Age of Empires II – Return of Rome: New Cheat Codes

by Fernando Diaz / Age of Empires 2, Articles / 18 May 2022

In this guide, we’ll be exploring new cheats to be used in the “Return of Rome” game mode in Age of Empires II. While they aren’t exactly new, they have finally received a definitive treatment and weren’t previously available in Age of Empires II’s engine. Let’s delve into it!

Can Cheats Be Used Interchangeably?

To address a commonly asked question, cheats can be used interchangeably between game modes, but to an extent. The new cheats won’t work in the traditional Age of Empires II game mode. You can only use the Age of Empires II cheats. However, in the Return of Rome game mode, Age of Empires II cheats do work, but only those that do not summon units. For example, you can use “reveal map” and “no fog” from Age of Empires I or “Marco” and “Polo” from Age of Empires II, which have the same effect.

Similarly, cheats that give you resources like “coinage” (the original gold cheat) and “Robin Hood” from Age of Empires II work just fine. However, unit-spawning cheats like “how do you turn this on” or “Furious the monkey boy” won’t work in the Return of Rome mode.

Resource Cheats

“Pepperoni pizza“, “Woodstock“, “coinage“, and “Quarry” are your food, wood, gold, and stone cheats, respectively, providing 10,000 of each resource.

Killing & Resigning Cheats

For instantly dying or eliminating players, you have several options. “Harikari” deletes all of your units and buildings, effectively making you resign. “Quit game” simply makes you resign. “Kill” followed by the player number eliminates all units and buildings of the specified player. “Died I died” does the same but applies to all players.

King Arthur

“King Arthur” transforms all birds in-game into imposing dragons. This cheat is purely cosmetic, and doesn’t affect gameplay.

Reveal Map & No Fog

“Reveal map” and “nofog” work in the same way as “Marco” and “Polo” in Age of Empires II. They reveal the entire map and remove the fog of war.

Steroids

“Steroids” works the same way as “Aegis” in Age of Empires II, enabling instant building, researching, training, and resource collection.

Gaia

“Gaia” enables you to control all Gaia units in the game, which are mainly animals. Be cautious when using this cheat, as there’s no way to revert its effects once activated. You’ll be stuck controlling animals for the rest of the game.

Other New Cheat Codes

Black Rider: This cheat code transforms your horse archers into Black Riders. These units aren’t particularly powerful in terms of their stats, but their unique trait is that upon death, they morph into heavy catapults, providing a secondary line of attack.

Medusa: When activated, this cheat code causes villagers to transform into Black Riders upon death, similar to the Black Rider cheat code. However, the villagers lose their abilities to build and repair once transformed.

ICBM: An interesting cheat code which enhances your ballistas to have a range of 100, effectively making them attack from a large distance.

Flying Dutchman: On applying this code, your juggernaut units transform into Flying Dutchmen. These units have similar stats to juggernauts, but they possess the additional ability to move through both land and water.

Big Bertha: This cheat transforms your catapult units into Big Berthas. Big Berthas are stronger variants of catapults with a much larger blast radius, making them more effective in battle.

Dark Rain: This unique cheat transforms your composite bowmen into trees when they are not in motion. While the transformation doesn’t enhance their combat abilities, it provides a camouflage, allowing for strategic surprise attacks.

Photon Man: This cheat summons a Photon Man, a futuristic unit armed with a laser gun. Photon Men have impressive speed and range, making them an asset in battles.

E=MC2 Trooper: This cheat summons a more powerful version of the Photon Man, known as E=MC2 Trooper. The trooper boasts an immense range of 88 and a powerful attack of 300 with a blast radius. However, their reload time is quite high.

Stormbilly: Using this cheat summons Zuck 209, a robot unit that quickly fires lasers at enemies. The unit has decent stats, making it a useful addition to your army.

Convert This!: This cheat summons a hero unit named Saint Francis. Unlike traditional priests who convert enemy units, Saint Francis obliterates enemies with a lightning attack. However, Saint Francis has very low HP, making him vulnerable to ranged attacks.

Bigdaddy: Activating this cheat summons a unique unit known as Winset Z, depicted as a race car driver equipped with a missile launcher. With high speed, impressive range, and powerful attacks, this unit is a force to be reckoned with.

Big Momma: This cheat summons a unit identical to Bigdaddy but in a white color scheme. However, Big Momma attacks faster than Bigdaddy but deals less damage.

Keep in mind that not all cheats work as expected due to some bugs in the game. Certain cheats also do not work interchangeably between game modes. Some cheats that are meant to spawn units like “how do you turn this on” or “Furious the monkey boy” don’t work in the Return of Rome mode. Also, the cheat “POW” which was supposed to spawn a unit called “Baby Prez” doesn’t work as expected.

Devs are aware of these issues & are expected to fix them in the future. Always check the syntax of the cheat code as some codes are case sensitive and might require specific spacing to work.

Age of Empires II: Return of Rome Beginner’s Guide – Tips for New Players

Age of Empires II: Top 5 Hints & Tips You Didn’t Know

Fernando Diaz

Fernando is doing what he always did, sharing his honest opinions about games whenever he can. The difference is now he is writing and not talking about it.
View all posts