1. I don't really know what I'm doing when their is civil disorder. I just increase my entertainment spend to 20% and wait. any better methods?
The system is very simple: In a city, when there are more unhappy people than happy people, it will be in disorder the next turn.
So if a size 12 city has
6 happy and 6 unhappy people, it will be fine.
If it has 4 happy 4 content and 4 unhappy, it will be fine.
If it has 4 happy, 3 content and 5 unhappy, you'll get disorder.
If it has 5 happy and 7 unhappy, you'll get disorder.
If a size 11 city has 5 unhappy and 6 unhappy, you'll get disorder.
Specialist always count as content.
By keeping watch over the amount of happy and unhappy pop in each city, you should be able to almost always prevent any disorder from happening.
Beyond a certain number of pop (4 in chief, 2 in regent, 1 in empire and beyond) all pop will be born unhappy, you'll have to counter this either by making content pop happy or unhappy pop content.
In addition, there are things that cause additional unhappiness. Pop-rushing, drafting, and WW. Also, if you are at war, pop from your enemy nationality will be unhappy. (never join barb slaves you capture with the Maya, you are always at war with the barbarian) This must be treated as if the city had extra population.
The LUX slider turns commerce into happiness. Its effectiveness depends on how much commerce a city makes. So this won't work very well for highly corrupt cities. It will also work better in repulic/demo than in other governments. In individual cities it may help to use specialist. Just by turning a citizen int oa specialist you already make one unhappy pop content, this could be any specialist. The entertainer will also generate a happy face on top of that.
2. Did the fact I had been waging a war for umpteen turns cause the civil disorder or is it chance?
Unhappiness caused by
war weariness is only in effect in some government forms. (mild in republic and feudalism and very badly in democrazy) In other government types it is build up in the background, but not in effect.
TO answer the question directly: just being at war does
not cause WW!
WW points are given for things such as #your units being attacked, #attacking and losing the battle, #losing a city to a conquering enemy. Different amounts of WW points are given for each of these events. Do a search for more info on what causes WW.
In short: if you are good at war, you should be able to war a lot in republic, and even in democrazy, without noticing much of it. But if you lose a lot of units and even a couple of cities, your pop will become very unhappy, very quickly.
If you know you are going to be in a war that will involve countless losses for a long period of time (example, you are planning an always war variant game) then you might want to plan for monarchy instead of republic.
3. Culture Flipping - I assumed it could happen in a captured town, but this was my settler and we were starting to win to the point where the CIVs where asking for peace treaties and I was getting greedy. What can I look for to know when I'm vulnerable to a culture flip?
Culture flips only happen if the city has tiles in its radius (the 2 tile city radius, not the culture radius) that do not belong to its culture. And if you have citizens in a city that are not of its current owner nationality.
If you don't join slaves in your cities and don't place cities so close to AI cities that its 2 tile radius overlaps with the AI city, your own cities will be 100% save.
For the cities that are not 100% save, the chance is based on:
How many Foreign citizens are in the city.
how many tiles within the 2 tile radius are covered by a Foreign culture.
Your civ-wide culture VS the AI civ-wide culture.
How many military units are in the city. (units without a def value don't count)
Resistors in captured towns and civil disorder will also influence the chances in your disadvantage.
Its possible to reduce the flip chances to 0% with enough units, but this can be impractical as it sometimes requires hundreds of units.
4. Because of the flipped city, and my perception of its military strength, I'm ready to quit the invasion. Should I be able to get a good peace treaty out of giving the Aztecs back their city or does the AI know I'm stuck and I should be happy with anything they offer?
The AI willingness to give something to you in a peace treaty, or demands something for it, depends on how badly it is hurt vs how badly you are hurt. (the amounts of lost cities and lost units)
The AI is unable to see your strategic position though, its not intelligent enough for that.
You can not trade cities, you can either give them or demand them, but if you ask for cities while giving something other than only peace it will be an impossible deal. Also, if you give cities, you can't ask for anything other than only peace.
This restriction was made to prevent an exploit, in some early patch versions, its possible to trade cities.
--> If you want to ged rid of the "back-flipping" of captured cities for sure, then just conquer or destroy the previous owner completely. If the other civ no longer exists, then its cities can't flip back.
This is the method I usually use!
5. Any chance or method to make my fort city flip back to me?
Increase civ wide culture and pressure them by building cities real close to their borders. But I don't advise that, its much easier to just take them by force.