Cheat ideas I could actually use

As far as I’m aware all the cheat codes are publicly available but the devs can add more. In particular they seem to have added the penguin cheat as a reward in Age of Empires 3 DE.

Because I only play SP, I don’t want outrageous cheats, just ways of screwing with the system.

ZACK MORRIS: Doesn’t put a time out on timer per se, but the mission will no longer fail or win when it approaches zero. Useful for missions like Man of God where I really REALLY want to slobberknock Baybars but I need more than an hour

WE COME AS LIBERATORS: when you destroy a building, any building it resets to one HP and converts to your faction. This includes gates, castles and TCs. Architecture stays the same as it is the same building.

ARROWHEAD: allows Siege Engines to fire arrows

JOHNNY APPLESEED: activating this and clicking on any non occupied tile will spawn a tree of random type. Clicking a single tree, and only a single tree (unless trees are all standalone and don’t have that wall bonding mechanic) will alter the tree type at random. putting the command in again disables the effect allowing normal play

PAUL BUNYAN: removes trees in the exact fashion as JOHNNY APPLESEED, and deactivates the same way

MANOR SYSTEM: Upgrades mill building option to Folwarks. Does not replace any existing Milll nor does it confer Folwark auto collection for non Poles.

FENG SHUI:chick on a building you own (and must own) and use the numeric pad. Up and down (that is 8 and 2 on the pad) cycle the age graphic, and right and left (4 and 6) cycle through the architecture styles of that building. This is only graphical, no civ bonuses are added or subtracted

THIS IS MY BOOMSTICK: upgrades all existing archer line to Hand Cannoneers. Does not enable building of the unit nor replace the archer line building option

I AM THE JUGGERNAUT: replaces all Galleon line with Juggernaust Triremes from Age of Empires 1 (perfect for RPing pre-gunpowder sea siege)

VERA CRUZ: destroys all your houses and replaces them with one pig each. This is in the spirit of Cortez burning his ships and the pig was the most important logistic advantage his men had, being a ready source of domesticated meat (and animal protein) with their Amerinidans lacked

DEUS VULT: Upgrades all generic cavalry without autoscout into Crusader Knights.

BABEL: select a tower an it will upgrade to a Fortified Tower of same architecture group

ALL ABOARD: allows monks and petards to board siege engines. Logical, if meta breaking. Also open to allowing cavalry for lulz.

MI CASA: All houses built from now on (or retroactively whichever is easier) can now garrison villagers

SU CASA: houses fire projectiles on the same garrison schedule as TCs. But only villagers can garrison with the MI Casa command and the capacity is five and the range is 1. This is the villages stabbing and shooting their arrows through the windows. Unless Khmer must be used with MI CASA.

STREETS ARE PAVED WITH CHEESE: while activated, selecting the palisade gate will instantly spawn a road-like tile for the same amount of wood in place of the gate. These can be walked over normally. This does not convert existing palisade gate, nor do the tiles revert to palisade gates after deactivation. Purely cosmetic. For extra awesome and the ROCK ON command, placing stone gates in this manner will spawn mosaic street tiles like from Caesar 3.

SWEATSHOP: toggle this all markets under player command will turn into Trade Workshops (110 version) when they complete construction . So no existing markets are transformed. Toggleable.

GIVE IT AWAY NOW: using this command with a number of the faction will transfer the building to faction of your choice. Perfect for rebuilding allied towns. Can be used to transfer ownership to yourself as a failsafe.

ON A MISSION FROM GOD: Turns all current monks into missionaries

KING OF THE BATTLEFIELD: converts all trebuchets into bombard cannons. Double edged sword as it reduces range.

So what do you guys think? These are not for MP games, these are narrative tools than anything else. Telling interesting stories, mimicking scripted events from campaigns, adding in some scenario editor functions into the game itself.

4 Likes

I think it’s a waste of dev time that should be spent on things like improving pathfinding.

5 Likes

Yeah but that’s hard. It’s like the modded campaign bug where if you launch from a save you can’t advance. These are critical fixes that haven’t been done in three years. Don’t get me wrong, the pathfinding is PAINFUL, but I don’t think it’s gonna get fixed either.

We have enough cheats.

Which is the argument to say that?

What do you mean?

If you’re asking why I want cheats like this it’s because the current cheats are not narratively interesting, in fact, they break the narrative. And narrative is the only thing I care about. Mechanics for me only serve to frame the story and make it interesting.

I can’t use Protoman or the Cobra car in crafting a narrative in say in the Bukhara scenario. But I could use the GIVE IT AWAY NOW proposed cheat to rebuild Persian local villages after they get sacked by the White Hun raiders.

Cheating in itself breaks the narrative so… what are you even taking about!?

2 Likes

Not if it makes sense. You’re changing the rules of the mechanical engagement, but you’re making it more narratively interesting. It’s increasing lateral engagement. For instance in the Dravidian in the second mission, King Chola comes across the old Sri Lankan capital that his father burned to the ground and the jungle has overtaken. Since at this point he’s still desperately trying to be benevolent, I figure once you have the southern half of the island on the ropes, then work on rebuilding the old capital.

The problem is that you don’t have access to everything the scenario editor can do and place. Plus, without scenario editing tools as of right now, you can’t change the terrian which means your grand city will have grass or dirt roads.

These kinds of cheats would allow for beautification of what is otherwise quite utilitarian base. Turn it into as much of a city as the game will allow, and I’ve seen enough cities to know that’s quite a bit…

It’s not useful for multiplayer, but neither are the regular cheats if you want to “do it right.” It’s not supposed to be mechanically useful. It’s adding lateral play.

Why do we need anything op is suggesting?

Actually none of the cheats proposed by op likes me. But say that We have enough cheats is too subjetive…

I like them, I may not use all of them, but it would be interesting…

I think most of these may be covered by the “Going Above and Beyond” cheat.

However, a cheat that allowed me to continue the battle/scenario after the main objective is done, would be useful to me.

2 Likes

Allow the OP to explain:

Lateral play. I’m not the only person who likes to build beautiful bases. I’d like to be able in game to turn them into cities. Once I have some level of handling a SP mission, except for that modded campaign bug, I like to build towns, especially restoring old burnt out ones. If you’ve ever played the Ottokar scenario that’s basically the first third of the mission is rebuilding a town recently devestated by the retreating Mongols. The last part is turning on your your father who’s a spendthrift and letting the kingdom go to pot,

This is where the we come as liberators adds context: as you’re demolishing Prague, nothing is actually being destroyed, only converted over to your side as you damage it down to zero HP. It’s also extremely useful missions like Star of the Poles where you can liberate the city of Halych instead of demolishing it. In Man of God, the second Longshanks campaign, it would allow you to LIBERATE Nazareth rather than leaving it smoking crater. You’d get a TC to boot, albeit one very far away from Acre and in and of itself you still have the one hour timer so not much capitalization .

If you’ve ever played a Philly scenario, Kemenos Roman frontier (collapse of Britain) or the Anarchy of King Steven the end of the mission opens up free play. With these comanand you not only have the time, but the ability to turn London into a great cosmopolitan center, with churches and temples from all over the Mediterranean basin and with a few reskin mods, even add in Zoroastrian fire temples and synagogues. As far as I know there’s no synagogue reskin for a monastery, but with the Feng Shui command, suddenly there’s a reason to do so, even if it’s function is strictly lateral.

Also because you could cycle between wonders, it’s possible to build the Irish Wonder, the Rock of Cashel, which isn’t quite in the map but was refurbished in this very time frame and further under English occupation. You’d have to build the British wonder but then cycle it to the Rock of Cashel, and bam, close to historical accuracy.

Do you see now?

2 Likes

Louis, may I ask how so?

mechanically you could get the Fortified tower range out of a keep, but that’s not what I’m going for. I’m looking for the look, of like everything., Unless the Going above allows changes in the garrisoning rules, I don’t see your line of thinking.

It was just a general comment, about how useful is that cheat (going above and beyond).

But to build or have a different game experience you will need some of your suggested cheats.

I like your cheats suggestions.

1 Like

This is one I will hope all scenarios had, the free play, I played both of them and I love this feature

These are all based on making scenarios easier for you.Adding cheats affect all aspects of the game so if you want xyz things for scenario making they should be added in the editor not the main game.

And you think I’m the only AoE player who doesn’t play for the Elo?

And it’s not just easier, it’s modifications that are otherwise impossible Protoman will make the scenarios easier. These commands with the exception of ALL ABOARD won’t and even then I want this option not to cheat because it is realistic that monks and petards could board petards and siege ladders. The fact they can’t doesn’t irk me because it keeps me from doing cheesy shit, it irks me because it’s very very obviously gamey.

These are roleplaying tools. Nothing about turning a Mill into a Folwark makes the game easier for non Poles because for them it’s a 3X3 mill. These commands are designed to increase expression and creative options.

Winning isn’t the point. Rock on is a game winning cheat, which I do not begrudge, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

My biggest joy in the Polish campaign was walling and towering up the Ukrainian villages from the Tartars that had terrorized then for over a century. That added another 90 minutes to me play time. From an gaming perspective it’s nothing but wasted time, but from a RP perspective it gives me the high of doing good deeds and helping the helpless.

1 Like

Im also a only campaign player but I dont need to have custom cheats to help me,the current cheats are more than enough for me to quickly win.

But nothing here is about winning quickly. Besides, what’s the point if your bull rushing through a campaign mission with cheats?! No disk and if your playing for speed, there’s no point in replaying a single mission once you beat it legitimately.

All cheats are purely for messing around. Like spawning a hundred Protomen behind 50 Cobras so when you trigger the Mongol Rush at the end of the Vistulay’s Crusade in the Polish campaign you can kill off the Mongol horde as fast as it spawns. But at that point you’re not playing for speed, nor ease nor the disks. You’ve turned AoE2 into Guns of the South: Polish Commonwealth edition.

Why resent or dismiss one sets of cheats over the other when mucking about is the only point of cheats?

1 Like

I understand your idea.

I like to make some campaigns last longer and also create alternative endings.

One of my favorite things to do is to build castles and towers inside or around towns I know that is going to betray me, or for an ambush of spawning enemies.

I have played all of the official campaigns at least 40 times and at least 10 times all of the costume-made ones looking for an alternative ending or a more fun ending.

So mew cheats woul mean more alternatives endings and a longer playing time.:blush::+1:

1 Like