Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games, has revealed that the studio’s bringing classic strategy series Civilization to social networking site Facebook.

The developer has been exploring ways of “expanding the Civilization gameplay experience to include solo, competitive and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks” since finishing work on Civilization Revolution last year, according to series creator Meier.

“The game will offer everything you enjoy in Civ in a fully persistent environment - you can play as much as you like, whenever you like, and it’ll be free-to-play,” he said

Meier added that a closed beta for the game will launch “soon”, ahead of the title’s full release in 2010.