Not Playing Fair with Resources: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

This is a common form of [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|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 [[You Require More Vespene Gas|to gain or gather resources]] in order that the enemy will actually pose a challenge to the player.

 

* AI gains resources without having to gather them.

 

 

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.

 

{{examples}}

* 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 best AI can and ''will'' kick your ass a lot of times before you master it, even when it doesn't cheat meaning that [[Artificial Brilliance|the AI is just that good]].

* The AI in ''[[Battlezone (1998 video game)|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.

* 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 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 & 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.

* 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 [[Player Versus Player|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.

* This is a common FPS situation: partially ducked behind cover as you are, your opponent just spent hours emptying [[Bottomless Magazines|innumerable]] [[More Dakka|rounds of ammunition]], [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|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. [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]

[[Category:Strategy Game Tropes]]