The game is obviously infamous for its cheaty AI. I want to like this game but the AI is just ruining it, and I don't really care for multiplayer.
On the other hand, disabling AI cheats altogether makes the game way too easy.

Has there been an initiative to remove just part of the AI cheats to keep the game reasonably challenging without being unfair? For example cutting the resource/build bonuses by 50% would immediately give a better experience if you ask me. But I know nothing of modding this game to know if it's possible.

I have played EE1 over and over countless times and I've never seen the AI cheat apart from the standard RTS practice of unlimited resources but that can all be overcome just like with StarCraft and Warcraft and C&C etc etc etc. Can you site any specific examples?

The AI is all-seeing, far more so than typically in RTS games. It doesn't even pretend to have a fog of war, it knows where you have everything and it will deliberately exploit every hole in your defenses.

The AI has massive, MASSIVE resource bonuses. Start with 20 villagers, have the AI start with 1. Play three to five minutes and quit. The AI will have a stronger economy score than you do.

The AI can recruit units at a massively faster speed than you do and at hugely reduced cost. I hear that it gets war elephants at 1 gold and 1 food, or whatever resources it was that they required.


Surely you've noticed that when starting at age 1, by late Copper age the AI will have completely surpassed your economy and at the same time is capable of sending 20 Sampsons to break your base? From what I've read in the Internet, you have to be a serious pro to beat the AI. I don't have the time to train hundreds of hours to be that good. I want AI like in Age of Empires 2 for example, challenging but fair.

Wait, have you actually tried the game? What game mode are you playing and page 19 of the manual.

Also, what game doesn't have a cheating AI?

What, of course I've played the game! I wouldn't be making this thread if I hadn't.

I'm playing on normal difficulty on normal settings. Random map.

You could always edit your save game you know? change it from .ees to .scn go into editor edit it, turn off "Cheat"(Yes, the AI has several options in the player setting field, like Scout, a few others which names I forgot and "Cheat")

also I recommend disabling those stupid prophets and Priests, they are useless and they are annoying.




Also, he asked What game DOESN'T have a cheating AI, meaning 90% of the games have a cheating AI, but AI cannot hope to stand up to a player of moderate intelligence even.

not berating anyone I am simply stating AI are not bright enough to stand up to casual players even without cheats, mostly resources but sometimes removed fog of war, faster build speeds, tougher units(I know EE allows everyone to make their units tougher though)

Guess I'm late to this discussion, but I'll still add my piece:

There's nothing you can do. The underlying problem (as far as resource management goes) is that there is no AI whatsoever. It simply doesn't know how to collect resources and balance expenditures. In fact, it can't even figure out how to build farms, so without its resource cheat it goes completely non-operational as soon as other sources of food are depleted (sometimes even sooner, since it often forgets to assign workers to resource patches). As far as I can tell, the AI receives unlimited resources and self-throttles to prevent it from leap-frogging too far ahead of you in military/technology. The villagers it assigns to collect resources are just for show; the AI is completely unaffected if you kill them.

This completely sucks the depth out of a game like Empire Earth, turning it into a glorified game of whack-a-mole. Every time you destroy an AI building or unit, he'll just create a new one free of charge. Aside from a momentary reduction in his army size, there's basically no benefit to attacking him unless you can wipe him out completely. The tactical combat in EE isn't good enough to justify a skirmish mode that essentially boils down to "AI sends endless waves of units in your general direction".

If you just want to beat the AI, the best approach is to build a line of walls and towers, then methodically "leapfrog" forward and wall off a new sections of the map. Because of the AI's limitless resources, anything short of a total wipe-out will only slow them down for about 5 minutes before they completely repair the damage you dealt, so other types of military tactics are largely pointless since you actually cannot deal any form of lasting damage.

Sadly EE singleplayer sucks. The AI is basically incomplete, and the campaign's just aren't good enough to compensate for this. This AI goes beyond the level of cheating that's typical of RTS games. It'd be one thing if it just had the proverbial ace up its sleeve, but this AI just reaches into the deck and grabs whatever cards it wants whenever it wants.

"Every game has cheats" is a poor excuse since there are strategy games that have far more competent AI with far less cheats that even predate Empire Earth, such as Age of Empires 2 or Command and Conquer games. The AI designers did a sloppy job for this game, burying it under AI advantages is just lazy. This game was so well made in other respects I don't understand why they couldn't dedicate more of their budget to one of the most important things in a game.

Since when did anyone say those other games don't cheat? Rather, the issue is the sheer amount of cheating in Empire Earth. To use my earlier analogy; Age of Empires has an ace up its sleeve, while Empire Earth just reaches into the deck and picks whatever cards it wants. In a game which focuses itself around empire-building, excusing the AI from all empire-building considerations just flushes strategy down the toilet. I would discount the C&C comparisons, but for completely different reasons: the base-building and resource collection mechanics in the C&C is far simpler than in Empire Earth, favoring more focus on tactical combat. When the underlying problem in Empire Earth AI is that it can't handle the game's economic system, it's not fair to compare it against a game with a much simpler economic system.

Had you read JKN91's comment you would have seen and not had a half complete biased reply you wrote here, and I'm still serious to anyone who hasn't looked at it, in the editor you have a "cheat" option for the AI, if no one believes me go look it up, they put that in there to allow the AI to use cheats like reveal map, more resources, instant research with a cool down timer(say they research Epoch II, they have like a 2+ minute cool down before they can research 3) and if you put it on harder difficulties(not really cheating I consider) they get build percentages for citizens and the like, also the civilization bonus's help too and they select civ based on beginning era.

Congratulations for missing my whole point.

There are AI cheats in many games, but the point is that Empire Earth has them in such an atrocious amount that it does not even resemble an equal opponent. It's fake difficulty. You cannot wage economic warfare. You cannot achieve a meaningful technological upper hand. You cannot try to destroy the enemy in waves. If you leave the AI alone for 5 minutes after destroying all his farms and villagers, when you come back it's just as strong as it was before. There is no strategy in Empire Earth, just a race to spam a large army and overrunning the enemy in one go. Even if other strategy games rely on some AI cheats to make do, a necessary evil still present in most games, they still keep it benign enough that you can employ various strategies and playstyles to achieve your goal, and at least you feel like you are fighting an enemy that plays on roughly the same rules as you.
Toggling AI cheats in an editor does not excuse their existence in the first place, and your inability to affect them in a legitimate in-game menu.

Also, AoE2 AI is diplomatic with the player, it regularly offers alliances in exchange for supplies. "I have set you as neutral. Give me 200 of all resources and I will set you as Ally" is something you are likely to see at least once in every typical Random Map game.
FFA AI gang-up is not an AI cheat, it's just bad AI design. It's a stupid feature that exists in too many RTS games, including AoE2, though you can usually avoid that by putting all players in locked one-man teams.

Yes, I've tried toggling it. The AI literally does not function without its resource cheats, if for no other reason than the AI refuses to build farms and is therefor incapable of collecting food in most situations. If you give it a prebuilt base and hand all the resource types to it on a golden platter then it will function, but only barely. From a custom skirmish perspective, the AI is non-functional without its cheats.

I agree its a bit excessive. You can effectively operate anytime after copper, but you are pretty much limited to forward building towers and walls and converting troops, with an occasional sally.

One thing I found handy was to edit the .\data\random map scripts\plains\plains gigantic.rmv (or whatever kind of map you like to play). In the very first section (line 22, if you are using the gigantic plains) is:

#if OR(IsPaleoEpoch, IsStoneEpoch)
#define (kBerryPerPlayer, 2)
#else
#define (kBerryPerPlayer, 1)
#endif

Change it to read:

#if OR(IsPaleoEpoch, IsStoneEpoch)
#define (kBerryPerPlayer, 3)
#else
#define (kBerryPerPlayer, 2)
#endif

The one extra berry patch makes a huge difference.

You also need a hero. Or at least I do. I prefer the warrior path one.

The library (or whatever it is that shows where all the buildings are) is essential.

Then practice. Even though he's cheating, before long you will find you have to add a second AI just to keep it fun. Most of the time I can take out 3 AI at normal without using cybers, but if any of their towers pop to concrete, the gloves come off, if it makes sense to say the gloves are "on" when using Reaper Gunships against guys with swords and pointed sticks...

This post is still valid for anyone who decides to play this game these days, so I thought I'd add what I've learned, too, and share my opinion.

First off, I did a bit of testing myself, and, to cut a long story short, can confirm that the AI is indeed cheating beyond any control, creating very poor experience for the player. Sadly, there are no additional settings within the game that amend this when it comes to Random Map games.

The longer story for the curious: during the testing, I found that when the AI is on its last legs, and has its last Capitol surrounded with Priest towers, with no other buildings or citizens left (map revealed), it will regardless keep on creating citizens in that Capitol until the very end of the game. What is more, it will also quickly follow the player in advancing to the next epoch (which is a general rule). Because of the unlimited resources, it can and will dot the whole map with its buildings, and swarm the player with the units that it creates in those; rinse, repeat. Setting the difficulty to "Easy" changes nothing in that aspect.

The studio that created Empire Earth did a very sloppy job with the AI, and I agree with both JKN91 and Darvin on pretty much everything they wrote about this. The AI does not allow for a balanced and fair gameplay at all, especially for novice players, and it limits the game to the player having to continuously seek and destroy whatever it builds, while it will just keep on building.



I will also refer to one other thing that was mentioned, which I think is quite important:

The AI will always follow the player shortly on advancing to the new epoch. The "story" mentioned in the preceding post is either made up or taken from a game with human opponents. In a Random Map game with the original AI, it will never be possible to witness "twists of action" such as Bronze-Age Short Sword infantry being attacked by Digital-Age Reaper Gunship helicopters, as the AI will always be at most one epoch behind the human player (and not for too long), "thanks" to its unlimited resources.

In other words, when playing a Random Map against the computer opponents, you won't ever be able to enjoy being several epochs ahead of other players, because the cheating AI will be able to immediately make up for any shortcomings on its end.



There are still people who love this game, and there is the Save-EE community (just google it), so let's hope that a mod will be created—better late than never!—that successfully replaces the original AI.

One of such projects is discussed in the Save-EE forum thread "NEW AI for Empire Earth" (google it again). I would love to see this made possible, so fingers crossed for the capable folks out there.