Blitz:
I'm sure you'll find that the pop limit makes all the difference in the world. I tried my usual 1 vs. 5 on Hard yesterday with a 200 limit, and boy was it easier than 50. Here's a comparison of the two.
With 50, I can't have much more than 30 villagers+FB if I want to leave room for military. It's near impossible to attack all 5 enemies at the same time with sufficient force. I can usually eliminate 3 opponents before they reach bronze, and then I Iron to deal with the last two.
With 200 pop, I had about 50 real villas working and was able to churn out CAs from 9 archeries non-stop. CAs come out. Double-click. Right-click in the middle of enemy town. New CAs come out, double-click, right-click in the middle of next enemy town. Repeat and micromanage the CAs where necessary (avoid towers, find woodcutters), until your color fills the timeline graph. Too easy. I won before even reaching 100 population.
I'm sure what I was able to do is not even a shadow of what you can do, and I'd be ashamed to call this a "boom" by any standards, so I have no trouble imagining you creaming 7 CPs on Hardest. But with a 50 pop limit, what makes you a great player is taken away from you.
My opinion is that 1 vs. 7 Hardest is impossible to beat on 50 pop. With 50 pop. you MUST take out a few enemies early, otherwise you'll be smothered by multifront attacks later. And this (taking out enemies early) can't be done on hardest because of the extra resources they start with.
But I can always be wrong, so I eagerly await your results... And if I'm right and 1 vs. 7 is too much, how many can you beat? Right now, I have my hands full at 1 vs. 2.