AI diplomacy, happiness and city population

[Misantropia]

Hello, I started a new game wit VP and I like it a lot, BUT I have 3 qualms by reaching turn 950 and year 1900:

1.city population, I got a couple of traditions (progress and authority) which basically explode my population especially if I play for culture, this basically forces me to just stop the city growth whenever I want it, between 1 and 15 pop at this point, and if I forget to do that, that is crippling for happiness. I basically got into a crysis for forgetting to stop some new cities from exploding in a couple of turns. I think the same happens for the AI as well.

2. AI happiness, I played only on prince difficulty, and it has been a challenging experience, however, most AI are on negative happiness. They don't seem to do anything about it as they are devastated by rebels and their cities turn to free cities or back to small civs. They seem to do just linger in this situation.

3. AI diplomacy. They keep fighting each other, and that is fine, eventually they managed to create 3 world domination contenders (all crippled by unhappiness and they have meny puppets and conquered cities), however it makes no sense to me on why underdogs attack giants.
India attacked me 4 times, (first war was 5 cities vs 4 cities of mine, second was 4 vs 7, third was 3 vs 15, and the last was 2 vs 20) eventually getting vasalized.
I only declared war 3 times (2 times on china a nation hated by all) but I am always fighting someone in small border conflicts where I want nothing and the AI makes no serious push
Russia is always friendly with me, we only diverge on ideology, BUT, they declared war 3 times on me, one of witch we had zero fighting until suing for piece
None wants to go for declaration of frendships, EVEN THOUGH I GAVE THEM BACK MOST OF THEIR CIVILIZATION!

Bonus:
They don't seem to go for wonders, I have most of them

 

[Divsanchez]

Have you applied the hot fixes?

All I can suggest is post it on Github. Gazebo needs your bugs to make the next version better.

 

[neo_arcadia]

Play on transparent diplomacy and see if they attack you because they really don't like you. Not every gift are seen as positive diplomacy behavior even if you think they are. In transparent diplomacy, AI will not fool you.

 

[neo_arcadia]

It is also possible that civ declares war on you because another civ bribed them. You can observe this behavior by going to their leader screen. If "negotiate peace" button is not there (like, totally disappear, not just unwilling to end the war) it means they are currently being bribed by another civ.

 

[Dinkov]

You are playing on very low difficulty. Imo that's the reason why the AI sucks. Im an emperor player, but decided recentely too see how lower difficulties feel. Even on king AI finds it almost impossible to manage positive happiness. I'm not sure, but it's most likely because your cities have much higher gains(especially if your enemy goes for a lot of conquests), since you are always ahead if you play optimally.

About the DoWs. AI will take a bribe very often, especially if your army isn't the strongest world-wide and if you are far away from each other. Another thing is that if your neighbour is going for authority-fealty-imperialism he will make DoW on cooldown later in the game. And also in my games terrotorial disputes are deciding factor in most cases. Even if we are very friendly, the AI will declare a war if he feels his army is superior.