Francis Tresham in 2004
Francis Tresham (1936 – October 23, 2019) was a British board game designer who founded and ran Hartland Trefoil until it was sold to MicroProse. He and his company are known for creating board games that served as Sid Meier's inspiration for Railroad Tycoon and other computer games - Civilization, which Hartland Trefoil released in the U.K. in 1980, inspired Sid Meier's Civilization.
Tresham is also considered to be the first game designer ever to incorporate a technology tree into his games.