First of all, nobody cheats and the game is pretty fair. We make new rules of all the problems we have faced, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Also there is no way you could totally get rid of any whining and such with a large group, humans just like to whine.

...It is pretty quiet for you to play with the AI. There are ups and downs and you have to accept it, or just play with your AI then. Whining and other negative humanly stuff does belong to MP and there even was some whining with ww2 with military commanders and so on!

...Now I'm not saying I like whining, constant insulting or anything, but as long as it's in moderation, it's acceptable and it happens pretty much in every single larger MP game.
And I don't want to whine myself, but when we were playing with you, your internet could barely keep together for one hour. You had loads of problems and we often had to wait for you. So ofc ppl whine then if they are waiting hours for one guy. I hope your internet is better now?
I like to keep this game around 10 players. The longer term guys play majors, while the new players can try out minors. The minor players play in their alliance and see the stuff the major needs to do and learn a lot. While playing, they also demostrate that they can be trusted to take a major in the future (not wanting a guy who just plays a major for one session and then dissapears)
So now with a lot of new faces in this game, I hope you will give it a shot at some point. It's been a long time uknow.
