What do you do on this screen?

[Cyborg]

My first experience with this game was just wandering around. I wasn't trying to level up, I was just trying to figure out what was out there to see and do. Now I think I get it: farm the office buildings for supplies and go underground for the spells and leveling up.

Now I am level 3, and it has unlocked this screen at the Guardian Stone. What am I supposed to do here? I'm afraid to spend anything in case I screw up all the work I put in so far to gather all my materials. I need a little bit of explanation as to what to do now with this screen and planning forward.

[Baleyg]

That's the strategic map.  As you level up more that will become more complicated.  Food management gets added at level 6, for example.  But right now you only have two resources to worry about, blue shards and time units.  Blue shards are pretty easy to gather, so until costs get balanced those are essentially free.  Time units are specific to each citizen at the bottom.

You can spend blue shards to end the turn, which give each citizen more time units.  They get #morale per turn, or 30 in DeeDee Petty's case.  Ending the turn also lets raiding parties move 1 square on the world map.
You can spend blue shards and time units to scout terrain.  Scouting terrain lets you know if there's anything interesting on that square, like resource deposits or special types of dungeon.

Added:  The only trap you really need to worry about happens at level 6, when you can tell your citizens to build things in town.  Make sure to keep at least 200 granite to build a quarry.  Cedar logs can be harvested on foot pretty easily, but granite is a lot harder to get in the numbers your town needs.

[Cyborg]

So you would suggest using the characters at the bottom to "scout"? Where would be a good spot to put them on this image and why?

[JKDC]

On all those blacked out sections.

[Cyborg]

On all those blacked out sections.

I'm just kind of confused as to what I get out of it. What am I looking for, what's the goal? I still have plenty of squares I haven't fully explored. Should I get this started right away or keep exploring for awhile?

[Baleyg]

I would probably scout the evergreen forest to the right, first.  One of those squares is close enough to your town that if a resource deposit is there your town could use it.  But scouting is a matter of filling in all the fog of war eventually.

The square that's close enough has a '4' on it, in that screenshot.  If you stand in a town, everything that has a number on it is close enough for the town to use.  Or a distance of 3 moves, whichever way of measuring you prefer.

I'm just kind of confused as to what I get out of it. What am I looking for, what's the goal? I still have plenty of squares I haven't fully explored. Should I get this started right away or keep exploring for awhile?

The goal of scouting is to cut down on how much leg work you have to do for a specific task.  If you're enjoying searching on foot, scouting doesn't really help you.  But if you're looking for something specific (rare commodities, usually), using scouts will drastically reduce the amount of time it takes.

[JKDC]

There are things you can't find by yourself (outposts,lairs). That is the main reason for them to scout.

[c4sc4]

There are things you can't find by yourself (outposts,lairs). That is the main reason for them to scout.

You can find them by yourself but it would be very time consuming to do so.