They do for sure. Just play the game for few minutes, then turn it off and check the difference in the planet income graph. You will see AI is getting 2,25x more income from planets than you do.

@WOEaintME>

i teached my  2 friends to play Rebellion, they never played Sins before. They are however RTS veterans, they played lot of CnC and Supreme Commander in the past and while Sins is different, it is not that much different. 

i played maybe one or 2 games with them against Normal. We did not even bother with Easy. I guess thats a difficulty for people, who never played RTS game before, or do not have anyone to explain things as they go (like they had me). After those 2 games, it was obvious the Normal was not a challenge anymore - i guess even them could beat multiple of Normals by themselves. So we simply had to move to Hard and the difference in difficultly is staggering.

After maybe 10-15 games we played, i think we won maybe half of them. The rest we had to restart as the AIs ganged up early game on one of us, he obviously had no chance due to AI superior numbers (thanks to income advantage every AI had about 2x more ships than him) and we could not really help him in time as we were too far away. In such situation the rest of us can technically kill one AI off, while they concentrate on him and try to win basically "last man standing" style. But that is not an option, if play together, we want to see the end of the game together.

Anyway I think we are getting better now and eventually we find a way to win consistently. But i played the game since last March and they are smart guys with experience playing RTS games, so they can learn pretty fast. I can however see not everyone is like them and can really have serious issue with Hard difficulty, to the point, where the frustration stops him from playing the game further. 

Wait, he's complaining that hard AI is hard? And I'm supposed to be the troll?

It sounds actually good, It would be surprising if you defeat Hard in the beginning with 100% succes rate.. Just look at  the name: Hard.

i haven't played the new ai yet so I can't comment on the specifically, BUT it would be nice if there were some sort of damage and/or income handicaps you could apply to AI's on top of the difficulty level (i've seen other RTS's do this) so if Normal is too easy but Hard is too hard, you can find a happy medium.

Alternatively, if this were easily moddable some where...(anyone know if this is possible?).

The way the AI acts in this game make it rather hard to really create AI that feels challenging but not too strong for newer players.

When it comes down to it, the AI is godawful at actually controlling & microing it's fleets(most notably it's ability use).  The result is that in a battle of comparably sized fleets between the AI and an actual player, the player has a pretty substantial advantage.

However as the game progresses, extra incomes makes less and less of a difference in fleet size(In longer games max fleet supply is the main constraining factor rather then resource acquisition).   

As a result the AI only really has a few ways of winning:

1).  Attack early when the AI economic cheat's have the greatest affect on fleet size.  

2).  Use early eco cheats to rush out superweapons or some other particularly powerful high tier tech faster then a newer human player can match paces with.

 3).  Establishing a huge enough economic advantage before the endgame that the war becomes a war of attrition the player won't win-  The AI is unlikely to do this against skilled players who know how to expand quick(faster then the AI ever does), build a strong eco, and take advantage of AI's tendency to throw fleets to their deaths on static defenses;  But for a newer player this is a very real threat especially on very large maps. That said, due to the above mentioned poor fleet control, this method of winning is likely the least reliable option the AI has; the kind of economic advantage it needs is the kind only really possible if the player themselves have a rather slow start- I only mention this third method because it is a very real possibility against newer players who usually haven't refined their start very much.

Those really are pretty much the only chances the computer has.  Which is unfortunate as those feel like some of the most one-sided ways to lose for a new player.  The sad fact of the matter is that the current AI just isn't smart enough to actually put up a good fight in what most newer players consider a fair fight.  The AI needs the crutch of being able to hit the player before they are ready and easily recoup losses to really pose any challenge.

Sulley1 makes some very good points, which match my own experiences.  Previously I had been playing on a "vast" map with a single star and 9 AI players, and was able to win most (but not all) of the time vs. 9 "hard" AI players, sometimes with a couple of "unfair" AI's mixed in for good measure.  Luck of the draw as far as factions, maps and type of AI definitely affected the type of game I would wind up playing.

Since the update and DLC, however, what was challenging has become almost impossible...these days I usually wind up fending off one or two attacking players, and then someone else starts bombarding me from a distance with superweapons.  Attacks are constant and get larger and larger, even when mounted by AI players with an inferior economic base.  Diplomacy, which used to be my mainstay, also seems to have become less effective...frequently I will see relations improving with a target faction and then turn around right around and start declining despite my best diplomatic efforts. 

Just to sense check, I went back and started a few games with "normal" AI's.  Everything (except for diplomacy) was much easier.  In fact, against "normal" AI's the game is far too easy, so easy that it is almost impossible to learn good early game habits from playing against them.

So whatever parameters were adjusted between the old "hard" and the new "hard", perhaps they need to be dialed back a bit.  Or at least made random across several separate dimensions.

I played a few 4 player ffa's with the AI.  it was harder but i did win 2 games with TEC and Advent rebels (I lost with the loyalist versions of each race).  part of it just seems like luck of the draw based on how the AI's ally and if you make an AI friend in your game.  If i get into a 2 front war, it's over.

That seems to be the kicker. If you use the Vasari this isn't as bad because you can jump all over the place and you are super mobile. Play with anyone else and you're a goner.

Everyone keeps saying Hard is meant to be "HARD". Well it is. It just is HARDER than it was. I'd think it would be ok that Hard was that "HARD" if there were only three tiers of difficulty, but there are a bunch more. I'd never dream of going against an unfair or insane AI now. I'd think about having one unfair before, but that's changed. 

Normal is just too easy, and Hard is just too hard. 

I played a game recently (with the Dark Reavers mod, witch is pretty awesome) with two AI's (one normal and one hard) as my allies. It was 3 v 3 v 3 and we were doing pretty good. Not many people attacking me and I had 5 planets (only about 30 colonizable ones in the system). Then suddenly one of my terran planets that was two lanes away from my main area was attacked by every race but 2. All of them that attacked (and at the same time) were the hard AI's and several of them weren't even allies with each other. They had about 20 or 30 orgov's and so my starbase was useless. 

I decided to quit there because I didn't even have a titan yet, and they each had one. 

Maybe I'm just loosing my touch. The game is still fun, but it seems impossible sometimes.

Sully, you have here by been deemed a cry baby!! 

I'm a super noob and have been able to get to playing against 3 Hard AIs in FFA and winning (have done it with all 3 races). Just play some Normal outnumbered then play 1 v 1 Hard.