Does Mount and Blade Warband have cheats to allow me to besiege a castle on my own? If so, how can I enable and use these?

Question

I love to play Mount and Blade solo. I'm getting to the point where my character can win 1 v 75 battles without having to retreat. I'd like to be able to try and see just how far I can get with taking castles, but there's one problem:

There's a minimum party size of 5 or so when you wish to besiege a castle. No problem, I guess, I can hire 5 guys at a nearby town, start the siege and build the entire tower on my own whilst fending off bandits. But then it turns out you need to actually have like 5 people in order to even be allowed to start an attack during a siege.

I checked menus.txt of the game's files, and it seems there's several "cheat" options in there to forcibly start a siege. However, checking a wiki for the game does not list menu options as cheats... so how can I trigger those cheat actions?

Answer 1

Looking at the source code, the cheat menu doesn't actually allow you to attack a castle on your own. You can start a siege on your own via the cheat menu, but you will not be able to perform the actual attack. For that, you need at least 3 soldiers:

  ("castle_lead_attack",
   [
     (neg|troop_is_wounded, "trp_player"),
     (ge, "$g_siege_method", 1),
     (gt, "$g_friend_fit_for_battle", 3),
     (store_current_hours, ":cur_hours"),
     (ge, ":cur_hours", "$g_siege_method_finish_hours"),
   ],
   "Lead your soldiers in an assault.", 

---

  ("attack_stay_back",
   [
     (ge, "$g_siege_method", 1),
     (gt, "$g_friend_fit_for_battle", 3),
     (store_current_hours, ":cur_hours"),
     (ge, ":cur_hours",  "$g_siege_method_finish_hours"),
     ],
   "Order your soldiers to attack while you stay back...", 

So, what we can conclude is that this is not possible without modding.

What you can do, in this case, is edit the menus.txt file. Make a backup first!

mno_castle_start_siege  13 1073742365 3 144115188075856273 54 -1 541 3 144115188075856273 54 648518346341351424 2190 3 1224979098644774912 144115188075856787 432345564227567630 2147483678 2 1224979098644774912 0 2147483678 2 144115188075856786 1 1 2 936748722493063353 648518346341351424 32 2 72057594037927936 5 4 0 541 3 144115188075856273 0 3 2133 2 72057594037927942 1 5 0 2133 2 72057594037927942 0 3 0  Besiege_the_{reg6?town:castle}.

edit to

mno_castle_start_siege  13 1073742365 3 144115188075856273 54 -1 541 3 144115188075856273 54 648518346341351424 2190 3 1224979098644774912 144115188075856787 432345564227567630 2147483678 2 1224979098644774912 0 2147483678 2 144115188075856786 1 1 2 936748722493063353 648518346341351424 32 2 72057594037927936 0 4 0 541 3 144115188075856273 0 3 2133 2 72057594037927942 1 5 0 2133 2 72057594037927942 0 3 0  Besiege_the_{reg6?town:castle}.

That's a one character change - a 5 into a 0, and it corresponds to changing the 5 into a 0 here:

  ("castle_start_siege",
   [
       (this_or_next|party_slot_eq, "$g_encountered_party", slot_center_is_besieged_by, -1),
       (             party_slot_eq, "$g_encountered_party", slot_center_is_besieged_by, "p_main_party"),
       (store_relation, ":reln", "$g_encountered_party_faction", "fac_player_supporters_faction"),
       (lt, ":reln", 0),
       (lt, "$g_encountered_party_2", 1),
       (call_script, "script_party_count_fit_for_battle","p_main_party"),
       (gt, reg(0), 5),
       (try_begin),
         (party_slot_eq, "$g_encountered_party", slot_party_type, spt_town),
         (assign, reg6, 1),
       (else_try),
         (assign, reg6, 0),
       (try_end),
       ],
   "Besiege the {reg6?town:castle}.",

You're setting the "party_count_fit_for_battle" requirement from "more than 5" to "more than 0". This will allow you to start the siege on your own.

As for actually allowing the siege: Menus.txt again, this time for mno_castle_lead_attack:

mno_castle_lead_attack  5 2147485156 1 360287970189639680 30 2 144115188075856225 1 32 2 144115188075856836 3 2270 1 1224979098644774912 30 2 1224979098644774912 144115188075856229  Lead_your_soldiers_in_an_assault.  

This needs to be edited to

mno_castle_lead_attack  5 2147485156 1 360287970189639680 30 2 144115188075856225 1 32 2 144115188075856836 -1 2270 1 1224979098644774912 30 2 1224979098644774912 144115188075856229  Lead_your_soldiers_in_an_assault.  

This changes the "3" for the (gt, "$g_friend_fit_for_battle", 3), which validates if you have more 3 soldiers into a "-1" - "at least 0 soldiers". With these two changes, you should be able to (theoretically) besiege a castle on your own.

Answer 2

Don't know if this is late, but to activate the menu, press the tilde key ` and the shift key together. This should open a black bar on the screen. Type in Cheatmenu, then press enter. When you go to a town/castle, you should be able to scroll down to an option Cheat : Besiege Castle.