Did you know that Civilization didn't start with Sid? It was originally a board game designed by Francis Tresham and published by a UK company called Hartland Trefoil in 1980. In 1981, the design and publishing rights were sold to Avalon Hill. The tech tree concept and and resource trading were integral parts of the design. Sid is actually the _third_ computer programmer to try to adapt the board game to PC use. First up was Danielle Bunten Berry, who kept letting other game designs -- M.U.L.E. in 1983 and Seven Cities of Gold in 1985 -- get in the way of the development. [Both Pirates! and Colonization "borrowed" heavily from Seven Cities of Gold.] Next up was Don Daglow (designer of Utopia) who started doing some development in 1987, but then dropped the project to take an executive position at Broderbund.
Sid's creative genius is seen in the extensive tweaking, modifying, and overhauling the several areas of the game, and how he pulled them all together to work together smoothly. Originally the initial design was going to be RTS, but Sid eventually decided there were already too many RTS title being published. (It was the period when SimCity wannabes were flooding the market.) [Thank God, because if it had been released as a RTS, it most likely would never have made it past a Civ II edition.]
