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[StagnantSoul]

Nope, I just Life it: experiment until something works, then work with what works, and expand out.

[Putnam]

Not typical.

[GavJ]

I've never seen a game with that option. A fully optional tutorial, like how Age of Empires does it, is fine, because I'll never do it. But those first start ups, the beginning of each game, scroll over this to get a small explanation and directory? I hate those.

If only there were some sort of forum where the little people like us could express these suggestions for the better kind of optional tutorial. 

[Cobbler89]

Don't forget an init option for experienced players to turn the descriptions off so they don't feel like a fairy is hovering in their face advising them, while we're at it.

For the record, I hate tutorials -- as in, part of the game where you're force-walked through an example of doing various things -- only slightly less than I hate games that don't need a tutorial because the entire game consists of using one-dimensional items and techniques on things that are obviously made for the sole purpose of having those items and techniques used on them.

The idea here, for what it's worth, is to make the game... well, not self-explanatory -- as I believe I also mentioned, everything from aquifers to trading to vampires to self-sustaining industry to hidden fun stuff will require more learning than just knowing the controls -- but no longer simply opaque to new players, without sidetracking a player into a tutorial. Unlike a tutorial, it's not going to come up and grab the gameplay until you cancel it -- even if it's not turned off it ought to be done fairly unobtrusively (i.e. don't take over any screen space that's already being used, which is most of it). But it should, besides that, be able to be turned off from the get-go so players who no longer need it at all (or who want to learn the hard way) can simply go without seeing it.