneously. At first you'll be sending them off one at a time, but you'll be sending them off in groups of 5 to each base within a few minutes.

The AI will have no soldiers yet and they will effectively self destruct their bases as your groups simultaneously ride through them. Victory and achievement will be earned in about 10 minutes.

A more efficient way suggested by gfe90604:

Firstly, make sure that your opponents are all nations that have 18th century upgrades available, have the capture option set to normal, and allow no peace time.

Choose Ukraine as your nation. Have 18th century set as active immediately, and have montgolfiers turned on. You only need to build one town centre, one blacksmith and five stables for your own base. The AI will all immediately start building 18c barracks.

Create endless sich Cossacks in all your stables, then start sending them off into each the opponents' bases simultaneously. At first you'll be sending them off one at a time, but you'll be sending them off in groups of 5 to each base within a few minutes.

The AI will have no soldiers yet and they will effectively self destruct their bases as your groups simultaneously ride through them. Victory and achievement will be earned in about 10 minutes.

General Achievements

Those achievements are quite simple, most of them are pretty self-explanatory, and can be gained by playing Random Matches. A quick way to obtain most of them, is to start a game with Millions of resources with only friendly AI: you'll get dozens of achievements without worrying too much.

Reapers on the mountain
Earned by player who has hired 50 mercenary Sich cossacks in the course of a single game.

Soldiers of fortune
Earned by player having 100 XVIII century mercenary dragoons simultaneously.


Lord of the cupids
Earned by player who has hired 500 mercenary bowmen in the course of a single game.


Turkish invasion
Earned by player who has hired 500 mercenary light infantry in the course of a single game.

Since mercenaries require Gold for their maintenance, don’t try to recruit all this units at once; instead, try to recruit small batche fo units (20-40 units at time), then kill them off by pressing SHIFT and DEL on your keyboard, in order to save Gold and progress towards the achievement.
Note that this strategy does not work toward the Soldiers of Fortune achievement, since the Dragoons must be recruited simultaneously.

The holy man
Earned by player who has recruited 50 priests in the course of a single game.


You need to recruit proper Priests from Catholic/Protestant nations, the Orthodox Popes or the Islamic Mullahs do not count towards the achievement.

Iron hailstorm
Earned by player who has cast 50 mortars in the course of a single game.


Cannon master
Earned by player who has cast 20 cannons in the course of a single game.


You'll need to build at least four Artillery Depots to cast the numbers of artilery required.
Also, researching the upgrades to reduce the production cost of Cannons can help in getting the achievement, but it's not necessary.

Two thousand subjects
Earned by player whose population has reached 2000 men.


Four thousand subjects
Earned by player whose population has reached 4000 men.


Building enough Houses to host the required population isn’t enough to get this achievement, you’ll have to actually field 4000 units on the battlefield; since every unit occupies a single population slot, the quickest way to obtain the achievement is to train an iinifite amount of fast producing troops: apart from mercenaries, that could empty your Gold reserves quickly, the units which requires the less time to build are the XVIII century Pikeman, the Light Infantryman (exclusive to Algeria and Turkey), the Algerian Archer and the Hussar (provided you have researched the upgrade at the Blacksmith to speed up cavalry recruitment).

The passage of time
Earned by player who has reached XVIII century.


Scientific breakthrough
Earned by player who has reached XVIII century within 20 minutes of playing, beginning with low or average starting resources.

Progressing to the XVIII century requires 50000 units of Food, 10000 of Gold and 7000 of Iron, along with the construction of a Cathedral, an Artillery Depot and an Academy.

Note that Turkey, Algeria and Ukraine cannot advance to the XVIII century, so they are ineligible for this achievement.

To reach the XVIII century in under twenty minutes is an easy task: start with Rich resources (average according to the achievement), Army of Peasants and with Peace time at least of twenty minutes.
Build two Town Centers and two Mills, then start producing Peasants; build only the buildings necessary to progress to the XVIII century, plus a Market, and sell all of your Coal for Gold.
Send at least twenty Peasants to gather Food, then build four Gold Mines and three Iron mines: if you lack Wood or Stone for your buildings, send some of the Peasant to gather them, but as soon as you have the right amount, return them to gather Food, Iron and Gold.
When I tried this achievement, I got it in my first try, so there is no need to worry too much; but I also noticed that among the three resources required, Food was the slowest to gather, so you may want to research some upgrades without spending too much Gold.

By the sweat of your brow
Earned by player who has collected 1 000 000 resources within 20 minutes of playing.


Even if it’s not specified in the description, you must play with Low or Rich (recommended) resources to gain this achievement.
The easiest way to harvest this amount of resources is to start a game with no AI or only allied AI, in order to concentrate only on your economy, starting in the XVIII century to access all the Mill upgrades, and starting with the option “Army of peasants” enabled.
Build two Town Centers (and start producing Peasants) and two Mills as soon as the mission starts, plus a Storehouse near some Stone.
Start gathering Stone and Wood, but concentrate mainly on Stone; then build a Forge, a Barrack, a Market and an Academy, and research all the resource gathering improvements (if you lack Gold sell some Iron): gather enough Stone and Wood to build another Town Center, then concentrate exclusively on gathering Stone and Food; set the Town Centers to build infinite Peasants, and set the rally point for two of them on Stone deposits, while the third one on Food: as soon as you reach enough Food to fully maintain your Peasants (with all the upgrades 35 Peasants gathering Food should be enough), set the rally point for the last Town Center on Stone too.
From this point on, you can relax: you’ll obtain your achievement soon enough.

The conqueror
Earned by player who has constructed another nation's town center using captured peasants in the course of a single game.

Capturing an enemy Town Center counts towards this achievement and it’s easier, you can actually do without even noticing when attacking the enemy base.

Admiral
Earned by player who has constructed a ship of the line.


To build a Ship of the Line, you’ll need to research the corresponding upgrade in the Academy first, then build the ship itself.
It goes without saying that in order to build ships, you need to play on a map with water.

General Achievements (Part II)

The architect
Earned by player who has constructed 5 town centers in the course of a single game, beginning with low or average starting resources.

Starting with average resources (Rich in the options) allows you to build two Town Centers immediately, for the other three, however, you’ll need to gather Wood and Stone: the third one should cost about 6000 units of each, while the fourth 18900 units and the fifth 56700.

Capable war minister
Earned by player who has constructed 5 XVIII century barracks in the course of a single game, beginning with low or average starting resources.

This achievement will require a lot of patience: the first Barrack will cost 1700 Wood, 2950 Stone and 12000 Gold; the second one 3400 Wood, 5900 Stone and 25000 Gold; the third one 6800 Wood, 11800 Stone and 50000 Gold; the fourth one
13600 Wood, 23600 Stone and 100000 Gold and the fifth one 27200 Wood, 47200 Stone and 200000 Gold.
A strong production of Gold is vital: try to fully expand at least three mines.

Black friday
Earned by player who has sold 1 000 000 resources at the market in the course of a single game.

Just start a game with Millions of resources, quickly build a Market, and sell the required amount of resources. Easy.

The builder of walls
Earned by player who has constructed 50 wall sections in the course of a single game.


Just build Walls until you get the achievement, really easy.
Note that Ukraine cannot build Walls and Towers, so they are ineligible for this achievement.

Fortification engineer
Earned by player who has constructed 10 towers in the course of a single game.


Towers cost a small amount of Stone, thus this achievement shouldn’t be too difficult. Anyway, if you find yourself lacking some Stone, destroy some Towers you’ve already constructed to reduce the cost for new ones.

The Thunderer
Earned by player who has installed all rate of fire upgrades at a tower.


The fire upgrades are researched at the Tower, and influence that specific Tower only: for this reason, they are quite cheap, and require only a small amount of Coal and Iron.

Lord of the sea
Earned by player who has constructed 10 shipyards in the course of a single game.


By starting the match with Millions of the resources, obtaining the achievement will not take too long.

Shipwright
Earned by player who has constructed 100 fishing boats.


Before attempting this achievement, research the upgrade at the Academy aimed to reduce Boats’ production cost, since Boats can get expensive very quickly; also, don’t try to build them at once, else their price will skyrocket: build small batches, then destroy them until you get the achievement.

City builder
Earned by player who has constructed 100 housing in the course of a single game.


This achievement will only require some patience, since Houses are very cheap: they only require a small amount of Wood and Stone, and are very quickly to erect, even while using only a few Peasants.

To the bowels of Earth
Earned by player who has boosted mine capacity to 95 workers.


The quickest way to obtain this achievement is to start a game with Millions of resources and the XVIII century already reached, then build a mine and start boosting it: otherwise, you’ll need to reach the XVIII century by yourself and stock up a lot of Food, Gold and Iron to research all the upgrades.

The beginnings of the regular army
Earned by player who has gathered soldiers into a regiment.


This achievement seems to be bugged: I didn’t obtain it during random matches, but rather, during the third mission of the Asutiran campaign, despite the fact that in previous missions I’ve gathered more than enough regiments.

Military traditions
Earned by player who has reinforced 10 times a regiment that lost over half of its manpower.

It’s quite easy to obtain this achievement, and does not require fighting any enemy: gather a Pikeman regiment of 36-72 men, then start producing other Pikemen indefinitely; order the regiment in Line formation, then gather some Cannons and order them to bombard your Pikemen: when at least half of the Pikemen are dead, reinforce them, repeating the process until you get the achievement.
Note that you don’t have to reinforce always the same regiment: so if you kill some much troops causing the regiment to break, you don’t have to start all over.

General Achievements (Part III)

Agrarian development
Earned by player who has installed an upgrade at the mill.


Simplest achievement in game: just build a Mill and research the upgrade to boost food production.
Note that you have to obtain the achievement you must research the upgrade at the Mill, the Academy upgrades do not count

Metal hedgehog
Earned by player who has researched 3 attack and defense upgrades for the XVII century pikemen.

The upgrades for Pikemen costs meagre amounts of Food and Gold, so this is another achievement that should come quite easy.
Note that you need to upgrade the XVII century standard Pikemen, the only used by all the European nation except Ukraine, the Ottoman Pikemen is invalid for the achievement.

Above the clouds
Earned by player who has constructed a montgolfier.


The Montgolfier can be researched in the Academy during the XVIII century, and costs 1750 units of Gold.
Note that starting the match with the option to have the Montgolfier already researched will not unlock the achievement.

Horse breeder
Earned by player who has researched all cavalry production speed and attack upgrades at the smithy.

To obtain this achievement you need to research the “Forge new types of broadswords and sabres” and “Forge harnesses for horses” upgrades from the Blacksmith.

Mining development
Earned by player who has researched all upgrades to wood and stone collection.


There are in total two upgrades to Stone gathering and one to Wood cutting, all researched in the Academy.

Big bang
Earned by player who has researched all firepower upgrades at the academy.


The firepower upgrades are the ones that increase the rate of fire of all ranged units and ships, they generally cost Gold
in normal or high quantities and small amounts of Iron or Coal.

Unbreakable walls
Earned by player who has researched all toughness upgrades for buildings and fortifications.

Apart from the mandatory upgrades from the Academy, there is also one upgrade that must be researched at the Blacksmith.

Patron of sciences
Earned by player who has researched all possible upgrades in the course of a single game.

To obtain this achievement, you’ll need to research all the Academy upgrades (Including the ones for your ships, so you’ll need to play on a map with water), all the Forge upgrades and all the Mill upgrades.

Sea sickness
Earned by player who has crossed river on a ferry on a random map.

Be sure to not pick a Mediterranean map, since it doesn't count as a river.

Turn the cannons!
Earned by player who has captured 20 cannons in the course of a single game.

The enemy AI at lower difficulties seems quite fond of sending two or three cannons along with a small number of infantry to assault your base: you can easily exploit this by quickly dispatching the infantry and taking the cannons yourself. Researching the montgolfier to predict the enemy's movements is also a huge help.


The destroyer
Earned by player who has burnt down 10 enemy buildings.


The scourge of God
Earned by player who has burnt down 100 enemy buildings.


As reported by Earl Komrad those achievements seems to be working again, albeit still a bit bugged: I obtained both of them at the same time after bombarding an enemy city for about three quarter hours.

By the way, the best buildings to target are the Mines, since they are very fragile and light guarded by the enemy troops; they are also usually built far from the enemy's base, thus the peasants will likely not reach them in time to repair them.

Be mindful that you have to actually destroying the enemy building while it is still in the enemy's possess, so capturing and destroying them does not count.

File History

15/04/17: Guide published.
02/10/17: Removed mentions of bugged achievements, added description for some bugged ones, added disclaimer about bugged achievements.
14/10/17: Added mail support.

[ΣριςШιlloш]

I've got a question on French Campaign - Second Mission - It's all about respect Achievement. I have let first city kept their Town Center, and let Slave Trader continue with his 'business'. Now which village is the 3rd one that we should keep peasants from looting it? I've replayed this mission like 5 times already....

[General Scorpion]

anyone wanna join together to get these multiplayer win/loss achievements? msg or add me...

[BOBOUDA]

Thanks a lot for your work, that made a lot of them very easy.

There's just a few general achievements that don't seem to work at all, no idea why considering how simple they are and while other simple ones work perfectly.

The Thunderer
Earned by player who has installed all rate of fire upgrades at a tower.
(I clearly improved everything there was to improve about a tower)

Lord of the sea
Earned by player who has constructed 10 shipyards in the course of a single game.
(Clearly built 10 of them, even more)

City builder
Earned by player who has constructed 100 housing in the course of a single game.
(I built at least 120)

Patron of sciences
Earned by player who has researched all possible upgrades in the course of a single game.
(I've done everything from academy, forge, mills, military units, gates in fortifications, towers...)

[Edztえどぜて]

" Musketeer, kust recruited in a Prussian" kust = must
mind you make guide about all campaign's benefit such as treasure, best decision/answer on ppls you encounter, safe passage/unsafe bandit infested(do not enter area), good spot = terrain advantage, height advantage
and so on it mainly focussed on a guide to (attempt) completing campaign at Impossibruh difficulty

[Erenussocrates]

I think you've confused your directions on the Blitzkrieg achievement guide

[Time4DarK]

Sorry to hear that :(

Unfortunately, sometimes certain achievements get bugged and cannot be received. If a simple restart of the game or that specific mission does not help, then there are two paths:
1. Emailing the profile.dat from documents\cossacks\[profilename] folder with a list of achievements to developer's support at [e-mail]
2. Fixing the problem manually via this community guide Broken achievements fix

[Erenussocrates]

Yes I did land it in the same spanish port and the wagon changed control anyway

[Time4DarK]

Please specify did you land a ferry in the friendly port? For example, I landed it in a purple Spanish port just slightly above the Algerian base from where you pick up the merchant. That got me an achievement.

[Erenussocrates]

wtf, even though I've gotten the merchant wagon off the island without alerting the berbers, I've got no achievement. That's super fd up

[Time4DarK]

For «The devil's cunning» achievement It is useful to follow recommendations from this post: How to get The devil's cunning achievement