Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord ships with no cheat menu in its options. Every cheat is either a developer console command you type on the campaign map or a key combo you press mid-battle, and not one of them fires until you switch cheat mode on by hand.
That switch is a single line in a text file, and it carries one real cost. While cheat mode is on, Steam achievements are off, and a campaign started that way is flagged as achievement-disabled from the first day you load it. HOI4 cheats work the same way, unusable in the achievement-tracked Ironman mode.
The commands we reach for first are gold, troops, and skill XP, since those clear the three things that usually stall an early campaign. For a faster RTS fix, StarCraft cheat codes top up resources with a single code. Everything here is PC only.
How to enter Bannerlord cheats
Cheats take two steps: turn cheat mode on, then open the console.
1. Turn cheat mode on. Close the game first, then open this file in a plain text editor:
Documents\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord\Configs\engine_config.txt
Find the line cheat_mode = 0 and change it to cheat_mode = 1. Save, then start the game. Six independent guides describe this exact path and setting, so it's the route to trust.
You can also flip the same switch from inside an open console by typing config.cheat_mode 1, or config.cheat_mode 0 to turn it back off. Keep that off-switch in mind, because it matters when we get to achievements.
2. Open the console. On the campaign map, press Alt + ~, the tilde or grave key at the top-left of a US keyboard. If you prefer a chat-box RTS, the Age of Empires 2 cheats type straight into the game. Most sources give that combination.
Two guides report Ctrl + ~ instead, and on non-US layouts, including UK, the game tends to bind to the physical key in that top-left position rather than the printed ~ character. If Alt + ~ does nothing, try the physical key next to the 1, or switch Windows to a US English layout for a moment.
How the two-argument commands read
Most commands take one value after the name. Five of them take two arguments split by a space, a pipe, and another space, exactly like this:
campaign.add_renown_to_clan <ClanName> | <amount>
campaign.give_troops <TroopID> | <amount>
campaign.add_skill_xp_to_hero <skill> | <xp> [heroName]
campaign.declare_war <Faction1> | <Faction2>
campaign.add_progress_to_current_building <SettlementName> | <progress 0-100>
Anything in [square brackets] is optional. Leave the hero name off add_skill_xp_to_hero and the XP lands on your own character.
Every Bannerlord console command
Type each command on the campaign map with the console open, then press Enter. The angle brackets are placeholders, so swap <amount> for a number and drop the brackets.
Gold and economy
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Add gold (denars) to your character | campaign.add_gold_to_hero <amount> |
| Give every hero the same amount of gold | campaign.add_gold_to_all_heroes <amount> |
Clan and politics
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Add influence to your clan | campaign.add_influence <amount> |
| Add renown to a named clan | campaign.add_renown_to_clan <ClanName> | <amount> |
Troops, skills, and character
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Add troops of one type to your party | campaign.give_troops <TroopID> | <amount> |
| Give XP to every troop in your party | campaign.give_troops_xp <amount> |
| Add XP to one named skill on a hero | campaign.add_skill_xp_to_hero <skill> | <xp> [heroName] |
| Set every skill on your character to one value | campaign.set_all_skills_main_hero <value> |
| Add focus points to a hero | campaign.add_focus_points_to_hero <amount> [heroName] |
| Set your character's age | campaign.set_main_hero_age <age> |
The skills you can name for add_skill_xp_to_hero are Athletics, Bow, Charm, Crossbow, Engineering, Leadership, Medicine, One-Handed, Polearm, Riding, Roguery, Scouting, Smithing, Steward, Tactics, Throwing, Trade, and Two-Handed.
Marriage, family, and companions
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Marry your character to a named hero | campaign.marry_player_with_hero <heroName> |
| Force an heir to be conceived | campaign.conceive_child |
| Add a random companion to your roster | campaign.add_companion |
| Adopt an existing hero as a companion | campaign.adopt_hero <heroName> |
One catch on add_companion: the companion it drops in is reported to spawn with 0 in every stat, so reach for adopt_hero when you want someone who can actually fight.
Kingdom and faction
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Force two factions into war | campaign.declare_war <Faction1> | <Faction2> |
| Join a kingdom as a vassal | campaign.join_kingdom <KingdomName> |
| Join a kingdom as a mercenary company | campaign.join_kingdom_as_mercenary <KingdomName> |
| Leave your current kingdom | campaign.leave_kingdom |
| Create a new kingdom led by your clan | campaign.create_player_kingdom |
| Give a settlement straight to the player | campaign.give_settlement_to_player <SettlementName> |
Building, map, and quests
| Effect | Console command |
|---|---|
| Set a settlement's build project to a percentage | campaign.add_progress_to_current_building <SettlementName> | <progress 0-100> |
| Toggle information restrictions | campaign.toggle_information_restrictions |
| Set the campaign map speed multiplier | campaign.set_campaign_speed_multiplier <multiplier> |
| List your active quests in the console | campaign.list_active_quests |
| Complete whichever quest is active | campaign.complete_active_quest |
Set the build progress to 100 to finish a project on the spot. One report notes the progress version works for towns but not castles.
toggle_information_restrictions is narrower than the name suggests. Player reports say it lifts the fog on the encyclopedia and hero-tracking view rather than the live campaign map, and it needs cheat mode already on.
In-battle cheat hotkeys
These fire during a battle, not in the console, and each one needs cheat mode enabled first.
| Effect | Input |
|---|---|
| Knock out one targeted enemy soldier | Ctrl + F4 |
| Knock out the whole enemy army at once | Ctrl + Alt + F4 |
| Fully heal your character | Ctrl + H |
| Fully heal your horse | Ctrl + Shift + H |
What turning on cheats disables
Cheat mode and Steam achievements do not run together. For as long as cheat mode stays on, achievements stay off, and both a Gamepressure explainer and community threads note the game shows an "Achievements disabled" message when you start a campaign with it active.
Turning cheat mode back off with config.cheat_mode 0 before you begin a fresh campaign is reported to let achievements unlock again on that new campaign. Sources hedge here, using phrasing like "should reset", so treat it as likely rather than settled.
Every source does agree on one point. Achievements already blocked on a save you played with cheats on cannot be unlocked later on that same save. If a specific achievement matters, earn it on a clean save with cheat mode off. Stellaris console commands carry the same achievement lock on non-Ironman saves, as our Stellaris cheat commands guide notes.
Commands that are disputed or removed
A couple of commands still show up in guides, but their status in the current game is shaky, so we've kept them out of the tables above.
The relation cheat is the messiest of the two. A modding reference documents campaign.add_relation, a Steam thread shows a user example of campaign.change_hero_relation <amount> <heroName>, and other players in that same thread report getting "unknown command" back. The name and the argument order disagree across sources, and it may not run in the current patch, so treat the relation cheat as unconfirmed until you can try it in your own build.
Setting another hero's age looks gone. The command campaign.set_hero_age <heroName> | <age> appears in older references, but one source reports it was removed after early access and now returns a command-not-found error. Setting your own character's age with campaign.set_main_hero_age <age> still works.
Two more names are worth a heads-up. The core gold cheat is documented as campaign.add_gold_to_hero on most guide sites and as campaign.add_denars in one technical modding doc, and the troop cheat splits the same way between campaign.give_troops and campaign.add_troops. They look like aliases for the same effect, so start with the guide-site names above and fall back to the alternate if your build rejects one. Older RTS cheats are simpler, and the Warcraft 3 cheats go in mid-mission with a keypress.
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