RTS games typically run deterministic simulations locally, and only sync inputs, with no real need for an authority. The anti-cheat mechanism is simply the fact

RTS games typically run deterministic simulations locally, and only sync inputs, with no real need for an authority. The anti-cheat mechanism is simply the fact that simulation state has to stay in sync, and artificial changes would trivially desync. Of course, this leads to the standard RTS cheat — map hacking — because the client has to have everything by definition. But you have enough entities in an RTS that syncing full state, or even delta, gets ridiculous quickly, so it’s just something that has to be dealt with. Fighting games also tend to do something similar — deterministic lockstep with rollback — which also sensibly runs with no authority (again, you can’t teleport/wallhack because you’re only passing player inputs, and moving just your character is the same as the sim desyncing) But my main point is that an authoritative server is not a guaranteed architecture for multiplayer games — the game design should definitely factor in (as it does in OP’s case).