Thank you, Shadowwalker, for posting this thread. I too have been fairly confused by how the new government and culture systems.

If I am understanding correctly from the posts here, if you are a Hellenistic faction, you will never be able to increase your culture unless you start with a Metropolis, or conquer one. Is that really true?

For non-Hellenistic factions, how does the culture mechanic work? Do you build certain buildings? Is it tied to the government you build?

Sorry for all of the questions, I am still quite confused about how these features work.

As for converting camps into cities, I think it's simply that some factions can convert camps into cities (the option was there for me as Massylia), but others cannot convert them. Which makes sense to me.