OK, thanks Justus II !
Some remarks about your answers...
Stapel told me on MSN that he faced situations where there shouldn't be any possibility of a culture flip, according to Civ rules (seen in anarres's utility). Can you explain this ? And Stapel can you describe precisely what you encoutered ? From what I understood, Stapel had no foreigners in the cities, and no neighbours around, so there shouldn't have been a way for a flip to occur.
Can someone explain me the difference between marsh and swamp in the real world ? I'd like to know, so as to differenciate them better when I play. Noted for the terrain-abilities of the units, it will help us to not do stupid mistakes in the beginning.
I agree with your remarks about the AIs settling everywhere, and know we had to do something about it. I bet I'll have to forget about placing fair cities to the south of Babylon, in the desert... And too bad we can't irrigate the desert, there is no clear distinction between desert and flood plain. But it is to be noted that, if I'm not mistaken, hills can be either irrigated or mined (less effectively), like in the good Civ2 days. I haven't seen any oasis along the Euphrates, when I explored a little before this game (but I won't again, I want some surprise !), I hope there are some, oasis give 4 more food !!! An oasis on an irrigated flood plain is... 8 food !!
Today I saw that a city is 5-8 citizens, and a metro is 9+ citizens... Scary. Your remark about pumping settlers out of 4-pop cities ONLY is true : tough.