User Guide

Tropical: The world will be warmer than our world. It will
have more jungles and less tundra.
Arid: The world will be quite dry. It will have few rivers and
lakes and more deserts.
Rocky: The world will be covered with lots of hills and
mountains, rich in metal resources but perhaps poor in good
places to plant crops.
Cold: The world will be cold, perhaps having recently
emerged from an Ice Age. There will be more ice and tundra
and fewer deserts and jungles.
Once you have selected a climate, click “OK” to proceed. Or
click “Go Back” to return to the “World Size” screen.
SEA LEVEL
There are three possible sea levels to choose from.A “Low” sea
level indicates that the world will have larger continents and
smaller oceans.“Average” indicates that the ocean to continent
ratio will be comparable to our world. A “High” level means
that you are creating a world with larger oceans and smaller
land masses.
Once you have selected a sea level, click “OK” to proceed, or
click “Go Back” to return to the “Climate” screen.
DIFFICULTY
The difficulty level you choose has a number of subtle but
important effects on play. We’ll discuss this more in the
“Advanced” section of the manual; for now suffice it to say that
at easier difficulties you build cities and units faster and the AI
civilizations builds them slower, while at higher difficulties you
build them slower and the AIs faster.
Important: The game gives you useful play tips at “Settler”
difficulty – the easiest level.You should consider playing at this
difficulty for your first several games.
Once you have chosen a difficulty level, click “OK” to pro-
ceed, or “Go Back” to return to the “Sea Level” screen.
GAME SPEED
The “Game Speed” determines how many turns it takes to
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construct units, buildings and wonders, how many it takes to
research technologies, build “improvements” and so forth.
These settings let you experience the full epic sweep of time
inherent in Civ while allowing you to customize the game
based on how much time you have available and other prefer-
ences. Game Speed DOES NOT have any effect upon the
amount of time you have to complete a turn – you always have
as much time as you want in a single-player game.
There are three game speeds to choose from:
Epic: It takes a longer number of turns to construct, research,
and improve.
Normal: It takes an average number of turns to construct,
research, and improve. (We recommend this for your first sev-
eral games.)
Quick: It takes fewer turns to construct, research, and
improve.
Once you have chosen a game speed, click “OK” to proceed,
or “Go Back” to return to the “Difficulty” screen.
CIVILIZATION AND LEADER
On this screen you pick the civilization you want to play. Or
you can pick “Random” and let the Fates decide. Some civi-
lizations have more than one leader to pick from: if you choose
a civilization with multiple leaders you’ll then need to choose
which leader you want to portray.
There are eighteen civilizations and 26 leaders to choose from.
Each civilization has its own unique unit and each leader has
two specialties allowing him or her to excel in certain areas
within the game. These are described in the “Advanced” sec-
tion of the manual.You should definitely check them out at
some point, but for your first few games you might just want
to pick civilizations and leaders that you find particularly cool.
Once you have chosen a civilization and leader, click “OK” to
launch the game. Or click “Go Back” to return to the “Game
Speed” screen.
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