Game froze during multiplayer mode

A friend was hosting peer-to-peer game (direct x) and we were pretty late in the game, probably 15 tiles each, when the game froze up for a few minutes. It was at the same time a rat infestation and winter ended. Additionally I was pinging the map multiple times. Definitely seemed like an event queue was not flushing due to a stuck event. After a few minutes some pings would randomly generate. Finally after my friend got fed up and left the game it resumed and I was able to finish it solo. Not sure if me becoming host had anything to do with that?

We often run into this issue and it's quite frustrating after investing an hour + into a match just to have someone quit due to an unresponsive lobby.