Fastmoves: Present and Future Plans
Hi guys,
this is a post regarding the current situation of fastmoves. During the last weeks we didn´t post any new content. That is due to different circumstances. First there is real life with all its non-civ related shenanigans consuming our precious time. Then there is the reality of Civ5 having been announced next to Civ4 having reached the point where there is pretty much nothing new to be discovered and no challenging scenario left to be tackled. With the exception of a fun competitive match here or there it´s pretty much Civ5 from now on. Last but definitely not least we are currently working on some big, big plans regarding fastmoves and its future concept. If nothing else news regarding this project will soon be released here. All in all the work has progressed very fast and we are closing in on completing the job…
Regarding further plans we are planning on visiting the Gamescom, the largest Games Exhibition in the World in August later this year, obviously planning on Coverage of Civ5 short before its alleged release date in September this year. Press Accredations for the event have already arrived and high-end video equipment has been secured 
For now we´ve updated the library of all articles and posts released on fastmoves – see the post below this one.
Best Wishes and see you soon in a different civ world 
Your fastmoves staff
There’s still plenty of life left in Civ4. Especially for those of us who won’t ever be picking up Civ5 due to the Steamworks flaw.
Very brave statement…
What’s “the Steamworks flaw”?
@MiroMcDuck:
Yes, brave but true. I’ll be adding it to the ever-increasing list of games I would otherwise have bought but did not due to DRM.
@Anon:
See http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70180 for the explanation.
“…Civ4 having reached the point where there is pretty much nothing new to be discovered and no challenging scenario left to be tackled.”
Hardly. Case in point, the MP community utilizes obsolete development strategies. I see two possible explanations:
- lack of innovation: due to MP community being so small
- lack of investment: hardwiring new development micromanagement for blazing timer being too much of an effort for MP players
Could you elaborate who “the multiplayer community” is and name one specific “development strategy” which is used while being obsolete?
civ4players in particular. I’m also aware of the numbers of other communities, Polish, Russian, German. The total number of active players is in the hundreds; for a game that sells in the millions. Another example: the combined post number for specifically CIV (no mods, etc) posts on civfanatics is nearly 1.5 million, compared to ~20,000 on civ4players.
Needless to say, it takes a more refined strategy to be the best in 10,000 than be the best in 100.
50 people playing a game and interacting with each other results in higher skill then 10000 playing each for themselves. Also those groups play different games – one plays versus the AI, the other versus humans.
Can you be more specific about those “development strategies” ?
The people who play by themselves are not on civfanatics, apolyton, or any other site. They are the silent majority of the millions of civ players, still.
The SP community members do share ideas and do compete – if parallelly and not directly. Playing against the AI or humans is different, of course, and so is playing any CIV setting differently. On the other hand, there are the fundamentals of CIV that are universal for all situations. From what I’ve seen, the skill of MP players in CIV fundamentals is decent, but not anywhere near the top of SP community players (which is natural considering the gap in numbers).
I see it the opposite way, but I have no trouble agreeing with you on disagreeing
Oh please…not that discussion again!
How many hours did we waste on TS with this? 
Hi Jobe and Shizanu,
There is one last topic that Fastmoves needs to discuss:
how do fastmoves work?
Sorely missing, I’d be very interested to hear your take on the subject!
Anthony
To be honest, I´ve been avoiding discussing this topic because over time I´ve seen many people react to it strongly, being determined that “this isn´t civ anymore then” and such. In my opinion fastmoves are a part of MP one can master and play in a way not to get into situations where losing a fastmove would be a big problem and on the other hand getting into situations where winning a fastmove is profitable. In competetive games fastmoves rarely play a decisive role.
The situations in which fastmoves can be problematic derive from the general problem early era MP civ has: early combat odds. Losing or winning a 40 or 50% early on is so much more important than later on when bigger stacks clash. So the problem is not the fastmove, but the importance of early combat.
Or were you looking for the explanation on “how to do it”
?
a how to would be welcome
I’m one of those suckers who like strategy but always get blown away when a fastmove is an option