You should read the manual, it explains it in detail. But here's my list:
World Size: How large your world is. Huge is 12800 tiles. So, if you want a longer game, play large-Huge maps. If you want a shorter game, play small maps. And if you want an extremely quick game choose tiny maps. I personally think large/huge maps are ideal, I tried a standard map and the game was too short for me.
Barbarians: This is how much barbarians are going to appear throughout the game. I assume you know what barbarians are. Barbarians Hide in the fog, so when the fog is cleared by placing cities and units there will not be any more barbarian attacks. The basic barbarian unit is a
warrior. The advanced barbarian unit is a
Horseman. The naval barbarian unit is a
galley. Barbarians are easily defeated with the right troops but the advantage in combat Vs. a barbarian varies on difficulty level.
More about barbarians:
* The long-standing tradition of random barbarian attacks has been tweaked with the notion of fun and adventure in mind. The unwashed hordes now have encampments on the map. Destroy one and they will reappear where the fog of war is in place.
o You can actively hunt down the sources of barbarians by hitting these camps. This allows the player to be proactive in dealing with barbarians, rather than simply weathering their assaults..
* Barbs villages on the coast can spawn seagoing vessels.
* Barbarians do not capture undefended cities. Now, they just pillage the place, take some of your gold, and move on. They don't give you that polite warning, either.
* There are no barbarian leaders. To get their gold, seek out and invade the barbarian encampments.
* Sometimes building roads can be really hard because there are barbarians out there that constantly attack. What you have to try to do is set up a situation where you can see as much of the map as possible so that you can keep pushing them back.
* New Hut Possibility: The minor tribe hands over a map of the surrounding area.
* Barbarian uprisings are triggered the second time a civ enters a new age.
(once for the middle ages, once for the industrial age, once for the
modern age...) The intention was to basically simulate the barbarian
hordes that knocked out Rome and (to a lesser degree) the Mongols. This
made a little more sense back when barbarians were more destructive, but having half your civ knocked out for seemingly random reasons was deemed not much fun. Instead, we flipped the concept around and gave a temporal
bonus (the Golden Age) instead of a temporal penalty.
Land Mass and Water Coverage: Land mass and Water coverage is how much water there is in the world. More water means more continents and more naval wars. More land means larger but fewer continents.
Climate: Choose between Arid, Normal, and wet. For more rivers and jungles choose wetter worlds. For more deserts and less rivers choose arider worlds.
Temperature: Warmer temperature means more deserts and I think warmer temperatures increase the amount of jungle tiles. Cooler temperatures increases the amount of tundra tiles.
Age: 3 billion year old worlds have more mountains and hills and less food. 5 billion year old worlds have less mountains and more food. You may be thinking that 3 billion year old maps aren't good because they contain more hills and mountains. Well, you do need production, yes, but it is generally easier to play the game with an older world. But there are advantages to younger world's such as more production.
EDIT: I think the best choice for you would be as follows:
Btw the - is my justification for why I think you should choose the certain option.
World Size: Standard - Shorter game, generally easier because the AI won't get too far ahead and you might have a hard time dealing with the increased science costs on higher sized maps.
Barbarians: Restless - You need a bit of experience killing of those barbs.
Land Mass: Continents - You probably won't be on a small island which you have a high chance of on archipelago maps. You will probably be on a moderate sized continent with a few civs on your continent. You need a few civs for technology trading or the game will be very difficult. Also, I think giving you pangaea would unleash too many AI's on you.
Water Coverage: I'll leave this up to you.
Climate: Normal - not too many jungles not too many deserts. Always a good thing.
Temperature: Normal - same reason as above.
Age: 5 billion - More food, less 'difficult-to-manage' terrain. Perfect for newish people.
