Yup - the mod is a huge enhancement over the vanilla ai. Glad you are enjoying it with your friends. It has a few flaws here and there, to be sure, but it certainly makes for a more fun experience.
For any new player, I'd recommend playing against the normal ai until you are consistently able to get kills without dying. Then, switch over to the enhanced ai mod and learn how to counter that. It can be quite a bit of fun to do a 1v1 and add a nightmare ai to each team. At the very least, the ai will take care of the majority of your citadel upgrades for you and enable you to focus on ganks/better gear.