Didn't play in beta... But from my SP experience tourney, I found normal AI to be a cakewalk, and found Hard AI to be difficult.
I'm not sure since I don't have alot of info but I feel Hard AI + cheats(you know what I mean), have faster gold income, more hp, faster movement, etc...
I was on the first game of a Hard mode game about 15mns in after pretty much a stalemate... The entire 4v4 opp side was a good 5 lvls above me and while my teammates were 3 below me.
Then the Oak took over... This Hard AI Oak was BLAZING at intense speeds running into my citadel area with 7 towers crushing him and he was just raping everything. He was taking little dmg and basically evaded every attack... It was intense and downright hysterical to watch.
I was sitting on my health crystal with all 3 of my ai teammates and we couldn't kill this guy before he took everyone down...In the end we got swarmed and lost, funny game cause the entire opp side was all generals and we were all assasins.
I'm not sure waht difference in Hard mode + is... But I assume like alot RTS games they get an advantage on things. DoW1 is an example of AI cheats on harder difficulties...
Oh and I'm not complaining... I think it's actually good learning experiences.
