Many people suggest to write a program, and then start optimizing it. But I think that when it's coming to multithreading with multicore, a little think ahead is required.
I've read about using threads, and experienced it myself during some courses at the university (still a student).

The big question is simple, but a bit abstract:

What thread related steps in game design do I need to take, before implementation?

Now trying to be more specific. Let's say, as an example, that I'm making a small board game (like Monopoly) that I want to be multithreaded.
My goal Is that this multithreaded game will exploit the best of the multicore system, lets say 4-6 cores (like in i7 processors).

My answer to this question at the moment is, one thread for each of these four basic components:

• GUI
• User Input / Output
• AI (computer rival)
• Other game related calculations (like shortest path from A to B, or level up status change)

I'm not an expert (yet!), and I'm sure there are better answers out there.
Any suggestion, answer, different approach will be helpful.

Some thoughts:
Maybe splitting the main database is a good way.. (or total disaster.. )