Civilization creator Sid Meier (pictured, center) has posted to Facebook and fansites an announcement about the next step in the series of epic strategy games.

Ever since we finished Civilization® Revolution™ last year, I've been looking at ways of expanding the Civ gameplay experience to include solo, competitive and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks. We're calling this project Civilization® Network™ and the full game will be available next year on Facebook. Civilization Network will allow you to join together with your friends to create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization. You can coordinate your strategy to win great battles, share your technology to jump ahead of your rivals, lobby your family and friends to form your own government and win vital elections, manage and grow your cities to maximize production and happiness, spy on your enemies, and work with your friends to create the great Wonders of the World. 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.

Makes sense, I suppose. Where else are you going to go once you're an iPhone app? Civilization Network will launch next year and details on a closed beta will be available soon.