Francis Tresham (1936 – 23 October 2019) was a British board game designer who produced board games since the early 1970s. Tresham founded and ran games company Hartland Trefoil (founded 1971), a company well-known for its Civilization board game, until its sale to MicroProse in 1997. [1] His 1829 game was the first of the 18xx board game series [2] and some of his board games inspired Sid Meier computer games such as Railroad Tycoon.
Francis Tresham was the first to introduce a technology tree into his boardgames. [3] This idea had a large influence on later board and computer games.
He was managing director of Tresham Games, which produced 18xx-style board games. In 2013, he was one of the first inductees in the UK Games Expo Hall of Fame. [4] He died on 23 October 2019. [5]