GOG 2019: Good Games Old and New

Thanks to various sales, I now have 1-8 Ultima games from GOG. Having never played any before, I thought I’d wait until I had them all, then start from 1. However, I just installed 1, and am completely at a loss and it seems like a good deal of work will be required to understand how to play since the GOG-provided manual is useless. Anyone have suggestions on if I should just skip 1, and if so, what would be a good starting point for the series?