Soren Johnson

6:55 Soren Johnson co-designed Civilization 3 and wrote its code: his own site calls him "co-designer of Civilization 3 (and wrote the game/AI code too)", and he worked at Firaxis Games "as a designer/programmer from 2000 to 2007" (Designer Notes, About Soren). The 2001 credits name the designers as "Jeff Briggs, Soren Johnson, and Members of Firaxis Games" (2001 manual, Credits). He went on to lead Civilization 4, and much of what he has said since about Civ 3 explains why the sequel changed it. The project as a whole is on Development History.

Quick facts

Sources: Designer Notes, About Soren; 2001 manual, Credits; Complete manual, Credits; PCGamesN, Dec 7, 2023.

His role and title

Johnson joined Firaxis straight from college to help Jeff Briggs. He writes that "Firaxis Founder & CEO Jeff Briggs gave me an opportunity to help out with his design for Civilization III" shortly after his graduation, and that the game brought "great new elements to the series, especially resources and culture" (Civ 4 manual, "Afterwords", p. 175). PC Gamer credits his hiring with letting more work get done (PC Gamer, Apr 6, 2020).

The credits give him two different titles. The 2001 manual lists him among the designers and, after David Evans, second among the programmers (2001 manual, pp. 221-222). The Conquests credits print "Soren Johnson Lead Designer, Civilization III", while naming Briggs "Lead Designer for Civilization III series" on the same page (Complete manual, Credits). Johnson himself uses "co-designer".

He remembers an unruly project. Johnson told Gamereactor in 2020 that Civ 3 was a "pretty crazy project", built on the Alpha Centauri codebase, and that "The game I thought we made was completely different to the game that we actually made." It "got a lot better through the patching process", helped by a fan group called "Frankenstein". In 2023, answering a player with 16,395 hours in the game, he wrote: "For reference, I spent 6.480 hours making Civ 3" (PCGamesN, Dec 7, 2023).

Corruption against Infinite City Sprawl

11:36 Johnson says the team raised corruption on purpose to stop city spam. "In the first version of Civ III we turned corruption up significantly", he writes, to "once and for all kill ICS", meaning "Infinite City Sprawl" (Civ 4 manual, "Afterwords", p. 177). It worked, but it "was also the number one complaint raised against the game": there was "nothing fun" about a new city that "can only ever produce one shield per turn".

He still calls it a bandage. In 2023 he wrote that "Civ 3 had Corruption, Civ 4 had Maintenance, Civ 5 had Global Unhappiness", all fixes for sprawl, "but they all are unfun bandaids" (Designer Notes, Mar 31, 2023). The rules are on Corruption and Waste.

Golden Ages that began as Dark Ages

Civ 3's Golden Ages started as their opposite. Johnson writes that they "originally began life as Dark Ages!": the team wanted empires to wax and wane, so each civilization had a decline phase, which "wasn't a whole lot of fun". Rather than drop it, "we just flipped the concept around", replacing 20 turns of decline with 20 turns of increased productivity (Civ 4 manual, "Afterwords", p. 178). How they work is on Golden Ages.

The bargaining table: "a big mistake"

13:53 Johnson calls Civ 3's trade screen both a landmark and an error. In his notes it is "one of the standout features of Civ 3", standard in 4X games since, and "a big mistake" (Designer Notes, Oct 8, 2021). PC Gamer, reporting his GDC 2022 talk, lists Galactic Civilizations 3, Stellaris and Total War games among those that copied the screen (PC Gamer, Mar 24, 2022).

9:04 The problem was the AI using the table as a human would. After release, he said, "people started to complain that the AIs all started to have the same techs", because each AI offered every new advance to "friends, rivals, even enemies", like "a giant tech cartel" (PC Gamer, Mar 24, 2022). Players, for their part, had no reason not to add "one more gold piece" until they hit the AI's limit. "The AIs were just playing optimally; the problem was that the rules were bad," he wrote (Designer Notes, Oct 8, 2021). Trading itself is on Diplomacy.

Combat you cannot reload

Civ 3 stored its random seed so that reloading did not change a battle. Johnson writes that the game saved the seed in each save file; some fans "felt that the game was cheating", and it became a setup option, off by default (Designer Notes, Jun 12, 2011). The same column describes Civ 3 "lumberjacking": cutting a forest gave shields to the nearest city, and replanting let players repeat it, which he calls "tedious and mind-numbing".

1:14 He also credits Civ 3 with something that helped the AI. Its "global unit support", with Civ 4's production overflow, helped the AI manage resources and cut micromanagement, he wrote in 2010.

Modders and events

Civ 3's modders shaped Civ 4's tools. Johnson writes that after Civ 3 shipped, Civilization 2 modders asked for "events" (triggers and effects) that Civ 3 lacked, which led to Python scripting in Civ 4 (Designer Notes, Apr 2, 2023). What Civ 3 does allow is on Editor and Modding.

From Civ 3 to Civ 4

2:59 Johnson led the next game partly to fix this one. "I saw so many things that I thought needed to be improved from Civ III," he told PC Gamer, which says he removed "things like corruption" and introduced religion (PC Gamer, Apr 6, 2020). In Civ 4's manual he adds that pollution cleanup was something "everyone hated", and that Civ 4 dropped "the distinct eras of Civ III, which often hemmed in the player" (Civ 4 manual, pp. 176 and 180). The games side by side are on Civilization 3 vs 2 and 4, and his Civ 4 career on Civilization 4's viki.

He has talked about Civ 3's history at length. On the Dev Game Club podcast in Mar 2020 he discussed which of its ideas are "still worth pursuing" and which are "dead ends".

Frequently asked questions

Did Soren Johnson design Civ 3? Yes. Soren Johnson co-designed Civilization 3 with Jeff Briggs and wrote its game and AI code, as his own site and the 2001 credits state.

What was Soren Johnson's title on Civ 3? Soren Johnson calls himself co-designer of Civilization 3; the 2001 credits list him among the designers, while Conquests' credits print "Lead Designer, Civilization III" (Complete manual, Credits).

Why did Soren Johnson call the bargaining table a mistake? Soren Johnson said Civilization 3's AIs traded every new tech with everyone, acting like "a giant tech cartel", so all AIs ended up with the same techs (PC Gamer, Mar 24, 2022).

Why was corruption so high in Civ 3? Soren Johnson writes that Firaxis turned Civilization 3's corruption up significantly to kill "Infinite City Sprawl", and that it became "the number one complaint raised against the game" (Civ 4 manual, p. 177).

Did Soren Johnson work on Civ 4? Yes. After co-designing Civilization 3, Soren Johnson was lead designer of Civilization 4, and worked at Firaxis Games from 2000 to 2007.

How long did Soren Johnson spend making Civ 3? Soren Johnson wrote in 2023 that he spent "6.480 hours making Civ 3", replying to a player with over 16,000 hours in Civilization 3 (PCGamesN).

Sources

• About Soren, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), read Oct 22, 2026
• Civilization 3 manual (2001), Credits, Infogrames Interactive, 2001
• Civilization III Complete manual, Credits, 2K Games and Firaxis Games, 2005
• Civilization IV manual, "Afterwords" by Soren Johnson, 2K Games and Firaxis Games, 2005
• The complete history of Civilization, page 3 and page 4, PC Gamer (Fraser Brown), Apr 6, 2020
• Vertical Slice: Mohawk Games & Soren Johnson, Gamereactor (Mike Holmes), Oct 11, 2020
• Mom plays Civilization 3 longer than it took developer to make it, PCGamesN (Anna Koselke), Dec 7, 2023
• My Elephant in the Room, Part 1, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), Mar 31, 2023
• My Elephant in the Room, Part 3, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), Apr 2, 2023
• Old World Designer Notes #10: Diplomacy, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), Oct 8, 2021
• Soren Johnson says Civ 3's bargaining table was a 'big mistake', PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde), Mar 24, 2022
• GD Column 17: Water Finds a Crack, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), Jun 12, 2011
• Analysis: AI Fallibility And The Chick Parabola, Game Developer (Soren Johnson), Nov 12, 2010
• Dev Game Club on Civilization 3, Soren Johnson (Designer Notes), Mar 4, 2020
• The Story of Civilization Part 2: How Firaxis Shaped the Strategy Genre, GameSpot, Oct 21, 2016 (video)
• Civilization 3: Everything you need to know, Suede, Nov 12, 2025 (video)
• The overlooked genius of Civilization 3, Suede, Oct 30, 2024 (video)
• Civ 3 Government Tutorial, Suede, May 9, 2019 (video)