History Main / NotPlayingFairWithResources

* In both ''Franchise/BioShock'' games the enemies will have unlimited ammunition. However when you search them, they will only have a few bullets on hand.

** In Civilization2 at least, the AI tended to surround it's cities with irrigation and roads with alarming efficiency. It's almost guaranteed the computer has better infrastructure then you!

* Before it's first patch, the computer opponents in ''VideoGame/StarTrekArmada II'' would often suddenly turn up with a huge [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin armada]] of the highest tier ship in the game. Imagine, if you will, a horde of Negh'vars coming towards your Starbase, piled up like a packed convention line.

* ''RiseOfLegends'' 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.

* ''SwordOfTheStars'' gives its Hard AI 50% extra earnings and research speed. The player gets these advantages on Easy, though. [[AIIsACrapshoot AI Rebels]] get sizeable advantages over normal players, whether human or computer-controlled, as part of the "Death" side of the DeathOrGloryAttack that is AI research.

* ''{{Aerobiz}}'': The game does this and [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules makes its own rules]] in one stroke. If your airline runs in the red for a year, it goes bankrupt and [[NonStandardGameOver 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.

*** 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.

** 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 [[BraggingRightsReward instead of destroying their base.]]

* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' 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 [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin nearly impossible]], however there have been rumors that [[NintendoHard 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).

* ''HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' 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 [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin nearly impossible]], however there have been rumors that [[NintendoHard 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).

* In ''{{Earth 2150}}'', until the latest patch, ''enemy AI units never had to reload'', even though your own units always had to. It was patched because people kept complaining about it, as it's simply unfair, especially im missions with limited ressources and/or no Dropzone to get reinforcements.
* ''GalacticCivilizations'' 2 informs you that the more potent AI settings aren't going to play fair with resources.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', only the player ever had to worry about PP - wild Pokemon and enemy trainers would never cease being able to use moves. This was corrected in sequels and rereleases.

* In the first ''CommandAndConquer'' 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.

** CommandAndConquer 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.

** 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.

** In ''Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour'', there are "Challenges" available where the player goes up against an enemy General who specialises in a specific type of warfare. Examining the scripting behind these Challenges reveals an infinite-loop AI script trigger: "if Credits < 10000, give 10000 Credits". The AI has infinite cash, since they immediately get given 10k more when they drop below 10k in the bank.
*** [[GeneralFailure Kwai]] [[EpicFail still]] manages to run out because of his [[AttackAttackAttack endless tank spam]].
* The AI in ''CompanyOfHeroes'' 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.

This is a common form of [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard 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 [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas to gain or gather resources]] in order that the enemy will actually pose a challenge to the player.

!!Examples in RealTimeStrategy games:

* The space RTS ''Videogame/StarRuler'' is very upfront about this. 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!
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalacticBattlegrounds'' scenarios invariably have some kind of "Game World: gives supplies to computer AI" code.
* Units in ''VideoGame/SwordsAndSoldiers'' 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.

[[AC: Non RTS examples:]]
* 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, [[UselessUsefulSpell 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 ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games draining boss MP to prevent magic use IS a legitimate tactic.
*** Averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', where some enemies (such as [[ThatOneBoss Those Two Bosses]] Atma/Ultima Weapon and Magic Master) instantly die if they have no MP. And the upgraded Skull Dragon from the [[BonusDungeon 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 {{Pokemon}} never run out of PP for their moves in the original Red and Blue games. This was changed in later games.
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyTactics'': Enemies have infinite stores of both single-use restorative items and throwable weaponry. The latter can be abused with the Thief reaction ability Catch to get free copies of, say, the InfinityPlusOneSword.
* ''Videogame/TeamFortress2'': The robots in Mann Vs. Machine mode all have BottomlessMagazines, but to keep things fair any weapon with a clip will have the same default clip size as you and thus they have to periodically stop to reload...except for the GiantMook versions, whose level of bullet/rocket/grenade spam are enough to make you weak at the knees.
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[[AC: Unsorted examples]]
* ''GalacticCivilizations'' 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 ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} 2'' does this when it doesn't just use OffscreenVillainDarkMatter 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 [[SpitefulAI 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 [[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} 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 [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Kaguya only uses "[[MemeticMutation 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 ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] is apparently the only person in the entire galaxy who doesn't have access to infinite amounts of [[strike:ammunition]] thermal clips. All of the myriad enemies you fight have infinite clip stores. Luckily, so do your companions.
* A lesser example, but when you visit homeworlds in ''StarControl'' 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 [[JustifiedTrope 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}}'', until the latest patch, ''enemy AI units never had to reload'', even though your own units always had to. It was patched because people kept complaining about it, as it's simply unfair, especially im missions with limited ressources and/or no Dropzone to get reinforcements.

* The computer companies in ''TransportTycoon'' 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 [[BottomlessMagazines innumerable]] [[MoreDakka rounds of ammunition]], [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy 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.
** ''SystemShock2'' featured zombies toting shotguns with infinite ammo. Invariably, upon killing one, he'd drop a broken shotgun with 1 or 2 shells.
** Stranger still is when you kill an enemy before he gets a shot off during a stealth mission and pick up his rifle, only to find out that he was walking around with a half-empty magazine in his weapon.
* ''SwordOfTheStars'' gives its Hard AI 50% extra earnings and research speed. The player gets these advantages on Easy, though. [[AIIsACrapshoot AI Rebels]] get sizeable advantages over normal players, whether human or computer-controlled, as part of the "Death" side of the DeathOrGloryAttack that is AI research.
* ''AIWarFleetCommand'' has the AI draw resources from a separate pool, where it warps in reinforcements and units.
* In both ''Franchise/BioShock'', games the enemies will have unlimited ammunition. However when you search them, they will only have a few bullets on hand.

* ''{{Aerobiz}}'': The game does this and [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules makes its own rules]] in one stroke. If your airline runs in the red for a year, it goes bankrupt and [[NonStandardGameOver 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.

* In ''BloodBowl'', the AI teams start at 1300 team value instead of the 1000 human-created teams start at (this is equivalent to 300,000 worth of gold pieces, worth 4-6 extra players, or around 8-12 level ups). AI teams also continue to rise in team value gradually as you play, generally ensuring they continue to outpace your team's value, and many of them are artificially 'downgraded' and are in reality worth even more than they seem on paper.
* Every single ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]'' ever made:
** The first one compensates for it's [[ArtificialStupidity laughable AI]] by almost always outnumbering you nearly 2 to 1 with enemy units and properties.
** The sequel's a bit better, but it introduces ''factories'': an enemy property that can produce any unit in the game once per turn at no cost. Thankfully they only appear in a few maps.
** ''Dual Strike'' has the Black Crystal: a property that restores 3HP to any nearby enemy unit for free. [[spoiler:They're actually a plot point explaining how Black Hole recovered so quickly after their last defeat.]]
** ''Days of Ruin'' cuts down on this considerably thanks to a very improved [=AI=], until you get to the [[spoiler:[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard ridiculously overpowered]] [[GameBreaker final boss.]]]]

* VideoGame/MachinesWiredForWar::The computer can build units without resources. (Resource consumption is real-time rather than paid at once at the beginning. For the computer, production goes on even at 0 BMU's while it stops for a human player. This doesn't affect building construction, however.) It can place building blueprints without paying the 5 BMU placement cost. It can launch a nuke for free while it normally costs 500 BMU's.
* In the Videogame/SupremeCommander campaign, especially noticeable on the hard difficulty level, the computer will almost always have multiple factories continuously pumping out units without actually needing any resources. This makes a lot of missions extremely tedious, given that you have to fight against an endless stream of enemies.
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!!Examples:

* The space RTS ''Videogame/StarRuler'' is very upfront about this. 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!

* ''HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' 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 [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin nearly impossible]], however there have been rumors that [[NintendoHard 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).
* ''RiseOfLegends'' 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 ''RoL'''s prequel, ''RiseOfNations'', pushed the "a complete part of this balanced strike force" angle.)

* In ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'', the AI has a random chance of getting a free colony ship every turn.
* 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.
*** It's made extremely obvious after winning a campaign level when all the end stats are shown that the computer recieves a huge amount of starter cash. An example would be that you'll occasionally see the end-level resource stats for the computer in the 50 thousands even though the computer most of the time only has about 4 actual workers gathering resources which basically spells out to you that the computer started off with 50,000 minerals and gas each.
** In skirmish games, the computer ''does not'' get a resource advantage. The ''[[http://www.entropyzero.org/BroodwarAI.html 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. They have since been renamed to Cheaters.

* In ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' skirmishes, the amount of gold and lumber the AI earns depends on the difficulty (on "insane" difficulty, it receives twice the amount of gold and lumber as the player than what it actually harvested, where as on "easy" and "normal" difficulty it only receives the normal amount.
** On certain missions of the campaign the AI continuously gets free resources from scripts whenever it's running low.
** In some campaign missions, the AI only gathers 1 unit of gold or lumber per worker each trip. This makes sure that when you burn the location, you can hijack their leftover gold, while also attempting to make it look at least somewhat realistic (see above).
** 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. However, it seems that both an AI's and a player's workers have a chance to speed up while harvesting resources. This bonus is built into the game engine and cannot be removed even in custom maps.
* In the original ''VideoGame/{{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 ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' 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.
** In ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'', the player can also set a "handicap" which is a percentage bonus (+0-100) to resource gathering. Bcause this affects only the resources received, not resources gathered, this means that at +100%, that player receives 600 wood out of each tree instead of 300. Since trees are the only limited resource without homecity shipments, this can prove to be a tremendous advantage.
** ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires'' 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 ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' 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.
* The computer player in ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'' 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, [[UselessUsefulSpell 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 ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games draining boss MP to prevent magic use IS a legitimate tactic.
*** Averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', where some enemies (such as [[ThatOneBoss Those Two Bosses]] Atma/Ultima Weapon and Magic Master) instantly die if they have no MP. And the upgraded Skull Dragon from the [[BonusDungeon 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 {{Pokemon}} never run out of PP for their moves in the original Red and Blue games. This was changed in later games.
* Units in ''VideoGame/SwordsAndSoldiers'' 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.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalacticBattlegrounds'' scenarios invariably have some kind of "Game World: gives supplies to computer AI" code.

* The AI in ActOfWar 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 ''CompanyOfHeroes'' 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 AIs do. 2x and 4x respectively.

* 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 ''{{Warcraft}} III'' skirmishes, the amount of gold and lumber the AI earns depends on the difficulty (on "insane" difficulty, it receives twice the amount of gold and lumber as the player than what it actually harvested, where as on "easy" and "normal" difficulty it only receives the normal amount.

** 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. However, it seems that both an AI's and a player's workers have a chance to speed up while harvesting resources. 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).

* In ''DungeonKeeper'' 2 enemy Keepers often have inaccessible mana vaults, generally so that they can spam imps and spells and sustain a ton of traps.

** In ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'', the player can also set a "handicap" which is a percentage bonus (+0-100) to resource gathering. Bcause this affects only the resources received, not resources gathered, this means that at +100%, that player receives 600 wood out of each tree instead of 300. Since trees are to only limited resource without homecity shipments, this can prove to be a tremendous advantage.

*** It's made extremely obvious after winning a campaign level when all the end stats are showen that the computer recieves a hugh amount of starter cash. An example would be that you'll occassionally see the end-level resource stats for the computer in the 50 thousands even though the computer most of the time only has about 4 actual workers gathering resources which basically spells out to you that the computer started off with 50,000 minerals and gas each.

* 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.