I have yet to get a cultural victory so I have been playing as Louis, and I got to say that I have so many false starts under my belt its starting to get improbable that it's just a coincidence.

I've started jammed in the back of a peninsula with a war monger as my only neighbor like five times.

Had other players rush me multiple times.

And the one time I started getting a fair start, the two AI players I've been sucking up to suddenly went from "pleased" to war out of no where. I had three units per city, too! But here at turn 100 comes two stacks of 15 units headed straight for my capital.

What am I missing here?

I should mention that I am gunning for Hindu and Judaism first to get a double holy city?

What is the difficulty level? Not luck, but at higher difficulty levels the AI gets free technologies and production/economic bonuses. Going for two early religions can be fun but it's not optimal play, as the worker technologies are a lot more important at the beginning of the game.