There was this nice movie called "Gladiatior", with Russel Crowe from 2000.


Emperor Commodus wanted to be respected. And what better way to earn respect is there if not to fight in a colloseum? He even increased his chances by stabbing his opponent prior to the match. But even though he gained this advantage, it didn't help much and he lost.

You might wonder at this point - what's the whole point of this story? Well, my achievement-hunting friends, the point is that Commodus should have BLINDED his foe! Yep, that's right, since that gives a whopping -10 malus to personal combat skill! And believe me when I say that it is really, REALLY hard to lose a duel when your opponent is blind. I had a 7 duel win-streak, what an amazing fighter I am right?

Now that you know the basic idea, and hopefully like it, I will move on to describe the tactics behind this strategy.

There are several things that you need to keep in mind when doing this achievement:

• You will be able to duel only your rivals or excommunicated characters of your faith (and for the latter, you also need "zealous" trait").
  
  
• You can't duel when at war.
  
  
• You can duel once per year.
  
  
• You can't duel the same person twice

Also, don't forget to switch Ironman mode on before starting the game or it will be all for nothing. Although you probably know that already.

Now that the general stuff is covered, here comes the plan. You need to play any byzantine culture - greeks, armenians, alans or georgians. Thus, I naturally suggest Byzantine Empire - any start date is okay, although the Old Gods start is likely the easiest.
If you want to go for restoration of Rome achievements, then I suggest Charlemagne start instead, since in just a hundred years that separate Charle and Gods starts you can conquer most of Europe already. And your vassals also won't have any heirs, thus you can assassinate them all, get their provinces and money.

Secondly, you need to follow a religion that allows easy excommunication - Orthodox, some of its heresies, Catholic (if you control the pope or have an anti-pope), Fraticelli (same as catholic) or Yazidi. Again, Orthodox is likely the easiest - and if you follow the previous recommendation, you will already be Orthodox. The key is for the head of the religion to be your vassal, since then he will agree to excommunicate anybody you want.

Now that you have these prerequisites covered, time to get this achievement! To begin with, ensure that you have "zealous" trait. This allows you to duel excommunicated characters. One of the simpliest ways to get this trait is to pick Scholarship focus, build an observatory, then go through the "how do the stars move" path. Keep going till the very end of the event chain, then when you reach the climax, burn your research. This will take you approximately 5 years.

When you become zealous, you can finally change to War focus. When you do that, find any unlanded male character of your religion in your court (if there is none, invite). Excommunicate this character and imprison him (you can increase the arrest chance by placing your marshal in your capital with a respective mission). Next step is to even the odds and remove unnecessary body parts of your sparring partner! Go to your intrigue menu and make him blind .

Now you can duel! Now it is fair! The victory shall be yours. Now all you need is to repeat this 6 times more with different courtiers. Each excommunication costs 100 piety, which should be pretty easy to gather in one year. If you still don't have enough piety, you can holy war somebody.

This is best done with young characters with few traits. If there are more than 6 traits, there is a chance that some of them will dissappear. For that purpose, younger characters are also better, since they naturally tend to have less traits.

It took me just two attempts to get this achievement (during the first one, my ruler passed away due to age). It does not take more than 30 minutes in the worst case scenario. Yes, you might say that it is not an achievement at all if you simply pluck the eyes of your enemies out, but hey, the whole duel system is compromised and I've tried many times to get it in a fair way, mostly failing due to not having enough rivals.

One final thing that you must remember - "Blindness is no impairment against a smelly enemy" (Lee Sin, 2011). And another one - if you lost, you fought Zatoichi. Don't fight Zatoichi. And don't smell.