Some anecdotes from the experience of making the original Civilization:

1.	I believe I was the second person ever to play the original Civilization, after Sid of course, and I liked the concept immediately. As I recall, Sid gave me the first playable prototype in May, 1990, on a 5 ¼” floppy disc, which I believe I still have somewhere. Many of the elements of the final game were there. We had used the same iterative process of design by playing when making both Railroad Tycoon and Covert Action.
2.	Before Civilization appeared on my radar, Sid asked me to list 10 things about the game Empire that I would change or add if I could. This was part of his research on making Civilization. As I recall, the big influences on him at the time were the experience of making Railroad Tycoon, Sim City, Empire, and perhaps Populous. As we neared completion I remember him commenting that he didn’t know what he would do next because Civilization incorporated every good idea he had on making a game. I left the company about 9 months later after working with him on an American Civil War game that was never completed.
3.	It seemed like a struggle at the time to get the company management on board with Civilization. They didn’t seem to get it. They wanted more flight sims.
4.	I wrote the original big manual that included a lot of historical material on the rise of civilization. I had to choose some illustrations and one I chose was Michelangelo’s statue of David. The artist assigned to sketch the historic objects was a woman and she questioned why I had chosen a naked man. I had been doing a lot reading for the game and manual and just thought it was a breakthrough piece of art. I didn’t consider anyone would be offended by it or if there was any gender bias in my selection. She didn’t raise either issue with me, but just her query made me think about the choice, which wasn’t changed.
5.	The original Civilization was made in a relatively short period of time. I remember writing most of the blurbs for the technologies in the Civilopedia and feeling embarrassed that we ran out of technology. In the original game you could do research on future unnamed projects. There just wasn’t time to invent new stuff and consider what game implications they might have.
6.	I was incredibly impressed by Sid’s creativity. For the early months of development at least, all of the art in the prototype was Sid’s work. He would whip out Paint or some art program, create a new object, and it would go right into the game. Remember these were the days of 16 color graphics (and we were very glad to have the bounty of 16). As another example of his creativity, when he started toying with the morale of the people in cities I thought it was very clever to invent the entertainer specialist and have him look like Elvis.
7.	I remember Sid being remarkably private about the development of the game for the longest time. For many months I was pretty much the only person that was playing it and discussing it with him. People would come into my office to watch and question me, and I believe he was constantly being pressed to pass it out to others, but he kept it tight. If he explained why to me then, I don’t recall the answer. Today I feel that getting many people involved is a good thing for the design by playing process. A few years ago Sid complemented me during a speech he was giving by saying I was fun to work with because I had the ability to always see the glass as half full, not half empty. That ability is perhaps a requisite for a game developer. Maybe it is just imagination.
8.	Al Roireau was head of playtest on Civilization and he had strong opinions on game design that occasionally clashed with those of the game teams. As we started getting real artists assigned to Civilization, somebody created a head of Al Roireau that was used as a temporary fill-in for all of the opposing kings on diplomacy screens. So for months of playtesting Al’s head was constantly popping up. He took it well.
9.	At the time we were working on Civilization the company had a bonus plan paid for projects based on sales and meeting milestones. I believe that because Sid was not an employee and the VP of development’s bonus was tied to projects Sid was not working on, it was very hard for us to get artists and other assets as the game started moving to full production. I remember many meetings when I reported we could not meet the production schedule without help. The game shipped late at least partially because other projects were given a higher priority. I thought it was nuts to hold back on what everyone in development agreed was going to be a big hit. I was really incensed when our bonuses were shaved considerably because we slipped, which I thought was management’s decision.
10.	During the three-four years that I worked with Sid as his assistant designer, one of the playtesters started calling us the A team. I don’t think I ever commented on that or acknowledged it, but I came to be very proud of it. Working with Sid, especially on Railroad Tycoon and Civilization, was a fantastic opportunity for which I will always be grateful. That experience led to other wonderful opportunities for me. I have tried to pass on what I learned to my colleagues at Ensemble Studios.
11.	There is certainly some Civilization in the Age of Empires series. The vision for the original Age of Empires game was something like the historical and economic aspects of Civilization merged with the game play of Warcraft and Command & Conquer.

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