China: Mao’s Legacy – Unthinkable Achievement Guide

“Unthinkable” is one of the 4 secret achievements of Mao’s Legacy. China’s achievement is that it has become the world’s dominant superpower and with the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which were weak, deciding to unite against her.

Here you have the screen that should appear when you get the achievement immediately following the conclusion of the game:

My advice is for you to read the entire guide before you start the game. It can be quite overwhelming for those who only spend a few hours in the game, so I recommend you try getting more regular achievements and playing various games as a left radical to gain more experience with the game.

It is needless to say that you need to get the left-radical Gang of Four into power because the Cultural Revolution trait is necessary for a more powerful China.

In order for you to get the achievement, China must have a world influence above 50, while both the US and the USSR must end with a world influence below 4 (visible on the “View” tab). Also, the US must have Ronald Reagan as president – which is inevitable with a very interventionist China on the world stage – and the USSR must have Grigory Romanov – one of Andropov’s colleagues, along with Gorbachev – as the leader.

Trick to Get this Achievement

There is one big trick to this achievement. And this requires not taking certain actions until near the end of the game, in December of 1985.

These actions should be the following:

• Support Maoists organizations in NATO and the Warsaw Pact
• Supporting Maoist Power in the Philippines, after the “Eternal President” event in June of 1981
• Dragging Mongolia out of Soviet influence and putting it under Chinese influence
• Invading the border islands next to Taiwan
• Invading Hong Kong and Macau
• Negotiate with Israel on the status of Palestine

Taking all of these actions will result in the USSR and US powers being reduced to 0 at the end of the game.

Next, I will expound on more details below about how you should get there.

Avoiding Sanctions

The more tricky part of the left-radical game is how to avoid early US economic sanctions, which will have very negative effects on China early in the game. The best way to avoid it is to do the following is to support a liberal and a reformist (preferably the liberal Zhao Zyiang or Hu Yaobang, and on the reformist side, Ye Jyaning or Deng) on the politics tab up to the 1st line of the party hierarchy and put them as MFA and Premier in order to stabilize relations with the USA.

This also implies that if the event is about reformists criticizing your policies within the party, you must select the “Pledge Democracy” option. It appears to me that whether or not this minister will live or die is a matter of chance. With the left-radicals taking power, party conspiracies will come soon, and, as a consequence of acting against them, liberal and reformist ministers might die. But the main objective is to try to avoid the sanctions until you get your own economic alliance.

Remove Romanov Into Power

In order for Romanov to become the USSR’s leader, you could not intervene in Eastern Europe. The only thing you can do is support the military coup in Yugoslavia in an event in 1983 and create a terrorist attack in 1985 against Ramiz Alia in Albania so that said country can remain in your sphere of influence – in all other events regarding Europe, DO NOT INTERVENE! In order for Romanov to become the leader of the USSR, besides the course of action I mentioned above, you must do what I say in the following events:

• July of 1977 “Problems of Stravopol Agronomist” – choose the option to discredit Kulakov (costs 5 agents).
• October of 1978 “Our Old Partisan”- choose the option to murder Masherov with a car accident (costs 8 agents).
• German Autonomy in Kazakhstan – choose the option to not intervene.

All that was mentioned above is what is essential for you to have Romanov as the USSR’s leader by 1985.

Getting the Achievement Easier

As I stated before, we do not intervene in Thailand, because it is quite costly in the early game. Do not support Iranian leftists during the revolution or try to bring Afghanistan to your side, since to do, it would cost a lot of agents and money in the early years of the game. The more practical option is to support the Islamists both in Afghanistan (during the war against the DRA) and in Iran (in the war against Iraq). In both cases, if Afghanistan and Iran won, the USSR’s influence over Afghanistan and Iraq would be diminished. You will not win world influence, but the USSR will lose some.

Regarding Vietnam, do not go to war with it, since it costs a lot of army power in the early game, and instead, stop its entrance to the CMEA and later go to talks, so that you can click both in Vietnam and invite it to your alliance.

As for the territory of Arunachal Pradesh, I got the achievement without going to war for it, so you don´t have to go to war or get involved with India´s internal politics – just make sure to support Butho in Pakistan and get it in your alliance.