Freezing, and Resigning AI

Hi Guys,

I play a lot with some friends versus AI. We are having consistent issues with:

1. The game starts to lag to the point of it being stop motion, at best causing trade carts to bug and gates to get locked open - at worst freezing the game. All people involved check task manager, none with RAM higher than 60%, and GPU/CPU yawning
2. When playing hard AI they tend to resign as soon as they hit the Castle Age.

Both of these issues have become worse after the most recent patch.

This game has been amazing for connecting our friend group together, but we are struggling to get to the end of a game right now without at least running into a 4fps experience.

HELP