Fallout 4: How to get the Benevolent Leader achievement? Fallout 4 Guide

The Benevolent Leader achievement in Fallout 4 is given to players who managed to organize their settlement in such way that they provided 100% happiness to it.

General advices

• UPGRADE THE CORRECT SETTLEMENT - the achievement can be obtained only in large settlements which can fit up to 20 citizens. This includes the starting location Sanctuary, the Starlight drive by and the Somerville Place. All these locations can be found in the upper left corner of the map.
• INVEST IN CHARISMA - each additional charisma point equals one additional settler. In addition to that, increasing charisma will allow you to invest skill points into Local Leader (rank. 2) and Cap Collector (rank. 2) perks which are required for building shops that increase happiness. IMPORTANT: For this section it is assumed that you have 20 settlers (however, it isn't mandatory).
• BUILD A RECRUITMENT TRANSMITTER - the settlers will not appear in your village if they won't know where to find you. Building a radio transmitter will regularly provide new settlers for your settlement, thus increasing the happiness. Remember that the transmitter must be connected to the generator, otherwise it won't work.
• REMEMBER ABOUT DISASSEMBLING - workshop mode allows you to disassemble surrounding objects in order to gain resources. Using resources (constructing items and structures) is an inseparable part of settlement development, so keep in mind that if you will lack steel, wood or ceramic, you can easily obtain it from a car wreck, wood or a washstand. To know which objects in the game world contain different resources, check the Creating settlements chapter, Crafting - resource table section. You should create supply routes (open workshop, select a settler and then press the button responsible for creating a route and then select another location) that will provide access to resources gathered in other workshop.
• GATHER LARGE NUMBER OF BOTTLECAPS - about 30 thousands (while having 20 settlers). Invest it in building shops. Bottlecaps can be easily obtained by selling ammunition gathered in your equipment if you aren't using it. Very frequently you get used to one, two types of weapons and completely ignore other tools, like sniper rifles that aren't very effective on wastelands. You can also sell all magazines which permanently increase your statistics after being picked up once.
• WAIT INSTEAD OF SLEEPING - happiness increases much faster when, instead of sleeping through days, you wait by sitting on a couch or a chair. Another method is going to bed for 24 hours, then staying awake for few minutes and going to sleep again.
• GATHER SETTLERS - the citizens like to look at their leader. Build a bell that can summon the settlers and use it always when you finish waiting. Showing yourself to the crowd will increase the speed of happiness rise.

Regular gathering improves relations between humans - and makes everyone happy.

• BE PATIENT - waiting for the happiness bar to fill might be boring, but as long as there is a green arrow pointing up next to it, you can be sure that it will rise (however, the closer you are to one hundred, the progress will be slower).

Size

Size determines the number of complex objects that you can place in your settlement. To get the Benevolent Leader achievement, the size bar should be filled in about 90% - then he will change its color to yellow (as shown on the picture below).

The easiest way to do it is by placing many gates that can be found in the Structures-Fences-Junk fence section (only steel and wood is required for building them). Remember to avoid obtaining too many resources by disassembling items in the developed settlement (like cars or houses) as it will reduce the size bar.

People

Placing the recruitment transmitters mentioned at the start of the chapter is not the only way of gaining people. The most effective way is moving settlers from other locations to the settlement that is meant to be the happiest one. In order to learn how to do it, check the Creating settlements chapter, Settlement management section, Settlers management subsection.

Water and food

Number of water and food sources should be more or less same as the number of settlers (20 settlers = 20 units of water and 20 units of food). You don't need to build water purifying containers, the common, cheapest pumps will be enough. You should use the 4 + the rest rule that says that you should send 4 settlers to work on crops (the number of rations will be higher than 20 after that) and the remaining sixteen settlers are sent to work in shops.

If the settlement has a supply route, then it can obtain food by using it. According to my observations, three settlers assigned to food can be enough to keep the food number above 20. Then the additional settler working in shop will increase the speed of gaining happiness.

Number of food must be same or higher than number of settlers.

Power and defense

Power doesn't directly affect happiness. The defense indicator does and it should be higher than 100 - once that level is reached, the settlement is no longer attacked by raiders, the citizens are feeling safer and are happier. Regular turrets are enough to provide such defense, there is no need to build better ones.

Beds

Every citizen has his bed in a happy settlement. You don't need to assign settlers to specific beds - they will do that on their own. Remember for every bed to be placed in a building - forcing your residents to sleep outside will not increase happiness.

Luckily, the settlers do not care about aesthetics - as long as the roof isn't leaking, they are fine.

Shops

Shops - in addition to allowing trading - generate happiness. To get the achievement (while having 20 settlers), build 16 rank. 3 shops (clinics are best). The happiness will be also filled by other shops, but not as fast.

Having many clinics makes obtaining the achievement much faster.

Decorations

Decorations are your last resort (if, for example, the happiness bar in your settlement for unknown reasons stops at 99 points). In critical situation you should construct enough of decorations for the green bar to appear again at the happiness indicator. Luckily, most of decorations don't require much resources. Additionally, thanks to game bug you can place one sign (that is a decoration as well) onto another infinitely - this makes the process much less time consuming.

Receiving the achievement

Doing everything described above guarantees that you will obtain the Benevolent Leader achievement.