Total War: SHOGUN 2 Achievements: The 26 Rarest, and What Each One Demands
The 26 rarest Total War: SHOGUN 2 achievements with Steam completion rates, grouped by campaign, multiplayer, Fall of the Samurai and battle feats.

Short answer: SHOGUN 2 has 105 achievements; Steam publishes rates for 26 of them, and they are the rare end of the list — from 4.0% up to 69.4%. Average completion across those 26 is 13.9%. The rarest is All Aboard! at 4.0% (build a railway between two provinces, Fall of the Samurai only).
The single most useful number here is the highest one: Unnecessary Force at 69.4% — wipe out an enemy unit. That is the "actually played a battle" baseline. Everything else is measured against it, and the drop from 69.4% to 7.9% (becoming Shogun) is the real story of this game's achievement list.
105 total, 26 with public rates
| Source | Count | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Steam store page | 105 | All achievement slots (base game + Fall of the Samurai) |
| Steam community page — visible | 26 | Achievements with a public name and global rate |
| Steam community page — hidden | 79 | Not described until unlocked |
A note on what "26 visible" means here: these are not the 26 easiest or the 26 you will hit first. They are the slice Steam surfaces with rates, and in practice that means the hard tail — the ones most players never touch.
Baseline: 69.4% played a battle
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Unnecessary Force | Completely wipe out an enemy unit | 69.4% |
| Commander of Commoners | Keep 4+ ashigaru units for a whole battle without routing | 50.1% |
Wiping out a unit is something you do in your first hour. At 69.4%, roughly 30% of owners never got that far — normal for a 2011 game that has spent years in bundles and sales.
So when you see 7.9% for becoming Shogun, keep the denominator in mind: it is not 7.9% of players who tried the campaign, it is 7.9% of everyone who owns the game.
Campaign completions: only 7-8% finish at all
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| A Promising Beginning | Win a campaign on easy | 6.9% |
| A Respectable Rule | Win a campaign on normal | 5.3% |
| Divine Right | Become Shogun in the grand campaign | 7.9% |
This trio is the most interesting anomaly in the list: becoming Shogun (7.9%) is more common than winning on normal (5.3%).
That is not a bug. Divine Right presumably counts a Shogun victory on any difficulty, while A Respectable Rule requires normal or above. So it tells you something specific: of the people who finish a campaign, most do it on easy. Only about two-thirds of finishers ever play at normal.
If you are planning a completion run, that is worth knowing — the difficulty achievements are a separate commitment, not a by-product of finishing.
Multiplayer: a very small population
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Forged in the Hottest Flame | Win your first multiplayer battle | 9.6% |
| Swift and Deadly | Win a MP battle losing under 15% of your force | 7.7% |
| The Gathering Storm | Win a MP battle using no cavalry | 6.0% |
Winning one multiplayer battle sits at 9.6% — barely above the single-player campaign completion (7.9%). For a game with a dedicated multiplayer scene since 2011, that rate is a reminder of how few owners ever queue: roughly one in ten.
The two conditional MP achievements (6.0%, 7.7%) then cut that population by a third. Both require deliberately handicapping yourself against a live opponent, which is a much bigger ask than doing it against the AI.
Fall of the Samurai: the least-played corner
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| All Aboard! | Build a railway between 2 provinces | 4.0% |
| Semper Fi | Win a battle with United States Marines | 4.8% |
| A Journey Begins | Play a historical battle | 4.9% |
| Embrace the New | Max clan development | 11.6% |
| Hard Pounding | Call in naval fire support in a land battle | 16.2% |
Five of the six rarest achievements in the entire list are Fall of the Samurai. The standalone expansion requires owning it and starting a campaign in it, which explains the 4–5% band for its early achievements.
The exception is Hard Pounding at 16.2%, which is higher than most base-game feats. Naval bombardment is easy to trigger once you are in a Fall of the Samurai coastal battle — so the constraint is entering the expansion, not doing the thing.
Clan extermination and map control
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Eradicate the Ikko-Ikki | Wipe out the Ikko-Ikki | 4.7% |
| Eradicate the Hattori | Wipe out the Hattori | 4.9% |
| Holder of Shikoku | Control every province on Shikoku | 10.3% |
| Holder of Kyushu | Control every province on Kyushu | 11.5% |
Wiping out a specific clan is harder than completing a campaign in raw rate terms (4.7–4.9% vs 7.9%), because it requires both a long campaign and the right neighbour still existing when you get there. The Ikko-Ikki and Hattori are also awkward starts to fight — one is a religious faction, the other is stealth-focused.
The island-control pair (10.3%, 11.5%) sits above campaign completion, which makes sense: you can hold Shikoku long before you win.
Battle feats: the ones that scale with playtime
| Achievement | Requirement | Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Head-Hunter | Collect 10,000 enemy heads | 29.1% |
| Redoubtable | As defender, recapture a tower | 27.0% |
| Requiem of the Dead | Win a defensive siege with your daimyo in winter | 16.5% |
| Balanced Attacker | Win with at least one of every class in the army | 14.2% |
| Living for Battle | Get a unit to maximum rank | 11.3% |
| The Army on the March | Win 25 land battles | 8.6% |
| Fearsome Commander of Men | Get a general to maximum level | 5.3% |
| Elusive Strike Force | Hide your entire army except the general | 8.1% |
Head-Hunter at 29.1% is the tell that heads accumulate across battles, not campaigns — you can farm 10,000 heads without ever finishing a war. Same logic for Redoubtable (27.0%), which just needs one siege where you retake a tower.
By contrast, Fearsome Commander of Men (5.3%) requires a general to survive to max level, which means keeping one unit alive through an entire campaign. That is rarer than winning the campaign itself (7.9%) — generals die.
What this means for a completion run
- Difficulty achievements are the bottleneck, not the campaign. Finishing on easy (6.9%) and normal (5.3%) are separate runs unless you start on normal.
- Do Fall of the Samurai achievements in one dedicated campaign. Five of the six rarest live there; dipping in for one battle will not move the list.
- Protect your general. Max-level general (5.3%) is rarer than a Shogun victory — one bad siege erases the run's progress.
- Multiplayer achievements need a partner, not skill. 9.6% have won one MP battle; the conditional ones (no cavalry, under 15% losses) are easiest to arrange with a cooperating opponent.
Frequently asked questions
How many achievements does SHOGUN 2 have?
105 across the base game and Fall of the Samurai. Steam publishes rates for 26 of them.
What is the rarest SHOGUN 2 achievement?
All Aboard! at 4.0% — construct a railway between two provinces in Fall of the Samurai.
Why is becoming Shogun more common than winning on normal?
Because Divine Right (7.9%) counts a Shogun victory on any difficulty, while A Respectable Rule (5.3%) requires normal or above. Most campaign finishers play on easy.
Are these the 26 easiest achievements?
No — the opposite. The visible set is the hard tail, which is why the range starts at 4.0% and the "you played a battle" baseline (69.4%) is the highest entry.
Do I need Fall of the Samurai for 100%?
Yes. Five of the six rarest achievements are Fall of the Samurai only, including the single rarest one.
Source note: Completion rates are Steam's global figures, read from the public achievement page for Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Complete Edition (App 3846830) on 20 October 2026; the 105-slot total comes from the store data. Achievement names and requirement text are Steam's wording, including the
[Fall of the Samurai only]markers. The difficulty-inference about Divine Right vs A Respectable Rule is an interpretation of the requirement text, not a stated rule.
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