Hi All,
I can definitely state that the AI in NO way cheats, nor does it know what gems are going to fall. I wrote the AI code myself, so I am 100% certain of this.
Look at it another way...
a) I am a programmer, so I'm basically lazy
b) Writing a cheating AI with look-ahead & multiple board evaluations is a LOT more work than writing a non-cheating AI that merely evaluates a single board
c) If I wanted to make the game harder, I actually would have done the LAZY thing and just given the monsters more Life Points
Cheers
-Steve