As the game begins you find yourself sailing your fully loaded ship through a chain of islands, looking for a suitable place to start your first settlement. As you will quickly see, each island offers a different set of living conditions. The living conditions on each island dictate which chain of production you should first establish. Choose an island from the overview map (page 7), based on size and shape, and click on it.

You can now see the island in more detail on the game screen.

Use the magnifying glass to zoom in and out, to either get an overview or to look at an island in detail. The compass allows you to view the island from different angles, giving you 360 degree view. Once you have decided which island you want to settle, you can sail there by first clicking on your ship, and then on the coast of the chosen isle.

You can vary the speed of the game, and thereby the speed of your ship, by using function buttons F5 to F7. Once you've reached the shoreline the "eye" icon will appear in the menu bar. Click this icon to explore the island.

Once the exploration of the island has been completed, you will be able to see which agricultural products will be most successful and whether there are any iron or gold deposits on the island.

Revolving crossed hammers over a mountain indicate that it contains either gold or iron.

The agricultural products that may be planted can be shown simply by moving the mouse pointer over the island.

Grain, palm trees, and forests grow equally well on all islands. Livestock production is also equally successful on all islands.

In order to keep you constantly informed, important events will show up as symbols on the left-hand side of the information bar.
The information bar delivers further object or menu information whenever you place the cursor over the object or menu point.