The world on which this drama takes place models our Earth. Based on the choices of the players at initialization, the map may be of the real Earth, or the real Europe, or some other predefined map, or it may be a randomly generated map. Most games take place on a random map, developed by the program when the game starts. The world contains fertile land, deserts, oceans, polar icecaps, large continents and small islands.
The map of the world has laid over it a pattern of squares, to regularize terrain effects and movement. The world itself is a cylinder, with the polar regions regarded as the northmost and southmost limits of movement; movement east and west is unlimited. Each square contains one basic terrain type, with possible special features, cities, and moving units added to the square. The default world size is 80 squares across and 50 squares high, suitable for a fairly quick two player game; at this resolution all of modern France is about six squares. For five or more players you should consider a size such as 160 across and 90 high, where modern France occupies about 25 squares.
In addition to random maps generated at the start of a game, the civworld utility may be used to develop custom maps. This tool allows you to build a map for a specific place (e.g., Europe), with a specific map size and resolution, and initialized with terrain, rivers, and other features as meet your needs. Besides defining the map, civworld is for making a Freeciv scenario, a preestablished environment for a game other than the all-encompassing Freeciv game (e.g., a Medieval Europe scenario). The civworld utility is available in the collection of contributed software in ftp.freeciv.org/pub/contrib.