Artificial Intelligence or Plain Cheating?

[Mad Mariner]

The problem with this logic is that the developers of strategy games are the big game companies. Firaxis, for example, is a fairly small company. According to their website they have around a dozen programmers total.

Agreed, But are Firaxis a complete "stand alone" company? I assumed that there was a bigger giant standing behind em, as in C&C which was westwood and ea. And if this is the case then the post of mine u quoted in yours answers this

[WarpStorm]

Firaxis is a stand alone company. They pitch game proposal ideas to various companies and if the companies like them they give them the upfront money to build it (this is a simplification of the developer-publisher relationship).

In the past few years Firaxis has made games for Infogrames and Electronic Arts.