I open this thread searching your comments of course.
I usually play this game in sp campaigns to know new scenarios and new histories of the past.
I prefer a game in security and no rush victory.
At extreme level I played many games vs AI with success but with no doubt I saw cheats.
I accept that AI skills improve about:
military tactics;
tech strategy;
acknowledge about units, buildings or maps;
the generals can be stronger ones;
but it’s enough.
I think that:
TC must have same time to create inhabitants;
the knight must explore like mine to reveal the map;
the inhabitants or fish ships must collect as mine (if not improving the technology);
the population limit must be real and respected with no shortcut in technology tree.
Yes, I’m a noob since 20y in MS games, but I loved them anyway; sure honour and medals to their pro players.
The AI in the definitive edition does not cheat. It plays by the same game rules as the player. It does not gain any extra resources either. The AI does actually explore the map. If you play a game against the AI on explored, you can actually cheese the AI by grabbing some of his sheep before the AI finds his own sheep.
On the other hand, in Campaigns… there can be scenarios where the AI simply has unlimited resources, or instantaneously spawns units, because the map script declares it – but that’s a map editor trigger type of thing, not the AI script itself.
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im always suprised how often people claim this. THE AI DOES NOT CHEAT. the extreme AI playes at the skill level of an average player and nothing more. if you feel that the ai is cheating it says more about your skill then it does about the ai
The AI cheats in only one way: it knows your population and the size of your military.
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Here you find your answers on the question if the AI is cheating. Based on what you accept and not, i conclude the AI isnt cheating at all. Like Mercy9545 already said: It know some of these stats, but that is all.
Non of these are happening in the game.
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The AI only ‘cheats’ in campains as far as I know.
Even there it doesn’t really cheat, it just obeys complicated and counter-intuitive rules of cause-and-effect. Player behaviour can influence AI behaviour in unexpected ways because of triggers. Both AI and player can receive resources, but the extra rules handicap the AI as often as they help it.
Anyhow, I’m not even certain you actually play campains, but this is the reason I don’t like the campains myself.
I play campaigns and ended 9 upon 30 campaigns …
You don’t know me.
Thanks to all good comments in the thread.
AI has perfect multitasking and total unit by unit micromanagement.
That’s why the more pop you give to it the more painful (meaning tedious) it becomes to defeat it if you allow it to reach late imperial age.
That’s why I’ll never understand why people insist on playing with 300 or more pop in maps like Black Forest/Michi/Amazon Tunnel against the AI.
That’s all correct, just adding on that the official campaign missions don’t use the default AI and use scripts created for the specific mission and player instead.
So the default AI never cheats but some campaign mission’s AI might. 
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I agree! I usually play medium difficulty levet till 125 population cap, coastal map, all technologies medium size
