Critique my game!

[Ergo Sum]

Hello all! I am an aspiring newcomer to Civ 5, having spent far too many hours on Civ 4. I've attached my save from my most recent game as Askia/Normal/Fractal. I really want to like Civ 5, but a few problems have discouraged me from ever finishing a game. A quick summary of my game: I grabbed NC in my capital, settled three new cities, teched to Mandelaku Cavalry and stomped Ram, who I was wary of after he ran away with my last game. I've since settled three new cities to fill out my lands, befriended three maritime CS's for the food, picked up Big Ben, filled out Freedom and am filling out Rationalism, and am teching at a reasonable pace. A few problems have been beguiling me through my games, though:

1. "runaway" AIs, like Catherine - she obviously has a penchant for quick expansion, and she's not too far ahead of me, but she has consistently posted the highest figures in Demographics, beating me out. Moreover, I don't have experience fighting a war with an enemy with similar techs (although I suppose the idea, as in Civ 4, is to avoid that).
2, Diplo situation has been hosed - I suspect this is because I signed pacts of friendship willy-nilly before declaring on Rammy, I don't know what else there is to do. I can hardly ever sign open borders or make a research agreement, which I'm guessing should constitute more of my research as I build up gpt, and I've been denounced by every AI more than once.
3. Army situation - I am unfamiliar with typical military goals in Civ 5 - is cannons and rifles as good as it was in Civ 4? The ultimate goal is domination for this game, as it's my favorite VC, but I can be convinced otherwise.
4. Happiness/build times - unhappiness always seems to plague my games. Especially with the build times in smaller cities (recently theaters at 20-30 turns and public schools at 50 turns shocked me), it's a pain to treat happiness quickly, and discourages military expansion. Is a tech like Railroad going to increase production noticeably? Should I be rushing these buildings? Better yet, is there a more optimal way I should be setting up improvements than what I have done?
5. City-states/cash - I've built up reasonable GPT (~70 at one point) but it seems to burn a hole in my pocket. Should I have such a high GPT in the first place? And is there anything better to drop it on than CS influence?

Any criticism welcome - I really want to enjoy this game, so I figure I need to iron out these issues.

 

[vexing]

for happiness issues, the piety branches theocracy is a big help... 25% reduction to unhappiness from pop. also try to ally with maritimes that have luxuries you don't have for the extra happiness.

for units, longswords/rifles/infantry/mech infantry are really essential, backed up by cannons, artillery.

the ai is really bad at fighting, once you figure out the combat system fully you'll be able to take out equivalent tech civs with nearly no losses.

 

[joncnunn]

Main thing for happiness is build a lot of markets; acquire as many luxaries as possible by any means necessary (trade with AI, ally with city states, settle near, etc.).
Then buy rather than build Colosseum's as needed (unless the city has a lot of hammers compared to the rest of your empire)
Circus's in cities that can build them are normally best built normally but need to be a high priority.

That's the basics. There's a multiude of ways to further improve happiness with social policies.
If your anticipating a large population capital, going down Tradition will get you a reduction in unhappinesses in the capital.

Freedom has a way to effectively reduce the 2 unhappiness per city before population down to 1.5. per city.

As mentioned above, Piety has a lot of ways to reduce unhappiness.

Patronage making city states gifts more effective is bound to help on the margins with happiness if there's enough different luxaries from city states.

Order has a policy within it that will cut the 2 unhappiness per city down to 1 unhappiness per city. It stacks with Liberty's.

Freedom causes the first specalist in each city to remove an unhappiness. And in non capitals, the 3rd as well. (The Tradition happiness policy results in it taking a lot of specalists to get a 2nd unhappyness removed from the capital with Freedom.)

The science branch has a policy that will give you an extra happiness from Universitys.

And Commerce has a policy within it that will give you an extra happiness from every unique luxary.

 

[MasterMishi]

More pop will help with production and science.
Farm and mine/ lumbermill, switch between production focus and gold focus depending on how quick you need a build and to keep you in the money. Build only decent cities if you expect them to build all the buildings. Otherwise use policys and trades to boost happiness and dont bother with the buildings just spam units and kill asap. Trade away an unproductive city if it drags you down?

 

[Ergo Sum]

Thanks guys - I ended up teching quickly to industrialize and managed to smack down Cathy's horde of Rifles. I figure I'll still go after world conquest for fun even though it's about 1900 - no one can match my production or tech at this point.