Road to Empress I has 40 Steam achievements, and they range from “click this button once” to “visit every node in a 110-ending decision tree.” This guide categorises every achievement, explains how to unlock the tricky ones, and identifies the achievements most players miss on their first playthrough.
The 40 achievements break down into four loose categories:
Story Progression (10 achievements): One for clearing each major chapter. These are unmissable if you complete the game. Simply reach the end of each of the ten chapter milestones—The Unfathomable Rear Palace, A Frightful Banquet, Crown Prince’s Palace Enigma, The Specter of the Cold Palace, Southern Mountain Hunt, The Ominous Prophecy, Consort of Preciousness’s Downfall, Love Under Imperial Tyranny, A Crucible of Life and Death, and Destiny Rekindled.
Exploration (6 achievements): Tied to reaching exploration thresholds and uncovering hidden content. Includes Getting the Hang of It (50% exploration), Master of All (100% exploration), Arrows at Wei, Counterplay, No Way Out, and Easter Egg Hunter.
Collection (8 achievements): Require accumulating specific in-game content—coins, voice messages, character videos, collectibles, and feat bracelets. Includes Millionaire, Master Listener, Archivist Extraordinaire, Networking Pro, Scholar Supreme, High Roller, Secluded One, and Wardrobe Indecision.
Interface and Interaction (16 achievements): Unlocked by using specific game features for the first time. These are the easiest to earn but also the easiest to overlook if you do not know they exist.
Requirement: Use the “Current” button for the first time.
Open the Storyline Map from the main menu and look at the bottom of the screen. The “Current” button highlights your active path. Click it once. That is the entire achievement. You will probably do this naturally while exploring the Storyline Map, but if you have been playing without ever opening the map, this one sits locked until you do.
Requirement: Accumulate 100,000 coins.
This is a progression achievement that most players unlock naturally. Coins come from chapter completion payouts (50% and 75% exploration thresholds), Feat rewards, and the initial 20,000-coin mail bonus. On a typical first playthrough, the 100,000 threshold is reached around Chapter 13.
If you are short, the most likely cause is excessive coin spending on backtracking. Coins spent on backtracks do not reduce your lifetime total—the achievement tracks cumulative earnings, not current balance—but if you are checking your visible balance and it seems low, just keep playing. The later chapters pay out substantially more.
Requirement: Collect any two feat bracelets.
This achievement is tied to the blossom-shaped visualisation on the Trait Sketch. The blossom has petals, and filling a petal earns a feat bracelet. Each petal corresponds to a different category of choices:
You need to fill any two petals to unlock High Roller. Focus on exploring diverse choices rather than replaying the same path—each petal responds to different decision patterns.
Requirement: Use the backtrack feature for the first time.
After hitting any Bad Ending, the game offers the option to spend coins to jump back to the key choice that led to the BE. Do this once. The coin cost is minimal early in the game, and you will almost certainly encounter a BE in your first few chapters. Accepting the backtrack prompt is all it takes.
Requirement: Listen to all voice messages.
This is the longest grind achievement in the game. Voice messages are attached to endings—each ending generates at least one voice note. With 110 endings in the game, you need to trigger every single one and listen to every voice message. There is no shortcut.
The practical approach: as you work through the Storyline Map clearing endings, make it a habit to play every voice message on each ending screen before moving on. The Distant Echoes achievement (listen to one voice message) will unlock early. The gap between Distant Echoes and Master Listener represents dozens of hours of exploration.
Exploration percentage tracks how many decision nodes on the Storyline Map you have visited. Reaching 50% is straightforward over a few playthroughs. Reaching 100% requires visiting every single node, including those hidden behind specific conditional branches.
Some nodes only appear when you make a particular set of prior choices. For example, the exact variant of Li Zhi’s departure scene in Chapter 7 depends on your “Whose Hairpin?” choice, and you need to see both variants. Use the Current button on the Storyline Map to identify dimmed nodes—those are the ones you have not reached yet.
Requirement: Try every way to save Bianji.
In Chapters 12–13, when attempting to save Bianji, you are given five possible approaches. Four of them lead to Bad Endings. You must deliberately trigger all five BE routes in this sequence to unlock No Way Out. The five routes are:
You do not need to complete them in any particular order. The achievement checks whether you have attempted all five approaches, not whether you survived all of them.
Requirement: Fuse over 2 rare keywords for the Trait Sketch.
This one is opaque and tends to unlock naturally during full exploration. It consistently triggers near the end of Chapter 15 (A Crucible of Life and Death) if you have explored most branches. The exact mechanism involves the Trait Sketch’s keyword system combining rare decision patterns. Do not stress about it—play thoroughly and it will appear.
These are the achievements players most commonly overlook because they require interacting with specific UI elements rather than making story choices:
Your achievement progress is visible in two places:
For the collection achievements—Master Listener, Archivist Extraordinaire, Networking Pro, Scholar Supreme—the Feats page provides more granular progress tracking than Steam does. Check it regularly to see which voice messages you are missing or which character videos remain locked.
For completeness, here are all 40 achievements organised by unlock timing:
Unmissable (story progression): The Unfathomable Rear Palace, A Frightful Banquet, Crown Prince’s Palace Enigma, The Specter of the Cold Palace, Southern Mountain Hunt, The Ominous Prophecy, Consort of Preciousness’s Downfall, Love Under Imperial Tyranny, A Crucible of Life and Death, Destiny Rekindled.
Near-unmissable (you will probably get these naturally): All Part of the Experience, Time Rewind, Nimble Moves, Another Life, Distant Echoes, The Secluded One, Getting the Hang of It.
Requires attention (easy to miss): Golden Butterfly Chase, Curious Cat, Treasure Trove Discovered, The First Step, World of Possibilities, Starlit Skies, History Buff, Wardrobe Indecision, Style Icon, Flow of the Past, Personalized Touch.
Requires significant effort: Millionaire, Master Listener, Archivist Extraordinaire, Networking Pro, Scholar Supreme, High Roller, Master of All, Arrows at Wei, Counterplay, No Way Out, Easter Egg Hunter, Martial Arts Master.
Do not try to 100% Road to Empress I on your first playthrough. You will burn out. Instead, play naturally until you reach an ending, then use the Storyline Map to methodically chase the achievements you are missing. Start with the interface achievements—they take five minutes and cost nothing. Then tackle the exploration and collection achievements as you clear branches on the Storyline Map. Save the grind-intensive ones (Master Listener, Master of All) for last, when you already understand the game’s logic and can navigate the decision tree efficiently.
The achievements are designed to reward thoroughness, not difficulty. Every single one is achievable with patience and the Storyline Map. The question is never “can I do this?”—it is “how much of the story am I willing to experience?” And in a game this compelling, experiencing all of it is its own reward.