SHINAN'S PROFILE

Well there's always the thing where difficulty levels are tailored for different kinds of players. When they are available.

I find turn-based strategy especially is generally pretty good at telling the player exactly what kind of handicaps are given or received. I think at least one of the Civ games were pretty detailed in exactly how many and what kind of bonuses the AI got at different difficulty levels (and what kind of bonuses the player got at easier difficulty levels)

I think some of the Total Wars were also somewhat transparent in this. Especially the campaign mode, but there might have been various morale bonuses and the like in the real time mode as well.

When it comes to how the AI actually works I just don't know enough to understand all the peculiarities of AI programming. I remember in Dawn of War the AI would only attack the spot where you set up your base. And since I am generally bad at RTSes, the first thing I did was set up a second base elsewhere on the map that the AI would never find and then I'd slowly steamroll the map from there. I've found that in single-player RTSes I basically always have to exploit peculiarities of the AI like this to get anywhere.

I've also found that especially older games tend to increase difficulty by never giving a fair fight. The enemy nearly always outnumbers you two to one and it is up to the human mind to beat the larger, but dumber army.

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