Does the AI cheat?

In Starcraft does the Custom Game AI "Cheat"? What I mean is, is the AI limited to the same resources as I am, vision, buildings, etc.

I ask because it always seems to know where all my bases are without scouting. Also it seems to have an exceptionally large force for how many bases it has.

Note: This is referring to the 1998 game, not the current one.

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5 Answers

The SC1 AI knows where everything is. It will still need line of sight for things like siege tanks to fire, but it knows what's there. If you'd like to confirm this yourself, play a 1v1 on an 8 player map and watch the replay after. The AI beelines all attacks for you without ever having scouted the other spawn points.

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It cheats in a way that it doesn't have fog of war, there is also an insane AI level which keeps on giving itself minerals when it runs out.

So the AI will know where you are without scouting.

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Yes. Starcraft 1 AI starts with the map explored and knowledge your location. They did this to ease the difficulty of programming the AI with what to do when it does not know where the enemy is. Now if only I could find a reference to support my statement...

I'm willing to bet that the same is true in SC2, but the playing field is more even since you also start with the map explored, and have the human ability to guess the likely location of the AI, especially on symmetrical team V team maps.

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What is more important is that they get more minerals. The data from what I just searched for:

5 > 7 minerals a trip 4 > 6 gas per trip

If you ever play with an AI ally, you'll find that it's absolutely impossible to replicate their opening builds.

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As far as I know the AI never "cheats" in the sense of it knows more then you or has more resources. It can however pull off some inhuman stunts, for instance if you assult a location on the map with cloaked forces it tends to comsat that location instantly about 3-4 times (however many comsats it has) even if it was in the middle of defending a base, building, and attacking some other place already. Course maybe some Korean pros can do it... seems inhuman to me.

As for knowing where your bases are, most SC maps are pretty traditionally mirrored and for the most part you can take a pretty logical guess as to where your opponents has started and their first 2 or 3 expansions without even scouting. There's really only a handful of non-traditional maps that are rather wacky (I think Newgettysberg is kinda weird if I remember correctly) that would throw some people for a loop. However even a human player has usually played those few ones enough to know where to look, so it's not inconceivable (to me at least) that the computer would logically know where you are.

But to answer the original question, no, the computer does not cheat.

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