[The_Tauren13]

In the popular RTS game Starcraft, the AI was given no advantages over the human players, or 'cheats' as you're calling them. It simply played extraordinarily well for an AI. At the start of a game, the AI would select a random strategy and roll with it, be it mass rush or quick expansion. This worked very well, because each strategy was given the time and detail needed to make it work well, but the randomness prevented it from being so predictable that you would know exactly what to do to counter it, all the time. Even though it was a very remarkably intelligent AI, a fair fight would typically be considered 3 humans vs. 4 computers, 2 v 3 if the players were exceptionally good, and sometimes even a 3 v 5 would be attempted, but would rarely be won. An artificial intelligence simply cannot be as strategically good at a game as a human player, even when the creators, like blizzard, have loads of time and money to blow on developing it.

I recently programmed a little turn-based strategy game of my own using java, in which you would play a 6-way FFA with 5 AI opponents. At the start of each game, the player enters a troop multiplier for the AI that simply multiplies all the troops is starts with and acquires during the game by a percentage, anywhere from 10% to 1000%. Playing a lot of games recently on the 110% difficulty level, I won only about half of them. Even then, this means that I am still better at the game than the 110% difficulty AI, because if we were truly even, I would only win 1 of 6. In making the AI's performance optimal, I had to settle on the proper mix of randomness and scripts. Too much randomness and the AI is far less intelligent. In an older Version of the game, the almost nonexistent AI would simply attack a random adjacent province with a random number of troops regardless of who owned it or how strong it is. In this older Version, I was able to win games on 300% difficulty (where the AI would receive 3 times as many troops as me) about half the time. Too many scripts, however, and the AI is easily outguessed and outmaneuvered, as it becomes overly predictable.

As far as PC games go, the AI has the hardest time coping with TBS games. In RTS, it can rely on instant reflexes and minute control/micromanagement to give itself an advantage, but in turn-based it has no such outlet. Also, in a FPS, like counter-strike, its lightning reflexes can give it a large advantage. The AI in counter-strike, in the form of bots, is actually much better on its highest difficulty setting than the average person, without the use of advantages like more HP or money.