Cheat your way to victory.
The best Age of Empires 2 cheats will help you out when in a pinch during singleplayer mode Skirmishes. Unfortunately, cheat codes cannot be used during multiplayer sessions. This is a shame, as one or two of them are great fun.
It’s worth noting, too, that activating cheats in Skirmishes will stop you from earning achievements, so only do so when not chasing down those Steam or Xbox achievements.
All of the cheat codes should work in all versions of the game, too, which is great news for those playing the original, HD remake, and Definitive editions of the game. No one should miss out on the flying dogs or Cobra Car unit.
Read on to find out how to use cheats in Age of Empires 2, as well as for the complete list of cheat codes in the game and what they do.
How to use cheats in Age of Empires 2
To use cheats in Age of Empires 2, you need to press Enter to open the chat window, type in the code you want to use, and press enter again to activate it.
It’s worth noting that activating cheat codes will disable achievements, so don’t use them if you’re on the achievement hunt on Steam or Xbox. No cheat can be used during multiplayer sessions either, so all codes work in singleplayer only.
When setting up a singleplayer Skirmish, make sure that you have cheats enabled if you wish to try any of them out. Some are well worth a go, not least the summonable Cobra Car unit. You’ll find the full list of cheat codes in the game below, along with details on what each one does.
There are also command line cheats in Age of Empires 2. These command line cheats are activated before you play the game. You will need to manually edit the game’s Shortcut Target Line. Do this by following these steps:
- Create a desktop shortcut for Age of Empires 2.
- Right-click the shortcut.
- Select Properties.
- In the Target Box, after the final quotation marks, press the space key and add a hyphen.
- Directly after the hyphen (no space after it) type in the command line cheat you want to use.
- Select Apply and then OK.
- Simply remove the stuff after the final quotation marks to remove the command line cheat.
Full list of Age of Empires 2 cheat codes
The complete list of Age of Empires 2 cheat codes is as follows:
- !mute: Mutes all taunts.
- !nomute: Unmutes taunts.
- aegis: Makes you build faster.
- black death: Kills all opponents.
- cheese steak jimmy’s: Grants 1,000 Food (10,000 in the HD remake and Definitive Edition).
- furious the monkey boy: Summons Little Monkeys.
- how do you turn this on: Summons a Cobra Car unit (should appear by your town centre).
- i love the monkey head: Summons a VDML unit to your town centre.
- i r winner: Grants instant victory.
- lumberjack: Grants 1,000 Wood (10,000 in the HD remake and Definitive Edition).
- marco: You can see the entire map (including enemies).
- natural wonders: Gives you control of all animals on the map (removes control of your nation).
- ninjaconnor: Grants 100,000 of each resource (you’ll need The Forgotten expansion pack for this one to work).
- polo: Removes map shadows.
- resign: Makes you instantly lose.
- robin hood: Grants 1,000 Gold (10,000 in the HD remake and Definitive Edition).
- rock on: Grants 1,000 Stone (10,000 in the HD remake and Definitive Edition).
- to smithereens: Summons a Saboteur.
- torpedo <number>: Kills a specific opponent instantly and removes them from the game (type in “torpedo (number of enemy player you wish to destroy).
- wimpywimpywimpy: Commit suicide.
- woof woof: Summons Flying Dog animals on the map.
Press CTRL and Q to enable Fast construction and CTRL and P to build an immutable structure.
Age of Empires 2 command line cheats
Follow the steps above to add any of these command lines to your Age of Empires 2 shortcut before launching the game.
- 1024: 1024 x 768 screen resolution (standard edition only).
- 1280: 1280 x 1024 screen resolution (standard edition only).
- 800: 800 x 600 screen resolution (standard edition only).
- AutoMPsave: Auto saves enabled.
- BASEGAME_HIDDEN: Disables The Conquerors expansion (doesn’t uninstall it).
- DLC1_HIDDEN: Disables The Forgotten expansion (doesn’t uninstall it).
- DLC2_HIDDEN: Disables the African Kingdoms expansion (doesn’t uninstall it).
- DLC3_HIDDEN: Disables the Rise of Rajas expansion (doesn’t uninstall it).
- FASTREPLAY: Replays play in fast-pace.
- FASTVALIDATE: Increases processing speed.
- Mfill: Should fix some display issues.
- Msync: Should fix some sound problems.
- NOMODS: Disables all mods and skips the opening movie.
- NoMusic: Removes all music.
- NormalMouse: Applies the standard mouse pointer.
- NoSound: Removes all sounds apart from FMVs.
- NoStartUp: Removes pre-game FMVs.
- NoTerrainSound: Removes sounds from the terrain.
- OLD_SCHOOL: Changes the font to classic Lucida Blackletter.
- FASTVALIDATE: Increases processing speed.
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