Sounds like easy is too hard for new players. Or perhaps the gap is too wide between beginner and easy. A while back there were folks saying "normal" should be a challenge for average players, and most found it too hard. These days there are posts saying normal is too easy for average players. I think at some point they are just going to have to set the difficulty levels and let the users figure out how to push their skills to progress up the difficulty chain.

Pretty much this. Experienced RTS players from other games will have no trouble facing off vs. Normal AI once they understand how Ashes works. For players newer to the RTS genre, Beginner and Easy are there already even if it may take some time to develop latent skills. Once replays are in, it will also help accelerate progress - you can watch higher level players and what they do and you can have your replay critiqued to get feedback on how to improve your game. Stick with it - it's totally worth it!

So I changed to knife fight map and got my first win on easy level after a touch and go start when he turned up with some decent fire power

I noticed his economy figure was double mine after about a minute which is interesting.

I don't think he should grow quite so quickly at this level.

If the AI still had the same strategy with slower growth - so slightly less early fire power I think it would work well.

In fact in the game I just played if he had held back a little it would have meant more of a sustained battle throughout the game.

Once I got my first Dred out he kept coming but I was able to soak it up better. This allowed me to build more planes, Dreds and repair shipS

Another point is that the game played was more about who controlled the radiation.

Gotta say though i'm loving this game. Really well done Devs

The main problem in learning this game is the lack of good tooltips regarding buildings. That makes it very hard for players trying to figure out what.the tech buildings.do. 

If you have exp with rts genre, normal ai is beatable from the first two games. Challenging and beyond AI require a better understanding of the tech tree.

I can beat easily a tough AI after 24 h of gameplay, but at the begining a challenging AI would murder me.

Have patience and play some mp games. I for example am amazed by the amount of.quantum generators the substrate can rush at the begining of.the game. Something may be broken.there

In mp by the time i rush two zeus the substrate player has at least one quantum and defenders in place. With Phc it takes forever to build one quanta generator.