Europa Universalis IV – Cheat Codes (Console Commands) & ID List

All EU4 Console Commands (Cheats)

Europa Universalis IV (EU4) is a grand strategy game that allows players to take control of a nation from the late Middle Ages through the early modern period. While the base game offers a rich and complex experience, the console commands provide an additional layer of control for both new and veteran players. Whether you’re looking to test strategies, overcome challenges, or simply experiment with the game mechanics, console commands can significantly enhance your gameplay experience.

How to Use Console Commands

Before you can use console commands in EU4, you need to ensure the console is accessible:

1. Start Europa Universalis IV
2. Press the tilde key (~) located below Esc and to the left of the 1 key on most keyboards
   • For non-US keyboards, try using Shift+2, Shift+3, or Alt+2+1
   • Some language-specific keyboards may use different keys like § or `
   • On UK keyboards, try the grave accent key (`)
   • On French AZERTY keyboards, try using the ² key (above Tab)
   • On German keyboards, try using ^ (circumflex)

If the console doesn’t open, verify you are playing in single-player mode, as console commands are disabled in multiplayer and ironman mode.

Using Commands

Once the console is open, you can enter commands by typing them and pressing Enter. Some commands require additional parameters such as province IDs, country tags, or numeric values.

Command syntax typically follows this format:

command [parameter1] [parameter2] [...]

You can view the command history by pressing the up arrow key, which is useful for repeating or modifying previous commands.

Note: All commands listed below are specific to Europa Universalis IV. Command availability may vary based on your game version and installed DLCs. Some commands may have been added, removed, or modified in recent patches. This guide is intended for the current version of EU4 as of March 2025.

Administrative Commands

Diplomatic Commands

Military Commands

Technology and Idea Commands

Time and Event Commands

Game Mechanics Commands

Development Commands

Trade Commands

ID List

Country Tags

Country tags are three-letter codes used to identify nations in the game. Here are some of the most commonly used ones:

Religions

Buildings

Trade Goods

Finding Province IDs

To find province IDs for use with console commands:

1. Enable debug mode by typing debug_mode in the console
2. Hover your mouse over a province on the map
3. The province ID will be displayed in the tooltip, along with other information

Alternatively, you can use the Province ID mapmode (accessible via the F key), which displays the IDs directly on the map.

FAQ

Can I use console commands in Ironman mode?

No, console commands are disabled in Ironman mode. This is because Ironman is designed for achievement hunting and a “pure” gameplay experience without cheats.

How do I enable the console on Mac?

On Mac keyboards, try using Option + § or Option + ` to open the console.

My console won’t open, what should I do?

First, make sure you’re not in Ironman mode or multiplayer. If you still can’t open it, verify your keyboard layout – different layouts may require different keys. As a last resort, you can try creating a custom key binding through third-party software.

Do console commands disable achievements?

Yes, using any console command during a game will disable achievements for that save.

How can I find event IDs?

Event IDs can be found in the game files or on the EU4 Wiki. You can also trigger a specific event by searching for its name in the events file within the game directory.

Can I undo a console command?

There is no direct “undo” function for console commands. Your best option is to save your game before using commands so you can reload if needed.

Why are some of my commands not working?

Some commands may require specific DLCs or may have been changed or removed in patches. Always check that you’re using the correct syntax and that the command exists in your version of the game.

How do I change my government type?

Use the government command followed by the government type, such as government monarchy. For EU4 versions prior to 1.26, you may need to use change_government monarchy instead. The available government types include monarchy, republic, theocracy, tribal, native, and steppe_horde.

Can I change province terrain with console commands?

No, terrain is hardcoded and cannot be changed through console commands.

How do I trigger a specific institution?

You can use the embrace_institution command followed by the institution ID, like embrace_institution renaissance.

How do I create a custom nation with console commands?

Custom nations cannot be created via console commands. You must use the in-game nation designer feature.

Can console commands be used to fix corrupted saves?

No, console commands can’t repair save files. It’s always recommended to keep multiple backup saves.

How do I remove a modifier from my country?

Use the remove_country_modifier command followed by the modifier ID. For example, remove_country_modifier "the_statute_of_restraint_of_appeals". The modifier IDs can be found in the game files or by first using the debug_mode command to see active modifiers.

Do console commands affect AI behavior?

Some commands like yesman and noman directly alter AI behavior. Others, like giving yourself resources, can indirectly affect AI by changing the power balance.

Can I use the console to switch to another country?

Yes, use the human_player command followed by the country tag, like human_player FRA to play as France.

How do I colonize all uncolonized provinces at once?

There’s no single command for this, but you can use a combination of colonize commands for each province you want to colonize.

How to manage multiple fronts at once?

A very common challenge in EU4 is the struggle of managing lots of different things happening at once, especially militarily. Fighting multiple wars at once can be daunting, especially on more than one front, even assuming we play on a reasonable speed (read: not 5) and pause liberally. If we lose focus just for a moment, or get too distracted overcoming a problem on one front, who is to say our army will not end up crushed on another front, engaged in a devastating battle we were too slow to avoid, discourage, or reinforce?

Thankfully, there is a simple solution: message settings. EU4 provides the ability to set our game to popup and pause (or popup and let us pause manually if preferred) whenever almost anything that might be of interest happens. Armies arriving, provinces occupied, sieges won, sieges lost, battles engaged, and so on – it’s all covered. This gives a handy notification to let us know firstly that something has happened that might want our attention, secondly gives us a convenient button to skip right to the relevant location, and thirdly (if preferred) pauses the game automatically to give us time to think through any decision we want to make. Having these notifications makes fighting on even a multitude of different fronts at the same time a breeze. We don’t even need to continually scroll back and forth, wondering how things are progressing – the moment anything happens that requires attention, we’ll know.

Admittedly, these message settings aren’t without their downsides. Especially if all useful notifications are set to popup and pause, it can feel a little excessive; the notification spam can be stifling in more relaxed campaigns, and is especially obnoxious in multiplayer. It’s also no fun building a large army from a template and getting dozens of back to back “army has arrived in X province” messages afterwards. I generally recommend players to toggle these message settings on if ever they embark upon a campaign that might require some proper micro, and turn them back off again for campaigns that do not. It is of course also possible to simply leave them all on, especially once used to them, as I have – it’s all personal preference. But anyone who has never tried turning them on would get considerable value from at least trying them out.

Half states vs full states

The very short answer to this is that full states are good for nation building and half states are better for heavy duty expansion.

This is because the main advantage of full cores is that they concentrate more value – read: autonomy adjusted development, aka effective development (e-dev) – into a single province. This means any province investment the value of which depends on local autonomy (such as developing the province or building most buildings) is far more efficient when applied to a full core than anything else.

Given that a large part of nation building depends on stacking synergistic improvements on provinces, the greater efficiency of doing so in full cores compounds, resulting in much more impressive yields.

When it comes to expansion focused gameplay, half states have four big advantages over full states. The first is exactly the same as the full state advantage mentioned above – but in reverse. Since half states spread the same e-dev, governing costs, and coring costs over twice as many provinces compared to full states, they allow twice as many buildings to be built. For buildings that give flat value unaffected by local autonomy, this is a great advantage; this includes manufacturies (from a trade perspective), and, crucially, GC buildings. This is because a courthouse will always reduce GC usage by 0.25 x development of the province it is built on. If the same governing costs are spread out over more provinces, there is more scope to mitigate them by spending money on buildings. In other words, if GC is a larger bottleneck than money – almost always the case outside the early phases of a campaign – half states end up more GC efficient than full states. 

The second advantage is that unlike full cores, all territorial cores can benefit from the minimum autonomy in territories modifier. This isn’t always available, but when it is – and the best religion for any CCR build, Hindu, does have access to it – it completely shifts the basic efficiency calculation in favour of half states.

For example, with -10% minimum autonomy in territories, a full core still costs twice as much in GC and coring costs, but now yields less than twice as much e-dev. Unless nation building, half states are just across the board better. The more minimum autonomy in territories that can be stacked, the more extreme this becomes: with -50%, half states give the same e-dev as full cores for half the cost. In such a case, the entire world can be held at 0% autonomy for a few hundred GC (with town halls built everywhere).

The third advantage that half states offer is flexibility. The decision to half state provinces can be reversed at any point and the only things that will be lost are progress towards prosperity (sometimes relevant, often not), and any modifiers from changing autonomy (this won’t impact most players, but when expanding very aggressively and using raise autonomy is avoid rebellions, it is important to account for). This lets a half state user be much more dynamic in how they administer their empire, and they will be free to unstate large swathes of land for the purpose of culture shifting or temporarily freeing up GC without sacrificing much. If the same was done with full states, all full cores would be lost in the process and could not be reestablished without considerable admin power costs.

The fourth advantage is their lower coring costs. At its core, EU4 is an exercise in simulating zero sum international politics where power relative to neighbouring states is king. Taking land for ourselves is useful, but taking it away from other people is also indirectly useful, even if we don’t get much immediate value from it. In short, land in the hands of other countries can be made to support their efforts to undermine our expansion, but land we control cannot. Snowballing in EU4 is about crippling our opposition almost as much as it is about becoming strong ourselves, otherwise we are likely to find ourselves in the receiving end of an ugly coalition or similar. Coring costs represent one of the largest expansion bottlenecks in the game, and diminishing them by using half states instead of full states will allow vastly more land to be taken away from potential opponents – though admittedly while costing twice as much in AE.

Since hordes generally want to expand as much as possible, full cores aren’t suitable for them – though it can be worth be using excess admin points from razing to full core key high value provinces in the early game before GC becomes a major factor, such a gold mine or a high manpower development province that was used to cultivate the renaissance. Instead, they synergise perfectly with half states: they benefit greatly from the flexibility to change culture freely to chain together powerful tag formations; they benefit from the added GC efficiency; since they will generally opt into Hindu, they’ll also be armed with reduced minimum autonomy in territories; and since hordes don’t nation build, they suffer no opportunity cost from not using full cores. 

Bonus tip: when struggling to balance the reduced governing cost of territories with the massively higher e-dev of half states, one option is half state everything while fighting wars, then unstate everything before mass peacing out many wars for a coring cycle in order to mitigate the admin efficiency penalty from GC and its associated malus to core costs and, crucially, warscore costs. This is known as half state micro, and yes, it’s just as miserably soul destroying as it sounds, but it is effective.

Changing religion

Most ways of changing religion require a plurality of a country’s development to belong to the target religion. This means the target religion must have more development than any other – it does not mean it must have more than 50% of total development. A country with 40% development belonging to religion A, 30% to religion B and 30% to religion C would have a plurality belonging to religion A and could change to that religion easily.

This plurality is required to change religion via zealots. To change to Pagan faiths, zealots must enforce demands while having plurality, but for other faiths, rebel demands can simply be accepted – they do not even need to spawn, simply be active in a province. This makes changing to widespread religions easy, as plurality can be obtained naturally through conquest and zealot demands can be accepted. Some penalties will be suffered; these are usually quite minor but depend on the exact religion change taking place. It’s worth noting that changing religion via zealots will block changing religion via religion tab until after whichever comes later between ruler death and 10 years.

In order to activate zealots, simply send a missionary to a core province of the target faith and wait for a month-tick. Note that the currently active rebel faction must have a progress of 20% of less (this can be achieved with harsh treatment if necessary in order to update), and unrest must be above 0 in order to accept demands (raising autonomy can help here, increasing unrest by 10 and removing the recent uprising modifier; if autonomy change is on cooldown, simply state/unstate the province to remove the cooldown).

Muslim plurality coupled with a Muslim capital also enables the “embrace Islam” decision, which changes state religion as well as granting 1 stability. Beyond allowing a very smooth religion change, this has a few potentially useful quirks. The first is a stability farming trick that involves balancing Sunni development with another religion’s dev (usually Catholic) and then repeatedly flipping back and forth with zealots/embrace Islam to generate stability, exploiting development in between to shift which religion is dominant.

The second relies on the slightly funky coding of the decision itself: in order to click it, Muslim plurality and Muslim capital are both required, but they do not both need to be the same school of Islam. So Sunni plurality (easily obtained because of its prevalence) and a Shia or Ibadi capital will still allow the decision, and clicking it will embrace whatever type of Islam is present in the capital. This makes it an easy way to flip to Ibadi or Shia even with nothing close to plurality.

Plurality unlocks a few other conversion decisions too, such as for Christians to embrace Hussitism.

How to use trade companies (TCs)?

Much like trade, TCs are driven by a few relatively straightforward ideas, but in practice these produce a number of subtle, counter intuitive interactions – much of the difficulty in truly optimising a trade setup comes from the complexity of TCs. Luckily for us – and you might notice this as a theme – a simple approach to setting up TCs will likely be optimal 90% of the time, and still good enough for the remaining 10% of scenarios.

First, a quick introduction to why TCs matter: they have three unique attributes that allow us to dramatically improve our income. They give additional merchants whenever a TC controls 51% or more of the trade in a node; they boost the goods produced of all non-TC provinces in a given node based on how much of the trade in that node the TC controls (this boost grows larger with more institutions embraced, and so scales well); and they allow TC investments, which can situationally be very powerful.

The downsides of TCs is that in most other respects, they give the same (minimal) value as a territory would while costing twice as much more governing capacity. Therefore, the core idea behind using TCs is to get as much trade power controlled by the TC as possible while minimising the total development actually added to the TC. The most important goal is to get the extra merchant while sacrificing the minimum amount of governing capacity, but higher TC trade share also increases the good produced bonus, while adding additional development to the TC reduces the effective scope of that bonus.

The most straightforward way to accomplish this is to simply add a handful of centres of trade (CoTs) or estuaries – preferably the ones with lowest development – to a TC until it has enough trade share to yield an extra merchant and then calling it a day. These provinces have high base trade power which will be automatically increased by the local trade power boost given by TCs; adding provinces with high trade power from other local modifiers will be less effective since these will stack additively, not multiplicatively with the boost from the TC. If money is a higher priority than GC, then some additional provinces may be added, preferably with cheap goods and low development, to increase the node-wide goods produced bonus, but there is a point where this will do more harm than good. Note also that this becomes more worthwhile later on in the game with more institutions embraced. You can experiment with this to find the right balance and squeeze a little more money out of your setup, but it’s more work and you will generally be fine if you don’t bother.

Another less popular strategy involves adding entire states to TCs (generally ones with 5 provinces, low development but one or more CoTs or estuaries) and purchasing the TC investment that gives a flat local trade power boost for 400 ducats. In low total power nodes, one state will generally be enough for an extra merchant, but in nodes with higher total trade power, two or even three may be required. The advantage of this strategy is that it frees up more land to be half stated than the first strategy would (for more info on half states see section 10), allowing some extra manpower and force limit and making better use of the goods produced bonus for production income. The downside is that it tends to be slightly less GC efficient, entails up front set up costs, and is less well suited to abusing TC investments (not that this matters much unless trying to spike late game trade income beyond what is practically useful). While I have advocated this strategy in the past, I now generally steer people towards the first one instead: it’s more intuitive, it’s simpler to execute and explain, and it’s better most of the time.

There are two other approaches to TCs that I think are worth addressing here. One, which is worryingly popular, is to add provinces en masse to TC without thinking – in the worst case, using the “add all provinces to trade company” in the trade node interface”. There isn’t much to say here other than this is an absolutely terrible idea – please don’t do this unless you attach no value at all to your economy or your governing capacity.

The final approach can be thought of as the “optimise for income at the expense of everything else” approach. I don’t think it is a practical strategy for normal gameplay – tall, wide or otherwise – but I include it for the sake of completeness. This approach involves adding a single province per state (the one that generates the least trade value, and a CoT/estuary if possible) and then buying the TC investment that gives flat local goods produced. This investment (like all area-wide investments) requires a TC province to purchase and keep, but actually applies its bonus to all provinces in the state, regardless of whether they belong to a TC or not. This means most provinces in a node can gain flat goods produced from a manufactory and this TC investment and then have this multiplied by the node-wide goods produced bonus and any global goods produced bonuses. Local trade modifiers such as those from trade buildings like marketplaces or centre of trade upgrades can be used to fine tune TC trade share and further optimise goods produced; owing to its universality, each point of mercantilism will have the opposite effect and reduce overall goods produced.

This setup results in far more goods produced, and therefore far higher total trade value, than any other setup, leading to more income. This can then be further exponentially increased by taking maximum advantage of trade steering, resulting in absurdly high trade income – enough to cause integer overflows in monthly income if done properly. Unfortunately, it comes with the downside of being incompatible with having any states at all, resulting in an enormous hit to manpower and force limit, both of which are usually more important than raw income. A setup like this also tends to be suited to late game situations where money isn’t a concern anyway, and requires huge upfront costs that would be prohibitive while money is still a relevant bottleneck.

To conclude the discussion here, I think it’s worth including a brief introduction to TC investments as a whole, though I’ve touched on a few already. In general, when using the simple TC strategy that I have recommended here, investments can be largely ignored without any great loss – and in my opinion should be ignored when conquering quickly as a horde – but some can be useful in the right situation.

Please note that all investments have a flat cost, but depending on where they are built, can impact a different number of provinces, dramatically impacting their cost effectiveness. All investments will be lost if there cease to be eligible TC provinces in which they can exist; for example, stating an area will wipe all area investments, and unless other provinces are in a TC in that node, charter investments will be lost too.

Area-wide bonuses

• Flat trade power: used in one strategy outlined above; otherwise not much use and rarely cost effective, though can be used to fine tune goods produced in hyper optimised late game setups
• Supply limit/defensiveness: could have a very niche use case to micro fort defence in a siege race, but generally this should be ignored
• Local sailors/manpower modifier: very cost ineffective because of high local autonomy in TCs; should be avoided
• Tax/dev cost: should be avoided
• Flat goods produced: one use case is mentioned above; outside of that, this can still be a cost effective investment
  • This is essentially building a cheaper, instant manufactory that gives more goods produced (if built in an area with 4 or 5 provinces), at the expense of being stuck in provinces with high autonomy
    • In other words, it’s a manufactory that’s better for trade income and much worse for production income
  • This is best placed in 5 province areas with valuable trade goods
  • As with any investment, it’s worth playing around with how much extra income this gives and deciding, based on your timelines, if that represents an acceptable return on investment for the cost

Node-wide bonuses

• Trade steering: only useful in income focused late game trade setups
• Local trade value: same use case as above, but should only be used at the beginning of steering chains – otherwise the steering investment is more valuable
  • Comes with some completely irrelevant yearly army tradition that shouldn’t factor into any decision of whether or not to purchase it

Nation-wide bonuses

• Flat naval force limit: much less cost effective than equivalent buildings (shipyards and grand shipyards); should generally be avoided
• Flat land force limit: identically cost effective to equivalent buildings (regimental camps and conscription centres) but without the tech requirement – this can definitely be worth using
  • Has the perk of being instant
  • Doesn’t use a building slot, but does use a charter-wide TC investment slot; which is more valuable will depend on situation
  • The TC investment is unaffected by construction cost, so if construction cost is net lower than base, buildings will be more cost effective than this investment, and vise versa
    • The inverse can be said for the rare TC investment cost modifier
• Flat national sailors/manpower: this can be useful when manpower is a concern
  • When playing wide, the manpower from this is comparable to building a barracks giving +400 manpower (though the same buildings vs TC investments caveats mentioned above also apply here)
    • If sailors are a concern, it becomes more worthwhile, but in my experience this only applies in fast runs where exploration is a relatively early bottleneck, in which case there is not money to spare for a luxury investment like this and it’s better to simply exploiting dip dev in coastal half states for extra sailors
  • This also comes -5% minimum autonomy in territories for all provinces in a node, and therefore another slight boost to income, manpower, and force limit – the exact impact of this varies based on situation

The basics of trade: What is trade?

The very basic idea behind trade is that all provinces generate trade value based on the  value their local trade goods and their local goods produced, and this value is pooled together into the nearest trade node, where it can either be retained and collected as income (by a merchant or main trade city) or go forward into a downstream node (merchants can be set to deliberately steer trade into a downstream node, but value that is not retained will pass on even without a merchant present. This is good for hordes, since the entire process takes place independently of local autonomy (and a number of other common negative province modifiers), so they can make huge profits from it without needing to invest any energy into building up their nations.

Since the amount of trade we can retain in a node (or steer into a node of our choosing) is based on our share of the total trade power in the node, we’re incentivised to monopolise as many nodes as possible. While our trade share can be raised by increasing our trade power, this is horribly inefficient and suffers from exponentially diminishing returns. Instead, it is better by far to simply conquer land from competing powers in the node, increasing our total power and reducing theirs, eventually culminating in us owning the entire node.

In theory, to maximise trade income, we want to monopolise a long string of nodes and steer trade from node to node using merchants (increasing the value each time via the merchant steering bonus) until it eventually finds its way to our home node where it is collected as income. Unfortunately, this is very rarely how things end up – especially considering that conquering specifically for trade is often not worth the opportunity cost – and so we are generally forced to make do with a bad situation, collecting in multiple locations at the same time.

Contrary to popular belief, collecting outside of our home node is not something to be afraid of. It comes with a scary (and misleading) -50% local trade power malus, but a worked example quickly shows that this is nowhere near as punishing as it appears:

Imagine we have 50 out of 100 trade power in a node, equating to 50% trade share. Cutting this in half leaves us with 25/75, or 33% share – only a 17% reduction. And this only becomes less severe as our share increases. 90/100, or 90% trade share, still leaves us with an impressive 82% of the total trade when halved.

Therefore, it is frequently better to simply collect in a foreign node where we have high trade share than push the trade into a node where our share is lower, even with the 50% trade power malus. When setting merchants, I strongly recommend experimentation – there are many (often counterintuitive) factors at play, and while experience will give a decent sense for what is likely a good set up, simple trial error will shed more light than anything else. If waiting for merchants to arrive to check different setups represents too high a commitment in in-game time, it is easy to copy the save and test for the best set up there.

A decent general rule of thumb is to simply steer into nodes with a high trade share, collect when that isn’t possible, and test things whenever there is uncertainty.

There are a few other trade related myths that are probably worth correcting here, with the caveat that I already dedicated some time to dispelling misconceptions about trade modifiers in section 2 and will endeavour not to repeat myself:

• Light ships are essentially never a cost effective trade tool – there are a few very niche exceptions to this, like OPM pirate republics privateering, but I promise you that selling your starting light ships for more money (or deleting them if this is impossible) and then pretending light ships don’t exist will simplify your decision making no end and make it optimal in 99.9% of cases
• Upgrading centres of trade is only worthwhile for the local development cost, and when playing wide, this is only useful for developing institutions
• Similarly, trade buildings like marketplaces are extremely rarely cost effective and shouldn’t be built outside of absolutely ideal use cases like England building one in London in the early game
• The steering bonus from merchants is worthwhile, but isn’t massive, and losing out on it isn’t necessarily the end of the world
  • While on paper it is 5%, this applies at the beginning of a chain – subsequent steering boosts are smaller. So it is not a compound 5% increase across an entire chain as many seem to believe
• Collecting in home node can often be the best use of a merchant if no other particularly effective use presents itself, as it gives an additional 10% trade efficiency in that node
• Main trade city doesn’t really matter that much in most cases; moving it can certainly be worthwhile sometimes, but this is usually when it interrupts what could otherwise be an unbroken chain of monopolised nodes. There is no difference from collecting manually in a monopolised node and having the main trade city there, except the latter can potentially free up a merchant at the expense of trade efficiency
  • This exact province doesn’t have any impact at all, only the node matters
  • Moving main trade city away from capital city will permanently decouple them and prevent future capital moves from automatically moving trade city too
• Diverting trade on vassals is usually worth the liberty desire hit – they won’t declare independence unless they think they can win
  • It’s worth watching for powerful rivals supporting independence of subjects with over 50% liberty desire, though
  • Disloyal subjects won’t help in wars (which shouldn’t matter usually), but if a vassal’s troops are needed in order to reduce attrition in a siege, for example, divert trade can be temporarily toggled off so the vassal will attach to its overlord, then toggled back on when this is no longer needed
• The cumulative merchant trade power bonus from not collecting anywhere outside home node is not particularly consequential, and losing it is no great loss
• End-nodes are overrated; many nodes can be monopolised and have large amounts of trade pumped into them as part of effective trade setups
  • In general, discourse about “good” and “bad” nodes is pretty unhelpful – how useful a node is is mostly just a byproduct of how easily it can be monopolised and how much value it can receive, and these things often change game to game