Spoiler
Each player will get their own unique character which will generally be superior to the other members of the species. Player Avatars are always 100% loyal to the player controlling them. All Player Avatars can perform research in addition to performing a regular action. Player Avatars count as adults.

Spoiler
Food is the number one most essential resource for your survival. Each turn 1 food is eaten for every member of your species which remains under your control. You will ALWAYS want to have food available. Without food people will starve and eventually die.

Spoiler
Most of the map will start off being unknown. You may spend turns exploring a tile that is adjacent to a known tile to learn about it, or you may attempt to discover previously unknown aspects of land you already own. Scouting is potentially dangerous and can cause injury or death to your civilians. (Player Avatars will always survive this if they are uninjured).

The more presence your species has in a tile, the more effective exploration of that tile and adjacent tiles will be. When you attempt to explore a tile you will often discover keywords which give hints about what exists on the tile before you actually unlock the location on the map. You can attempt to travel into unknown lands and try to forage, but this is an extremely risky thing to do.

Spoiler
Each turn you may attempt to research something to grant your species a new ability, such as allowing you to harvest specific resources, build stuff etc. Research is done on a per player basis so multiple things can be researched at a time. Non Player Avatar members of your species can also partake in research.

Several members of your species can collaborate on research if they are in the same tile. Collaborating will reduce the amount of time it will take to complete a research. Note that if multiple civilians work on the same kind of research as individuals, you will unlock multiple similar techs.

You can try to research anything you want. Note that some technologies will probably be hard to get without first getting some prerequisite stuff. If a technology is going to take an unreasonably long amount of time to get such as Time Travel or Immortality or something, you will be notified about this so you can stop wasting turns on it.

Spoiler
Two adult civilians of opposite genders on the same tile can spend a turn to create eggs which will hatch into new civilians. The eggs may take several turns to hatch, during this time they will be especially vulnerable.

After hatching you will have some new civilians, but they will start in an adolescent state. These children will have low stats and are not especially intelligent. If they survive for a few more turns they will become adults which are generally quite useful.

Any player may tell civilians to do things. Civilians have a will of their own, but will generally take your suggestions seriously.

If a member of your species is problematic for whatever reason, you may disown them. A disowned civilian will not take from your food stockpile, but they will still exist. They may exhibit problematic behaviors, and you may also have diplomatic issues with other players if you didn't have a good reason to do that.

Spoiler
Most civilians will have at least one ability which will grant them specific advantages. Note that genetics will be a major factor in determining this. Abilities will also affect how a civilian will generally behave.