EU4 Console Commands: The Complete Player's List
Europa Universalis IV’s console is the friendliest in the Paradox stable: no launch options, no achievement anxiety — just open a non-Ironman game, press ` (backtick, or Shift+2, or ~ depending on your keyboard), and type. With the game now in its final version, the command set below is as close to permanent as game documentation gets. This is the player’s cut of the official list, sorted by what you’re trying to do, with the argument quirks that trip people up.
Three console basics worth knowing before the tables: Tab autocompletes any
partial command, the up/down arrows recall your history, and — an EU4
speciality — appending | filename to a command writes its output to that
file in the game folder. Most commands that affect a country accept an
optional country tag as the final argument, so everything below works on
the AI too.
Money and monarch points
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
cash [amount] [tag] | Adds ducats (5,000 if no amount) |
manpower [amount] [tag] | Adds manpower in thousands (default 50 = 50k) |
sailors [amount] [tag] | Adds sailors |
adm / dip / mil [amount] | Adds that monarch power (999 if no amount) |
powerpoints [amount] | All three powers at once; maxes them with no amount |
prestige [amount] | Adds prestige (+5 default) |
legitimacy [amount] | Sets ruler legitimacy (not adds) |
absolutism [amount] | Adds absolutism |
corrupt [amount] | Sets corruption to the value |
inflation [amount] | Changes inflation — negative values reduce it |
innovativeness [amount] | Adds innovativeness (100 default) |
army_tradition [amount] | Adds army tradition (50 default) |
army_professionalism [0–100] | Sets professionalism (100 default) |
government_power [amount] | Grants government ability points (Russian, Mamluk, and similar mechanics) |
crownland [amount] [tag] | Changes crownland share |
imperial_authority [amount] | Adds imperial authority for the Emperor (+6 default) |
mandate [amount] | Changes the Emperor of China’s mandate (max if empty) |
Government- and religion-specific meters follow the same pattern:
add_republican_tradition, devotion, horde_unity, karma, harmony,
fervor, church_power, doom, authority, and
add_to_curia_treasury [money] for the Curia.
Cheat toggles and dice
| Command | Effect |
|---|---|
yesman | AI accepts your diplomatic proposals |
god | God mode — battles resolve in your favor after day one |
infinite_combat | Combat stops causing damage |
combat_dice [0–9] | Fixes every combat roll to that number; -1 restores randomness |
fow / ti | Removes fog of war / terra incognita |
fast_colonize | Faster colony growth (AI too) |
fast_diplo | Diplomats travel instantly |
lucky [tag] | Toggles lucky-nation status |
gamespeed [0–5] | Sets game speed (0 pauses) |
debug_mode | Shows province IDs, tags, and event IDs in tooltips — the prerequisite for province commands |
Country, war, and conquest
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
tag [TAG] | Switch to playing that country |
annex [TAG] | Annex a country (no cores) |
integrate [TAG] | Annex with cores |
annex_all | Annex the entire world |
own [province] [tag] | Transfers province ownership |
assimilate [province] | Own + core + your culture and religion in one command |
control [province] | Changes wartime controller |
add_core / add_claim / add_permanent_claim [province] | Cores and claims |
siege [province] | Instantly wins the siege there |
winwars | Maximum warscore in all your current wars |
add_cb [cb tag] [target] | Grants a casus belli |
declare_war [attacker] [defender] | Starts a war between any two countries (no CB) |
delete_wars [tag] | Ends wars without truces |
leader [fire] [shock] [maneuver] [siege] | Spawns a general with those pips (admiral for navies) |
make_subject [TAG] [overlord] [type] | Subjects of any type — vassal, march, personal_union, tributary_state, colony, daimyo_vassal, and more |
form_union [TAG] | Personal union, you as senior |
Provinces and development
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
culture [province] | Converts the province to your primary culture |
change_religion [province or TAG] [religion id] | Converts a province or whole country — ids are lowercase (catholic, sunni, orthodox…) |
add_local_autonomy [province] [amount] | Adjusts autonomy (negatives work) |
add_devastation / add_prosperity [province] [amount] | Devastation and prosperity |
add_baseunrest [province] [amount] | Base unrest |
center_of_trade [level 1–3] [province] | Creates or re-levels a center of trade |
great_project [project tag] | Creates (or removes) a monument |
institution [province] [institution id] [amount] | Institution progress — ids: feudalism, renaissance, new_world_i (Colonialism), printing_press, global_trade, manufactories, enlightenment, industrialization |
embrace [province] [institution id] | Embraces one or all institutions there |
colonize [province or colonial region] | Instantly colonizes and cores — accepts whole regions like colonial_brazil or colonial_mexico |
add_natives [province] [amount] | Adds natives (×100) |
Estates, court, and rulers
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
add_loyalty [estate id] [amount] | Estate loyalty — ids like estate_church, estate_nobles, estate_burghers, estate_cossacks, estate_dhimmi, estate_brahmins, estate_rajput, estate_janissaries |
estate_agenda [name] | Starts an estate agenda |
add_faction [faction id] | Adds a faction — e.g. temples / enuchs / bureaucrats (Celestial Empire), mr_traders (Merchant Republic), rr_jacobins (Revolutionary) |
die (alias kill) | Kills the ruler |
kill_heir / add_heir | Heir management (adding an heir kills the current one) |
kill_consort / add_consort | Consort management |
age_ruler / age_heir / age_consort [age] | Sets ages |
add_trait [personality tag] | Adds a ruler personality |
kill_advisors [tag] | Clears the court and advisor pool |
Events, ages, and time
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
event [id] [tag] [option] | Fires an event, optionally pre-choosing the option |
age [0–3] | Jumps between the four Ages (0 = Discovery … 3 = Revolutions) |
date [yyyy.mm.dd] | Changes the date |
disaster [key] | Adds 100 progress to a disaster |
golden_age [tag] | Starts a golden age |
incident / imperial_incident [key] | Fires Shinto incidents / HRE imperial incidents |
Utility
help [command], helplog (full dump to game.log), findcommands <text>
(searches the list), cv (prints and copies the game version), observe
(spectator mode), autosave, clear, and the pipe trick from the intro:
economy | econ.txt style output capture works on the reporting commands.
Sources checked
The tables above are a curated subset of the official wiki’s command list.
The wiki marks its table as verified for 1.28–1.30, but EU4’s console has
been functionally stable for years and the game is now in its final
version, so drift risk is minimal; we additionally cross-checked the
classics against long-running community command databases and Steam guides.
Community-documented quirks worth trusting: manpower counts in thousands,
legitimacy and corrupt set rather than add, add_colonist only takes a
country to one colonist, and negative amounts work where reduction makes
sense (inflation, add_local_autonomy, exhaust).
Frequently asked
Do console commands disable achievements in EU4?
They can't come up: EU4 achievements are only earnable in Ironman mode, and the console is unavailable in Ironman. In a normal game the console is always available and there are no achievements to lose.
How do I find a province's ID for commands?
Run debug_mode once — mousing over any province then shows its ID, the owner's tag, and border distance. Run it again to switch the overlay off.
Can I give money or manpower to another country?
Yes — most commands take an optional country tag as the last argument: cash 5000 FRA fills France's treasury. Note manpower works in thousands (manpower 100 is 100k) and cash defaults to 5,000 if you give no amount.
What does the | symbol do after a command?
EU4's console can pipe output to a file: helplog | commands.txt writes the result into that file in the game's installation folder. Handy for dumping the full command list or long debug output.
How do I find a command I half-remember?
findcommands <text> searches the command list; help <command> prints one command's documentation; helplog dumps everything to game.log.
Is there a command list difference between EU4 and EU5?
They're entirely different consoles. EU5 needs a -debug_mode launch option and disables achievements while active; EU4's console just opens in any non-Ironman game. Command names also differ — see our EU5 console commands page for that game.
Sources checked
Command set transcribed from the official wiki's command table (sections marked verified for 1.28–1.30; EU4's console has been stable for years and the game is in its final version) and cross-checked against long-running community command databases and Steam guides. A handful of community-documented behaviors (colonist caps, population scope) are labeled as such.
- EU4 Wiki: Console commands (command table; sections verified 1.28–1.30, page maintained through 2026) wiki-verified
- Long-running community command databases and Steam guides (cross-check for stable classics and argument behaviors) community