DESIGNER NOTES » Blog Archive » Game Developer Column 5: Sid’s Rules
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Sid Meier's Rules http://bit.ly/atPXx (via @newsycombinator) [from http://twitter.com/tadej/statuses/1715393349]

Source of Sid's famous "double or half it" rule.

Double it or Cut it by Half One Good Game is Better than Two Great Ones ...

Rules to game design by Sid Meier

"If a unit seems too weak, don’t lower its cost by 5%; instead, double its strength. If players feel overwhelmed by too many upgrades, try removing half of them. In the original Civilization, the gameplay kept slowing down to a painful crawl, which Sid solved by shrinking the map in half. The point is not that the new values are likely to be correct - the goal is to stake out more design territory with each successive iteration."