Once the Skirmish button is selected in the single player game menu, the screen switches to the Skirmish menu, where the player can change different aspects of the game before they start the actual Skirmish, such as the faction, alliances, the number of players (there must be at least one human and one CPU), the team colours, the metal and energy storage values each player has, if the game ends if your Commander is destroyed, the map to battle on, the difficulty setting, etc. The Skirmish begins once the "Start" button has been selected.