Your first game

[GeoModder]

Oh, I definitely want all possible random events (thus Barbarians as well) in my game.

[Wise Ass]

I usually leave barbs on a medium level.

[Aro]

As I said in another thread, low level, ramdom civ, take my time to understand and read the civilopedia. Very soft.

[Volstag]

As close to the following as possible:

Huge map
Default number of (random) enemy civs
Random civ for myself
Default age/climate.

Deciding on a difficulty is the hard part.... I'll probably start with the equivalent of "warlord" (2nd easiest).

[TheArsenal]

I’ll pick the Civ after checking out the attributes of the leaders in the manual, then:

Huge map, continents.
Epic game.
Easiest setting: I want to get a feel for the game, before being seriously challenged by the game.
No tutorial.
All victory conditions on (if it still works that way).
Default number of Civs.

[Spiffor]

I usually play with the French as my first game, but I might play Mali this time (I believe Louis XIV's will have the personality traits that fits my style the most, but maybe Mansa Musa will have the kind of builder traits I like)

I'll play at the second lowest difficulty setting, probably on a normal map, epic game

[Datajack Franit]

I will play the Germans, ally with Rome no matter what, then together burn France