Before continuing onto the main body of the guide, be sure to take note of this: No achievements can be earned outside of multiplayer (with the exception of Merry Christmas), so attempting to do them in single player will not unlock them.


For those among you that either cannot find suitable games, or simply hate people, it is technically possible complete all the achievements in multiplayer without anyone's help. How? Simple!

Introversion has a demo version of DEFCON available to download from their website[www.introversion.co.uk], and using it, you can create a discrete instance of the game that runs alongside the Steam version, effectively allowing you to multi-box your way to victory. In the event that you need more than 2 players, the AI can safely be used to fill-in the needed players.

On the 11th of January, 2017, Introversion stopped supporting the official DEFCON site. At the time of writing, the site still exists, but it is a shell of it's former self; and the download page no longer exists.

Thankfully, the demo can still be downloaded from the game's Steam page, so it is still possible to multi-box to get any achievements you have missed, after grabbing a second Steam account.

Backstabber

"Call a vote and convince your allies to kick a team member, a total of 10 times."

The easiest way to get this is to simply start up a game of Diplomacy, and have a player who you continuously kick and have re-join your two person alliance (since it still counts as a "vote").

Brave Sacrifice

"Loose 500 pilots due to running out of fuel"

This achievement can easily be gotten during normal play, simply make sure that before the game ends, you send out all your remaining bombers so that they are unable to return to any airbases before they run out of fuel; the numbers will add up fast enough.

To help ensure the bombers are not destroyed by enemy attack, be sure to fly them away from any known enemy units. Obviously, in real games it is best to do this after the bomber's MRBMs have all been used.

Diplomat

"Win an online game of Diplomacy."

Simply make a 1v1 online game of Diplomacy, and win it.

All of these achievements are self-explanatory. Easily done in normal gameplay. If attempting this against an unwilling opponent, focus extra nukes on the target cities, especially if you know that there are silos nearby. Also remember synchronize launches such that they all arrive at the same time.

Explore Africa

"Nuke Chiro and Kinchasa in a single match."



Explore Asia

"Nuke Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in a single match."



Explore Europe

"Nuke London, Rome, and Berlin in a single match."



Explore North America

"Nuke Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco in a single match."



Explore Russia

"Nuke Moscow and Leningrad in a single match."



Explore South America

"Nuke Mexico, Sao Paolo, and Lima in a single match.

Had Enough Yet?

"Nuke a city with a population already reduced to 0.0M."

The easiest method to do this (rather wastefully) is to launch every single nuclear weapon you have at a single enemy city at the same time. Silos, bombers, subs - every single one.

If done with even a remote amount of competence, no amount of effort from any number of players working together will be able to stop you from completely annihilating the target city you have chosen quite simply due to the sheer number of missiles flying into such a small area.

Hit And Run

"Launch all nukes from a fleet of six subs and escape without loosing a single sub in the process."

This is best done against large territories with lots of coastline (i.e. Asia, Russia), as proper manoeuvring will minimise your chances of the subs being caught in range of an airbase (or even a radar, in some cases).

You can also take the fleet out into the middle of the ocean and have them dump their nukes in the sea, which is much less risky, but very wasteful.

Kill The World

"Nuke 7 billion civilians."

Rather conveniently, the score of the game is measured in Megadeaths, which is equal to 1 million people. Therefore, killing 1 billion people is equal to 1 000 points (2 000 points in default mode). Extending this to the full 7 billion needed, you must get 7 000 points (14 000 points in default mode).

The easiest way to farm for this is to start a 2 player game with 3 territories each, 1 city per territory, with a population of 200 million per territory.

2 ICBM silos per city is the minimum you can place to ensure quick repeatability. Each game will yield 600 million deaths, meaning you will need to do this 12 times at most.

Lone Warrior

"Win a six player game without ever being in an alliance."

The easiest method of doing this is to have yourself playing as South America and a second player as North America, with the rest of the slots being AI players. South America is ideal, as it is isolated from all the other continents except North America. Set the score mode to survivor, and only 1 city per territory. Surround your sole city with all 6 of your silos.

Despite not officially being an ally, North America's entire job is to protect you from attack, and this strategy is centred around this.

North America will function as a protective umbrella, placing it's silos on it's border with you. LRBMs launched by Asia, Europe, and Russia mostly need to pass over North America to reach you. North America's missile silos will therefore be able to intercept them before your silos are in range, freeing them to focus on bombers or submarine launches instead.

The main threat you face is Africa, as their nuclear silos are all able to slip under North America's defences to reach you. Therefore, it is important to focus on defeating the African navy and establish control of the South Atlantic. North America can help with both it's naval and air forces, but be aware that it will also need to contend with the crossfire from the Asian, European, and Russian fleets.

When DEFCON 1 hits, all the AI will bomb each other, bringing them below the winning score. To ensure that the African nuclear silos cannot trouble you, use your carriers and subs to launch nuclear bombers at them as soon as possible.

A friendly nuclear strike on North America's after the other nations have exhausted their nuclear arsenals will also ensure that it drops below the winning threshold, allowing you a comfortable win.

Mary Christmas

"Nuke Santa and thereby end Christmas for everyone, for ever more."

This achievement is the only one that can be earned in single player.

To have a chance at nuking Santa, your system clock must be set to December 24th. You can either wait for this to occur naturally, or just change your clock to get this.

Santa cannot be locked onto by nukes, he must be caught in the splash zone of a nuclear explosion. To make it as easy as possible, go into the game advanced settings, and make sure each territory has only 1 city to reduce the number of places he can go.

Get a few bombers into the air and set them all to MRBM Mode. Have them circle a city as close as possible until Santa draws near. When he is at point blank range with a bomber, have them launch a nuke right in front of themselves, hopefully killing Santa in the process.

Congratulations. Little Timothy will never get his present.

Nice Try

"Sink an entire fleet of six subs, before they can launch a single nuke."

This is ideally done by destroying the submerged subs with an ASW carrier before they have a chance to arm their missiles.

If the subs surface next to an airbase (or several), this achievement is in the bag. Even a squad of fighters can decimate a sub group.

Perfectly Timed Betrayal

"Defect from an ally, then land a nuke on one of their cities within 10 seconds."

Launch a bomber towards an allied city (preferably out of range from any silos or airbases), and set it to MRBM Mode as soon as it's in the air. Once the bomber is right above the city, go to the slowest speed, defect from the ally, and launch the nuke at the city. The bomber will be lost in the process, but at least you got the achievement!

Pre-Emptive Striker.

"Destroy a total of 50 enemy silos before they can launch any Nukes."

Best done against a small territory (i.e. Europe) so that you can easily scout them to locate all their installations. As soon as DEFCON 1 is in effect, fire everything at them. Depending on the game mode, it is likely they will keep at least some of the silos in Air Defense Mode to try and mitigate the bombardment. If they do switch to ICBM mode, use your subs and any carrier bombers you might have to quickly eliminate them while they are defenseless. In the latter case, be aware of enemy airbases.

Recon Expert

"Uncover all ground bases belonging to a single enemy team before DEFCON 1."

This is best done against a small, easily scouted territory (*cough*Europe*cough*, seeing a pattern here). Simply use a combination of your own radar, scout planes, and even fleets if needed to find every single building they have placed before time runs out.

Reserves

"Win an online game with at least half of your nukes still remaining."

For maximum ease of success, simply go into the advanced game options, and set the victory timer to go off after only a few nukes have been fired, and then use the strategy for the Lone Warrior Achievement.

Survivor

"Win an online game of Survivor with at least 90% of your population still alive."

Your best hope for dong this legitimately is to be Europe in Europe Vs. North America. Because any ICBMs launched by the USA must go over the North Pole to reach Europe, a battery of silos can be placed in Scandinavia and Iceland (along with a radar on the very west tip of Iceland for maximum advance warning).

As long as you manage to keep control of the sea, hopefully destroying the enemy subs in the process, you should easily be able to destroy the missiles that the USA will send. In the event that the Iceland radar is destroyed, you can use your fleet (if you still have one) as an emergency radar to allow your silos to engage enemy nukes in flight.

While they are busy launching all of those ICBMs, launch your bombers to take out as many coastal cities as possible, maybe a few silos too for a follow-up attack.

Victory

"Win a game online."

Self-explanatory. Will be earned by normal gameplay. Be sure to check one of the strategy guides for tips on how to win harder.

Wasteful

Destroy a total of 50 enemy ships with Nukes.

This is a tactic called "Naval Nuking." Some people frown on it, some people love it. It can be a good way to screw up a naval battle in your favor late game, or just to destroy any subs if you happen to have an armed bomber nearby.

Note that you cannot actually directly target ships with nukes (with bombers at least, and they're the only things that can land a certain hit on a moving fleet. They'll just go into Naval Bombing Mode). To hit an enemy ship, zoom in as close as you can, and nuke next to the ship, and it'll be caught in the splash zone. Repeat as many times as needed.