the game is laggy because it is peer to peer.  If you have 1 person in the game that lags, then EVERYONE lags as a result.  It could be that you have low upload or download bandwidth. 

I'm pretty sure it's Stardock to blame at the moment. Their Demigod servers are broken again and it looks like their forum webservices are too. 

Stardock forums are the worst I've seen on the internet besides the ones that are spammed with ads. :/

SD - A small company that is great at making software but not supporting it. The forums are well made, there are lots of unique features, but, there are lots of errors with their server and a few strange bugs.

Demigod - amazing game with tons of bugs that make the game nearly unplayable.

They are well made. Look at all the options you have. You can basically put ANYTHING in a post if you know HTML and CSS. I'm pretty sure you could do some malicious crap with it if you so desired. They're well made, they just aren't supported by a solid server. The moderation is also pretty quick.