Not Playing Fair with Resources

This is a common form of cheating in strategy games. Since the player is generally much smarter than the computer, the designers compensate by giving the AI player(s) an unfair ability to gain or gather resources in order that the enemy will actually pose a challenge to the player.

This can take several forms:
 * AI can generate units and buildings without expending resources and/or more quickly than the player can.
 * AI gathers resources faster despite using the same technology.
 * AI gains resources without having to gather them.

Depending on the game, simply starting with more resources might not be cheating. The amount of resources each side starts with is determined by the designers at the start of the map, and some games never had a rule stating that all sides must begin on equal footing.

Almost never is this justified by anyone actually saying that "The enemy has a ludicrously massive amount of storage and are only gathering further to make it bigger and starve us out." line.

In some cases, the trope is justified by painting the enemy (on an ally of the enemy) as a more advanced civilization (especially aliens). Otherwise, you get Story and Gameplay Segregation. Also entirely justified at higher difficulty settings when the programmers have the simple courtesy of warning you that such settings will bend or break the rules in favor of the computer opposition.

Compare Offscreen Villain Dark Matter. See also My Rules Are Not Your Rules, Numerical Hard, and (of course) The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard.

The best AI can and will kick your ass a lot of times before you master it, even when it doesn't cheat meaning that the AI is just that good.
 * The space RTS Star Ruler both averts this and plays it straight. When you start a game and activate AI empires, you can both choose the difficulty level and whether or not it cheats. What that option actually does is give the AI a set amount of resources depending on how long the game has been going on, capped at some ridiculous number. So, early on, it doesn't get very many resources while at the end it gets over 1 million of every resource per second!
 * The AI in Battlezone 1998 II has a "scrap cheat" which gives them a small amount of resources every minute, but they still need to gather resources to get any decent units. Later patches allow the player to disable it for the AI, or give themselves a scrap cheat.
 * Heroes of Might and Magic has this with the computer in the higher difficulty levels, their resources appear out of thin air. In the impossible difficulty the computer gets 1000 gold and 2 of every resource for doing nothing at all. Top this off with the fact that you start with no resources at all while the computer starts with a bunch of resources makes this difficulty level nearly impossible, however their have been rumors that it can be beaten (this info is based off of the impossible level in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, it may vary in other games of the series).
 * Rise of Legends does this; high-level computer opponents have access to bonus resource rates and instantaneous micro (Toughest computers instantly construct what they need at the beginning of the game), significant enough to render them unbeatable... if not for their incredibly predictable formulaic AI, which renders them intensely vulnerable to timed strikes during their early expansions. The entire experience is markedly unsatisfactory: either you're too slow and you'll be crushed, or you're fast enough to catch the AI with its pants down and can anticipate a relatively easy victory. Medium-speed players can sometimes find a reprieve in the AI's building patterns: it will, without fail, attempt a balanced unit spread that stands no chance against, say, a Muskets-and-Clockwork mass slam.
 * (That last is particularly ironic, considering just how strongly Ro L's prequel, Rise of Nations, pushed the "a complete part of this balanced strike force" angle.)
 * In Sid Meier's original Civilization, the player's civilization must devote immense amounts of resources to building one of the Seven Wonders of the World; your AI opponents, on the other hand, do not actually 'build' these but simply have a random chance (minute, but significant in the long run) of being awarded one each turn. This goes above and beyond the usual accelerated-build advantage of strategy games because only one civilization ever can build any given Wonder - so the AI not only gets a free toy, but may ruin your own investment.
 * The spin-off Colonization: 20 tools and 50 guns, the AI gets for free in every new colony (source).
 * In Civilization Revolutions, the computer players get armies for free, give technology to each other (you have to research, buy or trade), they can spawn armies off of ships and out of the Fog Of War in places they could not possibly get to otherwise. This on top of the fact that they never attack each other, so it's always a 4-on-1 game.
 * Most of the Civilization series' difficulty can be attributed to this - the AI gets bonuses to their economy and production, among other things. As a result, it isn't unusual on very large maps to see stacks of twenty or more units running amok. However, this only happens on the highest Difficulty Level; on the lowest difficulty, the AI actually gets a malus to production. This is supposed to help out newbies (probably better business than Easy Mode Mockery, which might drive newcomers away).
 * The AI seems to screw with the random number generator quite a bit. Often its massively underpowered unit stacks will destroy your own more advanced forces, unless you've got tanks or something else far in advance of their own units. The AI also appear to be able to generate units out of thin air as soon as they decide they need reinforcements, or as soon as you declare war on them. This encourages the player to enter into wars only if he or she has a massive tech or production advantage over the AI, not just more units of the same type.
 * An actual evidence of cheating has been found in Starcraft. There, modders eventually deciphered the files that control AI actions. While most opcodes in them just match normal player actions, they also found codes that will give the AI player instant ore and gas or let it create units out of nowhere. In addition, if you extract the campaign maps and open them in the map editor, you'll see how surprisingly often the AI is helped by scripted game events ("Triggers"). This goes so far that the AI plays with unlimited resources for almost the whole campaign. Those advantages are usually not abused, so the game doesn't become frustrating even despite the cheating.
 * In campaign maps, the computer really has no choice but to be scripted with bonus resources or units; the campaign maps are heavily triggered for storyline purposes, and it wouldn't make sense for an "unstoppable Zerg outpost" to be demolished by a steamroller player when it is specifically triggered to be destroyed by a surprise appearance by an ally or the like.
 * In skirmish games, the computer does not get a resource advantage. The Broodwar AI Project reveals that, due to the limitations of the AI, and how much can actually be edited, a resource advantage is required to ensure an even playing field. Although, if you don't swing for that, an AI is included that does not get a resource advantage, but just a smarter build order.
 * In Starcraft 2's skirmishes, it's confirm-able that the hardest AI mode gets minerals and gas faster. Watch a replay against one while watching its resources. Each worker gets 7 minerals instead of 5 and 6 gas instead of 4.
 * In the first Command and Conquer game, a full Tiberium harvester load of the AI is worth twice as much credits as that of the human player. Also it builds its units (and rebuilds its buildings) much quicker than you can. In some missions you can't expect to win unless you completely starve them by killing all their harvesters, because their production far outstrips yours - which is especially hard as a one harvester load is worth 1400$ for them (700$ for you), which is exactly the price of a new harvester, so if just one of his harvesters manages to get back, the AI can build another one to replace the one you destroyed. In the last GDI campaign mission, there were actually a bunch of hidden, lightly- to wholly-unguarded Nod Tiberium silos which only seemed to exist for you to be able to capture all that Tiberium for yourself. Apparently the enemy doesn't mind you gathering their insane amounts of Tiberium, if only because you don't stand a chance otherwise.
 * It's actually worse than just twice as much money. At least in some cases, the computer gets an unlimited amount of money any time they successfully harvest Tiberium. If one of their harvesters reaches a refinery, all refineries and silos are filled up completely. The only thing keeping the AI from never running out of money ever is the fact that the game only allowed you to have a limited amount of money "on hand" at any time, as defined by how many silos you had to store resources in.
 * Probably balanced by the fact that the AI is otherwise dumb as a rock and too stupid to do anything other than turtle and send a few infantry your way every 10 minutes.
 * Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 suffers from this too. The enemy can rebuild a building in just a few seconds, and not only start with a pile of cash but receive regular payments from nowhere. The only way to defeat computer players is to destroy their construction yard first and then go for everything else.
 * When playing as Allies you can turn the tables in certain missions however, the Ally's Spy steals half of the opposition's money if it touches their refinery and the AI is too stupid to sell it's buildings except when scripted to. So on say the assault on Moscow you can clear out the area around a soviet refinery, fortify the area against reprisals and continually steal an absurd amount of money every few minutes.
 * The only difference between "Hard" and "Brutal" Difficulty in Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is that a Brutal computer generates double resources.
 * In Red Alert 3 the Empire Mission in Hawaii notably has the ally base having either 6 or 8 Seaports and multiple Airbases all producing units at the same time and non stop until you destroy their base or Ore Refineries. On the opposite side of the map you there are no extra resource nodes for you.
 * Likewise, Insane enemies get the same +100% bonus to resource gathering as Brutals did in C&C 3.
 * Good luck getting at their Ore Refineries, they have heavy defenses (in addition to a never ending wall of units) and not nearly enough power plants to support it if they had any at all.
 * In Warcraft III the amount of gold the AI earns each time a builder goes to the gold mine and returns depends on the difficulty (on "normal" difficulty it receives the same amount of gold as the player).
 * Weirdly, they only gather 1 unit of gold from that mine per worker. This does mean they can last longer, but it also makes sure that when you burn the location, you can hijack their leftover gold.
 * That's only in some campaign missions, to ensure there's still a mine left after you destroy a base.
 * On certain missions of the campaign the AI gets free resources from scripts.
 * The AI in Warcraft III has permanent bonuses to movement speed, which makes certain manoeuvres like intercepting fleeing opponents more difficult; it gets to the point where your faster-moving units literally cannot catch up with their own slower units. It also means they harvest resources faster than you even though their workers don't carry any extra. This bonus is built into the game engine and cannot be removed even in custom maps.
 * In the original Warcraft, the computer AI has infinite resources. It can even build more units than it has farms to support. This means the computer shows its peons mining gold and lumber, and building farms, entirely for show. It doesn't abuse this power (it only builds a small number of units at a time, then sends them to attack).
 * On Hardest difficulty, the computer in Age of Empires II actually DOES have extra, invisible resources. The best way to demonstrate this is to create a custom scenario, create a CPU opponent that has no villagers (only a town center and 2 required buildings for age advancement) and 75 military units (to prevent it from making villagers). Now set difficulty to hardest and give the CPU no resources at all. Now start the game and before long the computer will have advanced in level. Where did it get the food and gold needed to do this if you gave it none and it cannot produce any?
 * If you have a look at the AI files, you'll notice that on 'hard' and 'hardest' difficulty, the AI pulls resources out of nowhere whenever they drop to almost zero. If you write your own AI, you can give it this ability too, even unconditionally, giving you infinite resources.
 * Age of Empires notably averts the infinite resources trick, making it possible through smart defenses and expanding to whittle your foe's resources to zero, meaning they turn into a sitting duck(a sitting duck with backup, maybe, but a sitting duck nonetheless).
 * The AIx of Supreme Commander isn't smarter than the regular AI; it just builds faster and resources have no effect on build speed.
 * Note, however, that when you select an AIx variant, the game tells you to your face that it's a cheating AI.
 * Likewise, the computer player in Total Annihilation gets ordinary units that produce power and metal for free. Naturally, when you play as that faction those units are completely ordinary in every way.
 * In console RPGs, both the enemy monsters and the player characters will often have access to MP-draining spells, which can seriously impair a caster if used repeatedly. Bosses, however, will often have infinite MP, or simply use their spells for free. Thus, the boss's MP-to-one spell will cripple your spellcasters if you're lacking in MP restoratives, but the same spell cast upon the boss is utterly useless.
 * Sometimes this isn't exactly cheating. The enemy-exclusive spells may simply not cost any MP to begin with because you can't use it anyways, and bosses sometimes have MP value that is, while not infinite, in five or six digits so it takes forever to drain them all, and only become a plausible course of actions in low level games or something. There are games that have the enemies bona fide cheat, though.
 * In some of the Shin Megami Tensei games draining boss MP to prevent magic use IS a legitimate tactic.
 * Averted in Final Fantasy VI, where some enemies (such as Those Two Bosses Atma/Ultima Weapon and Magic Master) instantly die if they have no MP. And the upgraded Skull Dragon from the Dragon's Den can only be killed in this fashion.
 * And your own MP-draining spells can be used to restore your own mana, especially in games where MP-restoring items are rare, finite, or both.
 * Similarly, CPU-controlled enemy Pokémon never run out of PP for their moves in the original Red and Blue games. This was changed in later games.
 * Units in Swords & Soldiers for Wii Ware can be instantly created if enough gold is available. There's a cooldown before one can summon another unit of the same type. In the campaign the AI will flagrantly ignore this and send 5-10 of the exact same type of unit at any given time.
 * Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds scenarios invariably have some kind of "Game World: gives supplies to computer AI" code.
 * The AI on Dawn of War will start the game with extra resources if you put the difficulty high enough.
 * It also has faster resource gain rates. The Dawn of War AI, however, is basically designed to spam units at usually low to medium tier, so if you can actually survive long enough to tech up, you can usually win regardless of the AI's level. Or, in team games, if you rush the AI.
 * They don't seem to be bound by population caps like the player is, though. It's perfectly fine if they do it when you're assaulting their stronghold province, but on a tiny, insignificant bit of land?
 * Most obviously seen in the Eldar stronghold mission of Dark Crusade, where the Eldar base constantly summons fully reinforced squads of infantry and hasn't been told that there's a cap of 2 on the best vehicles. To be fair though, it is justified as them warping units from an offworld ship, and you're supposed to cut them off from said ship instead of destroying their base.
 * The AI in Act of War will periodically be granted $500. You can test this by destroying everything it has except for its headquarters. It will produce construction vehicles indefinitely.
 * The AI in Company of Heroes on Normal receives a massive Manpower boost. If on a map, both sides capture the exact same number of points with the exact same levels of Manpower/Munition/Fuel income, the AI will normally have 1/3 extra manpower points than the Player. This can be seen in the summary screen after completing a Skirmish map.
 * It's nothing compared to what the Hard and Expert A Is do. 2x and 4x respectively.
 * In Dungeon Keeper 2 enemy Keepers often have inaccessible mana vaults, generally so that they can spam imps and spells and sustain a ton of traps.
 * Galactic Civilizations 2 informs you that the more potent AI settings aren't going to play fair with resources.
 * However the weaker AI settings actually cheat to the players advantage, penalizing the AI's resources. In the pre-set AI, only the "Intelligent" or "Tough" difficulty setting plays fair with resources, though you're free to tinker with how much the AI is helped or hampered in this manner.
 * The AI in Homeworld 2 does this when it doesn't just use Offscreen Villain Dark Matter to spawn whatever it wants. Even if you manage to block every resource available to the computer, it can build no matter what. It tries to play fair, in that it will not exploit this to build ships unless it's at least making a token effort to gather resources, but it becomes obvious it's cheating when it sends endless waves of resource collectors in a hopeless attempt to mine the pockets. In short, the AI only gathers resources to spite you. This is of course pointless, though, because by about six of seven missions in you'll have enough resources to rebuild your entire fleet twice over, and that number only goes up from there.
 * In Touhou Soccer Moushuuden, your players need to expend guts to do all those killer moves. The help file specifically states "By the way, the AI has absolutely no idea what this Guts restriction means." This also turns the single character in the game who can actively reduce opponents' Guts useless when on your side.
 * This gets lampshaded when Kaguya only uses "Help me, Eirin!-mild-" for an entire match to save her guts, only to be told afterwards that it was a waste of time because of this trope.
 * In Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard is apparently the only person in the entire galaxy who doesn't have access to infinite amounts of ammunition thermal clips. All of the myriad enemies you fight have infinite ammo clip stores. Luckily, so do your companions.
 * A lesser example, but when you visit homeworlds in Star Control they are protected by an infinite number of ships, despite the fact that you seem to be the only one in the galaxy actually gathering any resources. This can be partially justified in that they had a large supply of ships before the game began ... but once the race has been recruited to your Alliance you most definitely do not gain access to said ships! If you want any you'll have to build them yourself with your own mining profits.
 * In Earth 2150 your units deplete ammo when firing. Computer units don't. If you don't have a supply unit, you're screwed. AI obviously doesn't need them, so destroying them is not effective (this ruins a lot of tactical possibilities).
 * In Eve Online, NPC ships have a fixed 100% capacitor level. NPCs labelled as mercenaries typically fly somewhat cap-poor Caldari ships shooting very cap-hungry lasers, which they can do all day if you let them. It also means that energy neutralizers, often quite lethal in PvP combat since they (indirectly) disable the target's armour repairers as well as its weapons, are completely ineffective against them. On the flip side, energy vampires (which steal cap from the target but only if the victim's cap level is higher than yours) always help you (but likewise don't hurt the NPCs).
 * The computer companies in Transport Tycoon don't pay money for raising or lowering terrain, explaining why they don't go instantly bankrupt when their first action is to level a mountain or two just to build one coal train.
 * Special mention to some bosses and mobs in Guild Wars missions, while usually the enemy NPCs do have a fair energy limit, some casters in missions actually use spells as their auto atttacks resulting in something like this (PC Mesmer casts 3 energy draining spells, enemy -40 energy + NPC caster boss- Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate, Immolate = 6 people dead).
 * This is a common FPS situation: partially ducked behind cover as you are, your opponent just spent hours emptying innumerable rounds of ammunition, all the while missing you. You kill the opponent and pick up their gun and extra rounds, and are rewarded with a finite number of bullets for that weapon.
 * Sword of the Stars gives its Hard AI 50% extra earnings and research speed. The player gets these advantages on Easy, though. AI Rebels get sizeable advantages over normal players, whether human or computer-controlled, as part of the "Death" side of the Death or Glory Attack that is AI research.
 * AI War Fleet Command has the AI draw resources from a separate pool, where it warps in reinforcements and units.
 * In both Bioshock, games the enemies will have unlimited ammunition. However when you search them, they will only have a few bullets on hand.
 * In League of Legends, there are only two differences between Beginner bots and Intermediate bots; Intermediate bots will actually use their summoner spells (at the exact perfect time, of course) and they'll automatically gain XP and items more quickly. Trying to keep them from kills to deny gold/XP? Good luck with that.
 * Aerobiz: The game does this and makes its own rules in one stroke. If your airline runs in the red for a year, it goes bankrupt and you lose. If an AI airline runs in the red for a year, it goes bankrupt, changes its name and gets a huge influx of cash to start over and bounce back.
 * The Ancient Greece themed RTS Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War features an AI that will appear to collect resources but will really have an infinite supply. At the higher difficulty levels, once an AI's main base is destroyed it is not uncommon for it's remaining production facility to pump out an endless supply of it's most powerful units despite not having any legitimate incoming resources.
 * Inverted in The Settlers 1 (AKA Serf City) where the computer uses the same resource gathering rules as you do. So much so, that it is possible to often turn any computer enemy into sitting ducks in player-defined games by turning down the computer players' resources and intelligence to minimum.
 * Despite being ostensibly an RPG/Puzzle Hybrid, Puzzle Quest still has resource gathering, to a degree. Rest assured if the opponent goes first, they will have at least one combo available that provides them with an additional turn... and the Random Number God will be kind enough to give them a few more comboes to fill up their reserves before you get a chance. This rarely happens for the human player.