The BUGGED Achievement Guide

Bugged Achievements generally do not unlock under the conditions that they were meant to based on the intentions described in the achievement description and name. This may be a result of faulty game code logic. As a result of this, it may be confusing to figure out what you need to do to unlock them. This guide covers the more obtuse bugged achievements where the description and achievement name don't help you understand what it needs, rather then the easy bugged achievements where they are bugged because AI players can unlock them for you. These easy bug achievements will be documented in this guide, however, its purpose is not to cover these types of achievements with detailed techniques.

Unclear achievements are not bugged, but, could mislead players from specific conditions or DLC expansion packs that are needed to unlock them. Clear examples of these types, are achievements that can only unlock when certain DLC is loaded like Gods and Kings or Brave New World. Even when theoretically the achievement could be unlocked outside of that specific DLC, whether that is in the base vanilla game Civilization V, the Gods and Kings expansion, or the Brave New World expansion.
The bonus DLC-only civs also have their own unique achievements like victory achievements and situational ones. These achievements are pretty clear on what needs to be done and which DLC content is required.

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Contributor Help Needed!
This guide is looking for volunteer contributors to help make this guide better. The nature of tricky bugged out achievement is that there are likely many different tricks, tips, and strategies to unlock them. If you know a technique that works or a missing bugged achievement that is not covered by this guide, please submit to be added as a guide contributor and spread the Civ 5 knowledge to other achievement hunters out there.
The guide could especially use help from those that are versed in the Civ 5 source code and can logically explain what a bugged achievement's explicit unlock conditions are.

Currently, in March 2023, this guide is a work-in-progress, so, it is incomplete. You are welcome to help by contributing or leaving suggestion(s) in the comments. Any help you provide is appreciated.

Some achievements are exclusive to certain DLC expansion packs so you cannot unlock them without that expansion pack being activated for the game match that you're playing.
Here you will learn how to run the game with specific expansion packs and/or content enabled / disabled.
It is not recommended to try unlocking the achievements with Civ 5 mods enabled because the achievements may not unlock at all with the mods activated due to the unknown and varying degrees to which the mods may have modified the original game and its official expansion packs.
It is useful to know how to do this since some achievements may only be unlocked when the game is running a certain version of the Civ V game.
It can be achieved with either Steam or Civ 5 in-game options menu.

This is the easiest method of switching certain expansion packs and DLC content on and off since you should not have to even reinstall, install, or uninstall anything to switch nor should you even need to restart the game! 1. Launch Sid Meier's Civilization V and get to the main menu screen.

2. Select the "DLC" option from this menu.

3. You will then be presented with a list of all the DLC content packs that you have installed, you can toggle them on/off one-by-one, this will affect the single player game that you launch.

The most useful of these options would be the ability to toggle Brave New World and God and Kings expansion pack. These expansion packs have a direct effect on which version of Civ V, your next new match will be running in. This has a direct impact on certain achievements that may only by unlocked within a certain version of Civ 5.
In other words, there are achievements that are only unlockable in vanilla base game Civilization 5. There are also achievements that may only be unlocked in a Gods and Kings game, and finally ditto for Brave New World exclusive achievements. You can get an inventory of what exact DLC packs and content you have available to you by going to the properties page for Sid Meier's Civilization V in your steam library. This is useful to know whether you have the required content to unlock certain achievements. After you right-click and open the "Properties..." dialog option, select "DLC" from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen.
You should see a complete list of any DLC content that you have available to you from Steam and which content is currently installed. You can deactivate certain content if you want to disable it in-game.

This bugged achievement is exactly why this guide was written.
The description for this achievement reads:

We are Family

Become the dominant Religion in every Capital city on a standard-size or larger map.

It's been many players' experience that simply establishing their religion as the dominant one in every capital city on a standard or larger type map DOES NOT unlock this achievement; however, it may still be unlocked. There are many stories out there of how different players manage to unlock it. At the time of this writing, the guide's author(s) have some strategies listed below for unlocking it. If you have a good strategy that isn't listed here, please suggest it in the comments or become a contributor to this guide! We appreciate the help!

Requirements
These requirements are clearly needed to unlock 'we are family'.

• Gods and Kings expansion pack (Brave New World may work but unverified)
  
• Standard or larger sized map

There is one seemingly clear rule to follow no matter which of the strategies listed below, you take to unlock this achievement:
Do not focus on spreading the religion that was established in your own capital if you did establish a religion there (this seems to be the major point of confusion)

1. Get rid of all your cities and spread your religion to any other player's capital
Setup the game to have complete kills activated (complete kills means players won't be eliminated until all of their cities and any available units are destroyed).
As player 1 (default in any single player game), get rid of all your cities. Before you do, collect missionaries or great prophets to spread your religion after you have no cities.
Without any cities in your possession, use your missionaries and prophets to spread the religion to another alive and active player's capital city. The achievement should unlock afterwards.

2. Spread the religion of a dead player 1 (hot-seat only)
Start a hot-seat match and eliminate player 1 after player 1 spreads their religion to another player that you control. After player 1 is eliminated, spread their religion to another player's capital city. Achievement should unlock.

3. Using your own established religion
You may be able to unlock this with your own established religion but you must follow some rules exactly or the achievement will NOT unlock.

• Establish your religion in another secondary non-capital city. Making this city the holy city and founding city of your religion.
  
• Do not have your religion founded in your capital!
  
• The holy city of the religion CANNOT be a capital.
  
• Once your religion is established and founded, begin targeting other players' capital cities with missionaries and great prophets (Make sure these units belong to your intended religion you're spreading!)
  
• Your capital should have the pantheon of gods established in it

Following the rules and steps above, you should unlock the achievement. A contributor for this guide was able to unlock the achievement this way in the Gods and Kings expansion pack after converting only a single AI civ's capital city. Why? Nobody knows, but it worked.

4. Have an AI civ player unlock it for you
Some players claimed that AI players have unlocked this achievement for them. Most likely this happened by AI players spreading their religion to other capitals.

5. Spreading an AI civ's religion that was spread to you

• Allow another civ to spread their religion to your cities
  
• After you have a city with an opposing player's religion as the dominant religion, begin spreading that religion to each player's capital and your own capital.

Due to the confusing nature of this achievement, you may find it helpful to read the following civ fanatics thread on the "We are Family" achievement:
Civ Fanatics - "WE ARE FAMILY" did you get the badge? If so, how?[forums.civfanatics.com] From the civ fanatics thread, a poster named notimminently shared an analysis of what the game code logic is doing:

Originally posted by notimminently:

Model of a Modern Major-General

Train all Units, across any number of playthroughs.

This achievement isn’t exactly bugged, but, it’s not as straightforward on what you need to do.
This achievement targets vanilla Civ 5 units. So forget about any DLC units and civs. Don’t worry if you’ve been playing on the expansion packs while working to earn this one, those units should still count towards the long list of units that need to be trained or purchased — for the most part anyway.

Here's where a lot of people will get lost.
There are Civ 5 specific units that you’ll need to train, these units were removed as trainable unique units in Brave New World. These are likely the last units needed on the list if you’ve been playing on BNW. They are the unique units for France and Germany that were dropped in Brave New World. The French Foreign Legion and the German Landsknecht.

Purchasing the units or producing the units counts towards the achievement although earning the units by bonus from either policy (Freedom Volunteer Army ideological tenet) or being gifted the unit from a city-state does not seem to count.

Unit Checklist

Master of the Universe

Beat the game on any difficulty setting with each leader.

It needs to be clarified that you do not need to beat the game with every civilization to earn this one. It only tracks the original 18 vanilla Civ 5 civilizations. All DLC civs are excluded from this achievement i.e. DLC civs do not count.

You MAY however earn the victories in either Civ 5, Gods and Kings, or Brave New World. The victories will count in any of the expansion packs or the base civ 5 game.

The original 18 civs to track victories for this achievement are:

• America
  
• England
  
• France
  
• Rome
  
• Germany
  
• Russia
  
• Greece
  
• Egypt
  
• Songhai
  
• Arabia
  
• Persia
  
• India
  
• Siam
  
• China
  
• Japan
  
• Iroquois
  
• Aztec
  
• Ottoman

Barbary Pirate

As Suleiman, accumulate a navy with 10 Barbarian naval units.

This achievement is mostly straight-forward but there are some buggy pitfalls: you need to play as Suleiman and use the Ottomans' unique ability Barbary corsair. With the Barbary corsair ability, Ottoman naval units have a 50/50 chance to automatically convert a barbarian naval unit to your side when your naval unit moves into a tile that is adjacent to the barbarian naval unit. You need to do this 10 times and keep those barbarian ships until you unlock the achievement after converting the 10th ship.

The bugs
The first bug is that this achievement only unlocks in an original vanilla Civilization 5 match. You will not be able to unlock this ability in either the Gods and Kings or Brave New World expansion packs -- it simply doesn't work even though it's easier to convert Barbarian naval units in the expansion packs than the original Civ 5.
So, it is very important, that when you're going for this achievement that you disable the Brave New World and Gods and Kings expansion packs before starting the match.

The second bug is actually a useful exploit. This is another achievement that an AI Civ can unlock for you. If an AI Suleiman accumulates a Barbarian navy of 10 units, the achievement will unlock.

Intrigue is one of the most overlooked components of Civ 5 that many players probably don't realize what it is and how to do it. It is a part of the espionage game play mechanic that was introduced in the Gods and Kings expansion pack for Civ V. It's very useful for players that are trying to achieve diplomatic victory. Espionage is also available in Brave New World.
Intrigue is obtained through spies that are in other AI civ player's cities. You are likely to collect intrigue from warmonger players that are constantly switching sides and plotting against other players. The more leveled up the spies are, the higher quality intrigue that they gather from other players. Spies' experience levels range from level 1 to 3, with 3 being a high quality spy. Spies get promoted to a high level after either stealing a technology or killing enemy spies in your cities.

Intelligence Network

Share intrigue with a player who previously shared intrigue with you.

The description is pretty clear on what needs to happen; however, this achievement only unlocks in the Gods and Kings expansion pack. It will never unlock in Brave New World no matter how many times you share intrigue with the same civ that has shared intrigue with you.
So, make sure that you are running the match with Gods and Kings rules when going for this achievement.

This can be frustrating since AI civs very rarely share intrigue in typical civ matches, they tend to have their spies focus on stealing technology, rigging city-state elections for diplomatic victory, or playing defense in their own cities.

Popping this achievement is down to luck -- it all hinges on an AI civ sharing intrigue with you, which rarely happens. Here are some suggestions that will increase your odds of getting intrigue from another civ and finally scoring the achievement:

Play a match on the highest difficulty setting
Play the match on deity or the highest that you can handle. The higher difficulties will give the AI civ a research advantage which simply gives your spies opportunities to level up by stealing tech. Your spies should be on the offensive anyways. Since, you'll likely be behind in research than the other civs, you won't need to worry about parking spies in your civ to defend against other spies.

Play as England (for the extra spy)
England gets an extra spy, the more spies to play with, the better the odds of turning up intrigue.

No City-States!
No city-states! Set City-States to 0. The AI players tend to focus on sending spies to city states to rig elections for diplomatic victory and for general influence and resources. Deactivate city-states so none of the players will get distracted by them.

Play on the latest era
Play on the latest era to maximize operating spies. Again, the more operating spies there are, the better the odds of collecting intrigue for both you and your mystery buddy in the match, who will eventually share intrigue with you.

Play against at least 4 opponents
You'll want to have enough opponents where you can have a spy surveillance each capital.
Pick at least 5 opponents if you're playing as England since you'll get an extra spy.

Play the match, prioritize building spy wonders
Prioritize building espionage bonus wonders like the National Intelligence Agency and Great Firewall. Target Satellites for research too. This reveals the entire map and all players' capitals and cities. Surviving long enough to complete achievement.

Wait for a civ to finally share intrigue with you
Play the game patiently waiting for a civ to share intrigue with you. As you play, pick enemies and pick friends. Your friends are the civs that are most likely going to share intrigue with you. Enemies will rarely share intrigue with you as the negative interactions build up -- this doesn't matter b/c you're going to need common enemies too!

Set all opponents to England
If you set all your opponents to England, there'll be even more spies roaming which increases the chances for intrigue !

Get a target adversarial civ
You're going to need a common enemy(ies). As you get negative interactions with a civ, that is going to be your target civ, fill their cities with your spies as you make new buddies and relocate spies from your buddies' cities to adversarial ones. Goad your enemies into making moves against you, which should get other civ spies intrigue opportunities to finally share with you.

Finally a civ shares intrigue with you
Once a civ finally shares intrigue with you, they're your buddy, relocate any spies you have in their civ to other civs especially a civ that is likely to make moves against your new buddy.
Now it's waiting game, wait until one of your spies finally encounters moves being made against your buddy(ies). Share the intrigue and get the achievement.

These achievements can be a little confusing and misleading as to how to unlock them for Brave New World players.
The Order, Autocracy, and Freedom policy trees only exist in the Civilization V base vanilla game and the Gods and Kings expansion pack. These policy trees become Ideology trees in Brave New World. You cannot unlock these achievements in Brave New World by completely unlocking the whole ideology trees for order, autocracy, or freedom. It will only count when you unlock the whole policy trees in either Gods and Kings or Civ 5.
You can unlock the whole tree like any other if you either unload the Brave New World expansion pack or play on a Civ 5 or Gods and Kings scenario that permits unlocking these social policy trees like the Into the Renaissance scenario.

TO UNLOCK THESE, You must be playing Civ 5 vanilla or Gods and Kings DLC expansion pack.

Freedom Isn't Free

Fully Explore the Freedom Policy Track.

Diplomacy by Other Means

Fully Explore the Autocracy Policy Track.

With an Iron Fist

Fully Explore the Order Policy Track.

Merchant Prince

Generate 200 gold per turn via Trade Routes.

This achievement isn't tricky, simply generate more than 200 gold per turn with any number of trade routes. It is included in this guide because you may not notice it unlock until after the match is done. In other words, it won't unlock right after your trade routes begin giving you more than 200 gold per turn in game, but, after you're victorious or defeated in the match.

When going for this achievement, increase the difficulty level so that you have more competent AI players that will have more gold available for trade route commerce with their cities. Almost any civ should be able to reach more than 200 GPT (gold per turn) in late game. The wonders Petra, Colossus, and Dutch East India Company help provide boosts. Cargo ships tend to have more gold yield for GPT than caravans. If you are really struggling with this achievement, try playing with either Portugal or Venice. Those 2 civs have exclusive trade route benefits that will increase your GPT even more when used to the fullest.

This is a general list of the achievements that are bugged because AI civ players can unlock them for you. These achievements are not tricky in any way, they may be unlocked by either yourself or an AI civ under the described unlock conditions.

Yoink!

As Austria, acquire a City-State with 15 or more units through Diplomatic Marriage.

Barbary Pirate

As Suleiman, accumulate a navy with 10 Barbarian naval units.

Barbarian Warlord

As Bismarck, convert the Barbarians from 10 camps to your side.

Expressing thanks and gratitude to the following who helped work on this bugged achievement guide or contributed to its content in some way.

A thank you to these guide contributors for helping any frustrated civ 5 players, achievement hunters, and completionists out there.