Thanks for the quick feedback; it's really great to watch the AI develop as you add to it. I'll try running a similar setup again on v40.
One other thing that a friend and I noticed when we played 2 humans VS. 2 M27s on V39 last night was that one time a commander killed itself by standing in the channel on High Noon and getting hit by 3 x T1 torpedo launchers. The commander seemed to retreat most of the time when it was damaged a certain amount but it didn't seem to detect it this time. The other thing was that the AI didn't seem to respond very quickly to T2 UEF cruisers attacking base buildings; it was still very challenging to win but we managed in the end partly through weakening their economy through cruiser missiles. I think we played about 3 games in a row and eventually won the last game. I can find the links for the replays if they're useful; I assume it was on V39 as I think we updated last night before playing. It's still really challenging as the AI was very quick to hit us with nukes and/or experimentals if we let it grow for too long.