Cheat menu (Civ2)

The Civilization II cheat menu is a list of tools for manipulating game elements, labelled "Cheat" in the main header. As the name implies, it includes functions that can be used for cheating, but is especially useful for designing and modifying scenarios.

By default, cheat menu options are inactive and must be manually enabled by "Toggle Cheat Mode" (Ctrl+K). In addition to the tools in the menu, cheat mode enables hotkeys for unlisted functions useful for testing and debugging. Activating cheat mode flags the game score in the current session and any subsequent game saves.

Options

Create Unit

Shortcut: Shift+F1

Opens a menu to instantly spawn a unit on the currently-highlighted tile. By default, lists units the active civilization can currently produce; "Obs." and "Adv." toggle displaying obsolete and unresearched units, respectively. "Veteran" toggles spawning units with veterancy. "Foreign" changes which civilization will own the spawned unit. These last two settings persist in subsequent invocations.

Reveal Map

Shortcut: Shift+F2

Switches the line of sight to the specified civilization, with full access to its city screens. "Entire Map" reveals the whole world, including all units and their current AI logic (shown as numbers on the unit shield); note that unless "Show enemy moves" is disabled, ALL computer unit movement will be tracked during rival civs' turns. "No Special View" returns line of sight to the active player's.

Set Human Player

Shortcut: Shift+F3

Puts the player in control of the selected civ. The original human civ skips its remaining turn, and other civs conduct their turns in sequence until reaching the new human player.

"No Human Player" activates a spectator mode in which all civs are automated and movement is not tracked; the player's only input is to advance to the next turn after all orders are processed. While the player nominally occupies the last active civ selected, switching out of No Human Player allows toggling between any extant civ without advancing the turn.

Set Game Year

Shortcut: Shift+F4

For configuring the in-game calendar, see § Scenario Parameters.

Sets the turn counter to the desired integer. A standard game begins on Turn 1; "0" is a valid entry, but displays the same calendar date as Turn 1.

 Negative integers will work, producing an internal turn count of 32 768+, but the calendar year will count backwards until reaching Turn 0, resetting the turn counter.

Kill Civilization

Shortcut: Shift+F5

Deletes all cities and units of the selected civilization. Can instantly (re)spawn replacement tribe unless Bloodlust is enabled. When applied on the human civ, the player defaults to observer mode.

Technology Advance

Shortcut: Shift+F6

Immediately completes the selected civ's research goal.

Edit Technologies

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F6

For modifying research progress and goals, see § Edit King.

Opens a menu listing all "public" advances for the specified civilization, allowing individual techs to be added to/removed from the civ's completed research. Possessed techs are denoted by an asterisk (*), while techs that are not yet directly researchable are denoted by a hyphen (-). "Give/Take All" instantly adds or removes all advances.

The first civ assigned Philosophy receives its research bonus, but no popup message is issued. Note that Fusion Power's bonus to Spaceship thrust persists even if the advance is removed.

 Embassies will notify the player of foreign research gained through this option. Disabling active embassies is recommended when using "Give/Take All" to avoid a deluge of popups.

Force Government

Shortcut: Shift+F7

Immediately changes the designated civ to the specified government.

Change Terrain At Cursor

Shortcut: Shift+F8

Opens a menu to modify the tile improvements on the currently-highlighted tile. When prompted on terrain that is transformed by irrigation (e.g. Jungle), the user is asked which terrain to use. The shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F8 can be used to apply the last defined configuration to other tiles; this will convert "forested" terrain to its "cleared" result.

The underlying terrain can be changed through the "Terrain" submenu. Ocean tiles ignore improvements and can only be changed to land.

 Tiles containing cities cannot be modified by this function.

Destroy All Units At Cursor

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+D

Deletes all units on the currently-highlighted tile. This ignores the production refund from units disbanded in cities.

Change Money

Shortcut: Shift+F9

Changes the specified civilization's treasury. The base game accepts inputs between 0 and 30 000; third-party patches that remove engine limits such as CIV2UIA permit values up to 1 073 741 823, although the Test of Time dialog is limited to five digits (for a maximum input of 99 999).

Edit Unit

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+U

Opens a menu to modify a unit's status on the currently-highlighted tile:

• Toggle Veteran Status: Adds/removes veterancy.
• Clear Movement Allowance: Resets available movement points, subject to unit's health.
• Set Hit Points: Sets the damage to the unit's hitpoints. The dialog header states a range between 0 and the unit's total defined health, but any value up to 255 is accepted.
• Set Home City: Assigns the unit's home city from a list of the controlling civ's cities. "None" applies no home city (NONE).
• Fortify/Unfortify: Immediately adds/clears fortification status.
• Change Caravan Commodity: Only applicable to trade units; switches the unit's trade goods.

Edit City

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+C

Opens a menu to modify attributes of a city on the currently-highlighted tile:

• Change Size: Sets the city's citizen count. Accepts both positive and negative integers, ranging from -128 – 127.
• Delete All Wonders: Removes all Wonders present in the city and unflags their completion status, allowing them to be rebuilt.
• Clear Disorder & We Love King: Instantly terminates any celebration or disorder in the city, restoring normal production modifiers.
• Copy Another City's Improvements: Sets the city improvements to match selected city from any civilization, excluding Wonders and the Palace. This includes improvements that require Ocean access, even if the city is landlocked.
• Set Shield Progress: Sets the invested production on the current item to the given integer. Negative inputs are valid, and add to the production cost.
• Toggle City Objective 1 pt./Major Objective 3 pts.: Marks the city as a contributor to objective scoring with the respective value. Major Objectives were introduced in Conflicts in Civilization. Only one flag can be used at a time.

Edit King

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+K

Opens a menu to modify attributes of a selected civilization:

• Edit Treaties: Modify current diplomatic relations and embassy status with a specified civ. Multiple relations can be selected, but "War" overrides all previous treaties. "Vendetta" and "Embassy" are unilateral, applied by the subject civ against the target civ without reciprocation.
• Set Last Contact: Sets the last turn the subject civ was contacted by the target civ. Only relevant to human players: AI–AI civs default to "-1".
• Set Attitude: Sets the civ's attitude towards the selected civilization, in a range from 0 (Worshipful) to 100 (Enraged).
• Set Reputation: Sets the civ's global reputation. Nominal range is 0 (Spotless) to 7 (Atrocious), but will accept inputs up to 255.
• Clear Patience: Clears the active civ's patience with all other civs.
• Clear All Last Contact: Sets "Last Contact" with all other civs to the current turn.
• Set Research Goal: Opens the research screen to select the research goal. Retains current research progress.
• Set Research Progress: Sets the invested Science (beakers) in the current research goal. The total cost is given in the dialog header. Negative inputs are valid, and add to the research cost. Note that a civ requires Science production for research to be completed during the turn update, even if invested beakers meet or exceed the current cost.
• Clear Research Goal: Clears the current research target, prompting selection on the next turn. Retains current research progress.
• Edit Name: Allows modifying the leader name, civilization name, and civilization adjective, up to 23 characters each.
• Copy Another King's Tech: Changes the civilization's completed research to match the target civ. See also "Edit Technologies".
• Toggle Female Flag: Toggles the leader's gender between male (0) and female (1), altering government titles, pronouns in game messages, and portrait in the diplomacy screen. Does not change the leader's name.

Scenario Parameters

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+P

Opens a menu to modify special rules and settings useful in configuring scenarios:

• Tech Paradigm: Sets the numerator used to determine the base cost of research. A larger numerator amplifies the civilization's ramp-up cost for each researched advance, while a smaller numerator reduces it. The current ratio is given beside the menu option.
• Turn Year Increment: The number of calendar years that pass for each turn. Negative integers change the calendar to a monthly format, advancing time by n months.
• Starting Year: The calendar year on the first turn. Positive integers prefix "A.D.", negative integers append "B.C."; 0 uses the default dynamic calendar. When using a monthly turn increment, multiply the target year by 12; note that monthly calendars ignore the B.C./A.D. labels.
• Maximum Turns: Total playable turns before the final game score is tallied, assuming a starting turn of 1.  A value of 0 ends the game at 2020 AD, regardless of elapsed turns; however, if the year increment bypasses this date (e.g. 2019 → 2021 or using a monthly calendar), the mandatory retirement year will not trigger.
• Wipe all goody boxes: Removes all villages from the map.
• Restore all goody boxes: Replaces all villages on tiles not occupied by units or cities, even those already explored.
• Reveal whole map: Provides all players a complete and permanent view of the world, cities, and tile features. While individual units are not tracked, battles are highlighted.
• Cover whole map: Reduces all players' line of sight to the immediate tiles containing their units and cities.
• Set Scenario Name: Sets the displayed name in the scenario introduction and several game messages. Accepts up to 24 characters.
• Toggle Total War Flag: Enables/disables total war mode, in which AI players are extremely aggressive, regardless of diplomatic relation or prescripted personality. Republics and Democracies are not subject to Senate veto.
• Edit Victory Conditions: Opens a submenu with settings for objective scoring; total extant and protagonist-controlled objectives are numbered in the dialog header:
  • Toggle Use Objective Victory Flag: Enables/disables objective scoring in place of the standard game.
  • Toggle Count Wonders as Objectives: Enables/disables completed Wonders from contributing to objective count (worth 1 point each). When enabled, Wonders are removed from the city build list, but those already under construction can be completed. Can be used even without objective scoring.
  • Set Objectives Protagonist: Designates the selected civilization as the focus for the score screen. When set to NONE (Barbarians), victory/defeat thresholds are calculated for each player individually.
  • Decisive/Marginal Victory/Defeat: Sets the minimum number of objectives required for the protagonist to qualify for the given victory rank. Each rank supersedes the ones below, e.g. "Decisive Victory (1)" takes precedence over "Marginal Victory (2)". Negative inputs are possible, but functionally redundant.
• Edit Special Rules: Opens a submenu to toggle special game behavior:
  • Forbid government switching: Prevents players from instigating a revolution from the Kingdom menu. Does not prevent the popup prompt when acquiring a government-related advance.
  • Forbid tech from conquest: Disables option to steal a rival's advance on capture of their cities.
  • Eliminate pollution: Prevents creation of on-map pollution from normal city mechanics. Does not prevent pollution from nuclear meltdowns and atomic weapons, or disable global warming.
  • Special WWII-only AI: Custom AI behavior for the World War II scenario: units attack in specific sequences, and diplomacy follows pre-scripted patterns. Allows construction of the Manhattan Project even if "Count Wonders as Objectives" is active.
  • Terrain/Unit animation lockout (ToT): Disables options to toggle resource and unit sprite animations in Graphic Options.  Does not disable animations themselves.
  • .SPR file override (ToT): Ignores the Static.spr file for unit sprites, using the base Units.bmp file instead. Applies even if game is not flagged as scenario.  Does not override animated sprites, which must be disabled through Graphic Options.

Save As Scenario

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+S

Saves the game as a scenario file (.SCN) with Cheat Mode unflagged.

Other functions

Cheat mode also enables key-codes for additional functions not listed in the menu:

• Improve Throne Room (Q): Prompts the next improvement choice for the Throne Room.
• Council Cheat (Ctrl+Shift+T): Provides a custom-configured High Council report. Each advisor's "rating" specifies the subject of their video segment and responses to peers' advice; valid inputs are numbers 1–7 (1–6 for Attitude), with the corresponding subject varying by advisor. Pressing "OK" prompts a choice for era variant (0: Classical, 1: Renaissance, 2: Modern). "Anarchy" ignores individual ratings, only prompting an era.