Regarded as one of the true pioneers of game design, Sid Meier can be credited with a host of industry firsts. In 1982 he co-founded MicroProse Software and created the very first combat flight simulator, F-15 Strike Eagle, a title that sold over a million units worldwide. This success was swiftly followed by Silent Service, a strategy-heavy submarine simulator set during World War II. Meier's interest in history had been piqued and it wasn't long before Pirates swashed and buckled its way onto the world's PCs. A unique blend of historical simulation, action, strategy and role-playing, Pirates was well received on a plethora of other platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST and the Amiga. After a brief but successful return to flight simulation with F-19 Stealth Fighter, Sid got to work on Civilization, a game that figures in just about every "Top 10 Games of All Time".

As Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games, Sid continues to dazzle armchair generals and reviewers alike. Their first release, Gettysburg!, reproduced some of the greatest battles of the American Civil War and provided gamers with virtually inexhaustible depth of play. This year saw the release of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a follow-up of sorts to Civilization, in which the ultimate goal was to colonise a planet orbiting our nearest star. Strategy fans lapped it up, unsurprisingly, putting Sid right back up there as the name in innovative strategy games. But why does he insist on giving the games titles that sound like girlie costume dramas, like Catherine Cookson's Geordie Knob Fear? Hmm...