Cheats are as old as video games, andAge of Wonders 4is no exception. While beating a game normally can be satisfying, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using a cheat or two to make your life easier on a long or hard map.
However, it’s worth noting thatAge of Wonders 4has strong multiplayer support and that the in-game cheats don’t work during a multiplayer game. If you want an unfair advantage, you’ll only get to use it against AI opponents. If that sounds fine to you, keep reading to learn how to use them.
How to Activate Cheats in Age of Wonders 4
You don’t have to jump through any hoops to activate the cheat console, but not every platform has access to it. To bring up the console on PC, you need to hold down Ctrl+Alt+C. Once you do, a text input will appear near the bottom of the screen, helpfully labeled “Cheat.” It also explains that you need to press Enter to activate a cheat and that you can activate multiple cheats in a row by pressing Shift+Enter.
Helpfully, the cheat console has an autocomplete function that shows you all the cheat names and descriptions that include what you’ve typed. The autocomplete entries also tell you what each cheat does, so you don’t have to guess what they can do. As such, the only hard part of using cheats inAge of Wonders 4is figuring out how to bring up the console.
Something worth mentioning is that the built-in cheats have built-in drawbacks. First, as mentioned above, the cheat console simply won’t appear when you’re in a game with multiple human players. Second, if you win the scenario after using cheats, you won’t get any Pantheon experience. But that’s a small price to pay if you’ve already earnedall the Pantheon Powers you wanted. Also, if you accidentally bring up the cheat console and don’t want to use any cheats, you can press Esc to get rid of it without losing any Pantheon experience.
World Map Cheats
The cheats listed below are in all caps, but you can use lowercase letters when typing them in.
PHILIPS
Toggles instant production
City structures and units appear instantly, but you still need to pay the Gold cost.
Instantly finishes the current research
MASTERSKILLS
Unlocks all research
You’ll still need to research “Bind Gold Ancient Wonder,” but this otherwise unlocks and fully researches every Tome and topic, including every tier-five Tome.
Gives a boatload of Gold, Mana, and Imperium
Gives a boatload of Imperium
Instantly grows the population in the selected city
+1 Pop to any city, friend or foe.
Toggles instant research
COMPLETECHAPTER
Completes the current research chapter
The next time you check your research topic,you can choose a new Tome. This also resets your research cycle timer to four.
DEMO
Does MASTERSKILLS, REMBRANDT, PHILIPS, and OPTIMALPRIME all at once
That’s all research topics for free, 100,000 of every useful resource, instant production, and something that doesn’t matter toAge of Wonders 4.
HUYGENS
Get one affinity level for each affinity, unlocks the empire progression tree before 10 turns have passed
Gives you enough Affinity points of each typeto unlock the next Empire Skill in each branch. Also lets you buy them no matter what turn it is.
Unlock the empire progression tree before 10 turns have passed
All spells gain 1 inspiration
HAUER
Levels-up selected stack
Heroes gain one level; units gain one rank. You may need to click away and then click on the stack again to see the change. Works on friends and foes alike.
MEDIC
Heals the selected unit
Doesn’t appear to work on the world map, but it does work during combat.
IAMGOD
Toggles instant autocombat victory
Your units will continue to gain experience, but they’ll take no damage and always win when you hit the “Auto Combat” button.
VOORHEES
Toggles unlocking all non-signature hero skills
Heroes get access to all hero skills from every category and Tome, and they get infinite skill points no matter what level they are.
COEHOORN
Complete siege on selected structure
Allows besiegersto instantly assault the outpost or citythey’re attacking. Works on friends and foes.
GENHERO
Generate a random offmap hero
Appears to have no real effect unless paired with ALLHEROES below.
GENPRISONHERO
Generate a random hero in prison
The generated hero appears to belong to the closest city to your capital.
Generate a random hero in crypt
Increase the max hero cap by 1
Increase the max hero cap to 999
ALLHEROES
Adds all offmap heroes to the recruitment pool
Allows you to hire heroes from enemy factions, all free cities, and all Pantheon rulers.
TASMAN
Explores the entire map
Lets you see the terrain and the cities, but the fog of war still applies. You also still need to encounter a unit or territory to start diplomacy.
Reveals an unknown realm trait
BARENTZ
Explores and reveals the entire map
Reveals everything and removes the fog of war completely. Like with TASMAN, you’ll still need to send units out to encounter free cities and factions.
CRUIJFF
Toggles infinite movement
You’ll see the normal movement range for each army, but you can move your armies to any hex you like.
CRUJFF, BARENTZ and REMBRANDT combined
Infinite movement, infinite sight range, and 100,000 of every resource.
UNEXPLORE
Unexplore the map for the current player
Resets the full fog of war so only the hexes around each unit are known to the player.
Excavates all diggable earthon the strategic map
No shovels or Excavation skills required.
STAFFHORST
BARENTZ, CRUJFF, VANNOORT, and REUVENS
Full map reveal, infinite movement, Basic Seafaring, and a fully excavated Underground.
MAKEHAPPY
Improves relation with the target player
You must target a city or army belonging to the faction you want to influence. Each cheat gives you +100 relations for 20 turns, and they stack. Also works on free cities.
Decreases relation with the target player
MAKEALLY
Forms an alliance with the selected independent city or player
This can trigger a military victory if you target the only remaining enemy faction. Brings free cities up to Pact of Loyalty.
MAKENEUTRAL
Set the diplomatic state to neutral with the selected independent city or player
Starts a war with the selected independent city or player
MAKEVASSAL
The selected independent city or player becomes your vassal
This command won’t give you an individual city belonging to a factionbut all of their cities at once. Doesn’t appear to work on allies.
MAKECOOP
Start a Pact of Cooperation with the selected independent city or player
Appears to only work on free cities.
MAKELOYAL
Start a Pact of Loyalty with the selected independent city or player
MAKEINTEGRATED
Start a Pact of Integration with the selected independent city or player
IMPROVERELATION
Improve the relation with the selected city
Increases pact level of free cities by oneand converts vassals into integrated cities.
DECREASERELATION
Decrease the relation with the selected city
Decreases pact level of free cities by one, and drops vassals to zero Allegiance.
Declares war on all other players
Reveals the personality traits of the selected AI player
Gain positive alignment in all channels
Gain negative alignment in all channels
RALLYTHELIEGES
Start the next Rally of the Lieges
Changes the timer so that the Rally begins on the current turn.
Notes
RUIJTER
Add 1 copy of each hero item to the hero item store, disable transportation
This includes one of every item you can find in the game, not any Item Forge items. Also turns off transportation, which prevents heroes from swapping items immediately.
FORGE
Generate a random equipment item
Generating an item with this cheat won’t give you the usual indicator that a new item is in your storage, but it’ll be there.
Generate a random equipment item of each type
FORGEALLCHANNELS
Generate a random equipment item of each type for each damage channel
Creates a tier-four weapon of every style for every damage combination.
UNLOCKFORGE
Unlocks the item forge
This lets you use the Item Forge menueven if you haven’t built the city structure.
UNLOCKFORGEUPGRADES
Unlocks all upgrades in the item forge
You can use all the infusionseven if you don’t have the right Magic Materials.
Gives a boatload of resources required for the item forge
Item forge has instant production
Do UNLOCKFORGE, UNLOCKFORGEUPGRADES, GAINFORGERESOURCES, and INSTANTFORGE all at once
Remove everything in the player’s hero item store
REFRESHAITRADEITEMS
All AI players generate new items for trading
This specifically resets the magic items other factions can sell you in the Negotiate menu.
Triggers instant score victory
Whether you deserve it or not.
Triggers instant military victory
Triggers instant expansion victory
Triggers instant magic victory
VICTORY6
Triggers instant seals victory
No description comes with this victory type, but it has a unique icon.
Triggers instant score defeat
Triggers instant leader killed defeat
Triggers instant throne city lost defeat
Triggers instant expansion defeat
Triggers instant magic defeat
Triggers instant seals defeat
VERDOEMENIS
Adds one fake root node for Magic Victory
Gives you a bound Gold Ancient Wonder. Doesn’t exist on the map, but counts towards the Magic Victory requirements.
EENDRACHT
Adds one fake beacon for the Expansion Victory
Ticks off one of the required Beacons of Unity for the Expansion Victory, but it doesn’t really exist.
Adds max fake sectors for Expansion Victory
DOKTERWIE
Skip turn
The turn counter in the lower-right corner ticks up by one, but nothing else happens. This has no effect on the Score Victory timer or your autosave names.
Skip 10 turns
Skip 25 turns
Skip 50 turns
Skip 100 turns
SWITCH_TM
Switch between simultaneous and classic turns
Lets you swap mid-game between turn types. May cause issues if used more than once.
OPTIMALPRIME
Toggles instant operation priming
Operations are anAge of Wonders: Planetfallmechanic, so this does nothing inAge of Wonders 4.
Unlocks all global operations
Makes operations always succeed
Makes operations always fail
Makes operations succeed from time to time
Makes other players always detect operations
Makes other players never detect operations
Makes other players detect operations from time to time
Toggles whether quests are enabled
Toggle instant operations
Resets all achievement
Convinces the game that you haven’t completed any achievements.
If you’re wondering about some of the command names, they’re Dutch words and famous Dutch historical figures. This makes sense because Triumph Studios (the developer ofAge of Wonders 4) is also Dutch.
Tactical Cheats
All the listed cheats turn off after each combat, so you’ll need to reactivate them each time you want to use them.
Restarts the current combat
There’s an in-game button that does the same thing.
REALOOS
Purposefully cause a real OOS by invoking the hex world randomizer
OOS stands for out of sync. Does nothing in single-player games.
RESEED
Randomize the RNG seed
The game runs through a set of pre-generated random numbers for things like hit chances; this cheat swaps in a different set of numbers.
Enable/disable turn limits
Win combat
RUNAWAY
Retreat own units
All friendly units will instantly leave the battlefield as if they retreated.
Kill selected unit
Nothing happens if no unit is selected.
Set selected unit’s HP to 1
Refill selected unit’s HP
Remove all action points from the selected unit
Refresh cooldowns on selected unit abilities
Restore all action points to the selected unit
KONINGS
Combines REFRESH and WAKEUP to fully revitalize a unit, like a king
LEVELUP
Give one level to the selected unit
Actually gives a pile of XP to the selected unit, equal to several levels for heroes and several ranks for regular units.
Give infinite movement to all owned units
No amount of movement will use any amount of action points while this cheat is active.
Cause selected unit to gain morale
Cause selected unit to lose morale
Cause selected unit to immediately rout
Toggle controller mode
Ensure own attacks always hit and status effects always proc
Ensure own attacks always graze
Ensure own attacks always miss
Ensure own attacks are always critical
Ensure own attacks are always fumbles
NORMALHITS
Switch off all ALWAYSXXX cheats
Only one ALWAYS cheat can be active at once. This resets you back to normal attack odds.
Show the resource names of obstacles in their tooltips
Give operation coverage to the player
OOS
Fake an out of sync
Kicks you out of the combat with a fake out-of-sync message. The battle screen says “Defeat,” but neither side loses units.
Toggle debug modes
Developer tool.
EQUIP/EQUIPHERO
Give the selected hero the equipment piece with the given resource ID
Two commands with the same description. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be a list of resource IDs for equipment anywhere online.
Dump all the unit’s properties to the log
