Pro Cycling Manager thread (13 discussion from page 2)

[whomario]

Since there were a decent number of people who bought it and it´s the sort of game you can really share some tips and pointers or simply talk about how your games are going, i´d thought i´ll start a thread if that´s okay.

So, has anyone really dove into it yet ?


I am at home all week and thus have extra time and have done some serious playing, am in my 2nd season in the middle of a wicked Giro D´Italia (installing variants to the Races is really easy thankfully )

So far the game is by far the best installment of it i´ve played since CyM2 back in the day. Tried it a couple times since then, but bugs and crappy gameplay allways scared me off early. This time it really seems solid, even the career aspect are working well enough.

most tools and downloads i mention are to be had at pcmdaily.com (need to register to download i think)

Couple things :

Gameplay :

- The bunches in the mountains seem a bit large, but problem simply is the small scale (1 to 10 scale i think) that doesn´t allow for splintering like IRL. The game works around that by making sure the best riders stay up front in the climbs and as it stretches out and comes to the end there are some holes opening. And since any visible hole is allready 30 seconds or more the results really end up being very realistic.
You also don´t feel cheated by the AI, just have to keep your composure and attack at the right moment or just eke it out (just pulling along rather than attacking).
And don´t start a climb in the back, you´ll never get back up front

- Sprints are awfully fun, it´s very important to get your rider into position and then either have a strong train or latch onto the right wheel. And since there´s now some collision detection, you can also end up being screwed when you get battled out of position and suddenly you are heading into the wind all by yourself while a competitor latched onto the wheel of the favourite.

- You have to really manage your efforts and also make sure to have a rider get water at the right moments. Especially frustrating is it when it´s a narrow road and he can´t get up front, but again it´s only realistic.
Also sometimes it´s really huge to have a breakaway rider get caught and then with his last ounce of energy get some water for your 2 main guys in a 30 guys group.


career :

- looking for sponsors actually works, as does renewing your contract.

- progression, regression and retirements seem to work well enough to make a career fun.

- scouting is crap unfortunately. 1) are the scouts way too expensive, 2) are they never right and 3) are there too many regions. You can´t send him to scout a race or a country, but only regions (germany f.e. has like 7 or 8, france and spain even more)
Seems the way to go is wait till the end of the year and then check the U23 results and sign from there.

- season planning is still not really smooth from within the game, what i´d recommend is lachis season planner. Very important : Do NOT use the highest bar more than 1 week per season ! It adds tons of fatigue. Unless you have a TDF favourite and do it for the 1 week with all the main mountains, it´s not worth it. The default schedules have it uo at the highest point 4,5 weeks at times.

- editing things in season that irk you are really easy to do with Lachis editor or excel editor (i´d recommend the latter, is quicker)

- The Sponsor Goals are improved and more realistic, but you can also easily edit them yourself ( PCM.daily - Discussion Forum: Under 23 custom team )
I edited all my goals to what i deemed realistic, mainly choose races i´d actually be invited to and since i am a custom US/German team made some more goals in races there.

- Again, the interface is still so damn annoying at times. For example you can sort riders by "contract up at end of season" (you can only sign those and only from July, 1st) but you can´t filter out the guys that allready signed a new contract when you search ...

[DaddyTorgo]

I got into a career prior to all the patching just to work on my in-race skills - now I'm waiting for the updated PCM database to go with the latest patch (not sure if it's out yet...I've been sick).

Will go back and look at some of my results and such tonight and share here.

[whomario]

as for my current career, i actually made promotion to the UCI pro tour in season 1 but edited my save to stay down 1 more year as i felt i needed more time to adjust my squad before having to race all the big races.

My current roster :



signed in season 2 were Zabriskie, Danielson, Kruiswijk, Durbridge and Kern.

Rookies are Schumann, Schwartz and White.

My 2 stars are clearly Van Garderen and Degenkolb. TJVG main achievements so far are winning the Tour of California (ahead of Wiggins) and US Pro Cycling Tour, 4th at the Tour de Suisse, 6th and 4th at the Tour de Romandie.


Am just now riding my first Grand Tour, the Giro 2013, stage 10 with the real big tests still to come (stages 15-21 are 4 mountain top finishes and 1 mountain TT and one hilly TT 1 lonely flat stage there)
There allready were 2 tough hill stages, a mountain finish and a Team Time Trial.

Am currently sitting in in 6th place 6 minutes behind the leader (who won 16 minutes in a breakaway, lost a bit on the hilly stages and then most of it at the first mountain finnish) and 2 1/2 behind the first real competitor.
Ahead of me are Hesjedal, Scarponi, Uran, Cataldo. Directly behind me Nibali, Brajkovic, Sörensen. Not the strongest field, really hoping for a Top 3 finnish.

My 2nd best rider Kiryienka fell on the 3rd stage and broke his arm. Young Italian Cattaneo is 17th, 12 minutes behind the leader (lost 4 minutes after a fall)

[whomario]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

I got into a career prior to all the patching just to work on my in-race skills - now I'm waiting for the updated PCM database to go with the latest patch (not sure if it's out yet...I've been sick).

Will go back and look at some of my results and such tonight and share here.

have been playing with the "old" DB and Patch 1.3. If you ask me, it´s working fine as it is and is anything but incompatible.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by whomario

have been playing with the "old" DB and Patch 1.3. If you ask me, it´s working fine as it is and is anything but incompatible.

Oh I agree - I have no problem with the DB and patch I'm on...I just stopped playing when I had death-fever for 4 days or so, and haven't gotten myself back into my game yet.

[MIJB#19]

Albeit not familiar with where the CyM series have gone, purely the names in that pic sound like a random ProTour roster to me. I mean: Degenkolb, Kruijswijk, Van Garderen, Danielson, Ciolek, Duarte, Zabriskie, Kiryienka, Burghardt, Pate, Tuft, Lancaster, Kessiakoff, Duggan, Durbridge...

[whomario]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Albeit not familiar with where the CyM series have gone, purely the names in that pic sound like a random ProTour roster to me. I mean: Degenkolb, Kruijswijk, Van Garderen, Danielson, Ciolek, Duarte, Zabriskie, Kiryienka, Burghardt, Pate, Tuft, Lancaster, Kessiakoff, Duggan, Durbridge...

custom team (you choose your riders from the whole pool at the start, assuming they fit under your budget of course. The a couple transfers after the first season)

[whomario]

I also just found out how to sim multiple days at once Just click on the date in the event table at the bottom (not click the stage/field but click the number)

That´ll speed things right up for me.


I managed the 3rd place in the Giro btw Also won the final Time Trial and a mountain stage (that one with Cattaneo)

Also changing sponsors for next year, wikipedia agreed to pay me a large sum of money and new wiki entries for each cyclist, thus beating out Starbucks and Warner Bros

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by whomario

I also just found out how to sim multiple days at once Just click on the date in the event table at the bottom (not click the stage/field but click the number)

That´ll speed things right up for me.


I managed the 3rd place in the Giro btw Also won the final Time Trial and a mountain stage (that one with Cattaneo)

Also changing sponsors for next year, wikipedia agreed to pay me a large sum of money and new wiki entries for each cyclist, thus beating out Starbucks and Warner Bros

Nice find!!!!!

[bhlloy]

I'm strangely addicted to this game, once I really learned how to use Lachi's editor to fix some of the imbalances that are inherent for smaller market teams (mainly changing my sponsor goals to races I have a shot in hell of being invited and editing staff salaries back down to a reasonable rate) it's a ton of fun. Had no interest in jumping right in as a major team so getting the game playable at Continental level was key.

Won a couple of 2.2 races by blind luck early on by attacking around 10-15km mark, haven't been able to recreate the magic since then but can usually put someone in the top 10 of minor tours and also have a guy who usually cleans up the polka dot jersey in these tours so my sponsors are happy enough.

I absolutely suck at setting my sprinters up/getting my sprinters to the finish in decent condition. I have a couple very good sprinters for that level but even when they are in position close to the finish I get my ass kicked by the rest of the field who seem to be fresh. Watched the videos and read tips on pcmdaily but I don't seem to be able to get it down. Think I'm too impatient and like to keep my team at the front/react to every breakaway which means everyone isn't in good enough condition to pull it out at the end. Need to learn to be happy to sit in the peleton until 20k out and conserve energy but I get bored

[bhlloy]

DOLA - to add that I got a guy in the breakaway group in a couple of classics (which seems to be the only races that breakaways actually work in, not sure if this is the same IRL) and guys who probably could have won the sprints, but again I blew it by attacking too early and burning them out so they finished last in the group. Did I mention I was too impatient?

[Critch]

I've been trying to convince myself that PCM2011 (which I have) is much the same and I dont need PCM2012, but the moment it's available for less than $39 I'll be jumping in. Missed it during the Steam sale.

Agree that it is strangely addicting though, a sport that I'm not a great fan of but the game combined with the Tour on tv has drawn me in. I've got a custom team that's completely stocked with cyclists who start as free agents and I've grown to like them.

[bhlloy]

I think that will be my next career Critch... seems like a somewhat realistic and fairer way to start a team and you can still get a decent mix of older guys who can do well at continental level and younger promising guys that way

[whomario]

I´ve had some good success on hilly and mountain stages by getting a good climber into the breakaway that isn´t a threat for the Classement (heck, sometimes i deliberately have one guy save energy and loose time 1 stage, then attack the next) and then get clear on the final climb.

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I absolutely suck at setting my sprinters up/getting my sprinters to the finish in decent condition. I have a couple very good sprinters for that level but even when they are in position close to the finish I get my ass kicked by the rest of the field who seem to be fresh. Watched the videos and read tips on pcmdaily but I don't seem to be able to get it down. Think I'm too impatient and like to keep my team at the front/react to every breakaway which means everyone isn't in good enough condition to pull it out at the end. Need to learn to be happy to sit in the peleton until 20k out and conserve energy but I get bored

sprinting is definitely tough, but it´s also the same way in real life. Unless you are clearly among the Top 3 sprinters and have a kickass support crew, you are going to have a hard time.

Most of the rips i read go by the assumption that you build the train, which imo is unrealistic for smaller teams.

Staying patient is indeed important, but also being timely. For your sprinter, it´s important to never spent much energy at once. Rather have him in the front part of the peloton and have him start smaller climbs up front and then gradually falling back to like 40th position than to have him start in the middle, end up in the back and then have to pull all the way back to the front.

Some things i do (sorry if it´s to much explaining, want it to be usefull for guys new to the game as well) :

- Choose a guy to protect your sprinter all the way, should be a decent rider who does ok in the Flat (Plain). Don´t choose your best plain/endurance/resistance guy here, you´ll need him for other things.

- Don´t linger in the back of the peloton, move forward by putting your sprinter on dot/arrow and 70 effort. His protector is going to guide him forward, once they are around 30th position, put the sprinter on hold position (important not to do that for the protector, otherwise he´ll stop protecting !)
Do the same for your other riders.

- 30 KM before the finish : Make sure to get into 15th-20th or so position, adjust effort to do so.

- 20-15 KM : By now the other teams will start bringing their sprinters forward, be aware not to loose position

- 15 KM : Choose your best flat rider (if possible not the protector, he might be tired). Now press on the sprinter, the right click your flat rider and choose "follow"
Put your flat rider on dot/arrow and adjust his effort so both your guys stay around 10th position (sprinter will follow him)

- 10 Km onwards : identify a sprinter with a decent train going that doesn´t have a rider on his wheel. Get your flat guy close to him (sprinter follows) Click your sprinter, right click the open guy and choose follow

- Hope that you choose the right guy to attach yourself onto

Still hit and miss as you can simply choose the wront guy, but it´s a method that works better than building your own train when your team sin´t up for that.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Critch

....but the moment it's available for less than $39 I'll be jumping in.

Or alternatively I'll buy it right now because I have no patience or self control and waiting for sales sucks.

[bhlloy]

Thanks for that whomario. Some good stuff in there.

[DaddyTorgo]

As far as sprinting and sprint trains...I found the tutorials by people on pcmdaily to be very helpful.

Have your train of 4-5 led out from 15k by your best flat rider (who isn't a sprinter)...riding to effort (the dot) at like 90. Everybody else should be on "follow" and have effort in the 80's. Once he burns out, or you get within like 5k...switch to the next guy in line (have the first guy "hold position" then and he'll peel off and hopefully block folks. Repeat with that guy at like 2k, have him "hold position" and he'll peel off and block. At like 2k you have your lead-out man start sprinting and then it's just a matter of when you have your final sprinter come off his wheel (which is a matter of trying to figure out how much time he needs...I will say that the last 1k goes a lot faster IRL than in the game so you can mis-time it, you just need to practice) and sprint for the finish.

[DaddyTorgo]

LMAO...and as I say that - I just mis-timed it by having my lead-out man (Veelers) start his sprint at 2k and he held everyone off and Guardani (my sprinter) didn't get around him and I didn't see the line coming so he ended up finishing second.

Basically...your sprinter should be firing at like...0.5k really - if not before.

[EagleFan]

How on earth do you track a 7 man team in a race? My first race I had just two racers eligible and was okay trying to manage that. Then my next race I had 7 and it got insane trying to track them all.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

How on earth do you track a 7 man team in a race? My first race I had just two racers eligible and was okay trying to manage that. Then my next race I had 7 and it got insane trying to track them all.

pair them up into protector/protected. pause the race to issue commands. click+drag to select multiple riders.

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

pair them up into protector/protected. pause the race to issue commands. click+drag to select multiple riders.

Thank you. I'll try that later tonight with my first attempt at a stage race. Need to climb a serious learning curve as I know nothing about the sport.

[Critch]

Trying to keep control of the whole team was what put me off the earlier versions, I had no idea what to do. Took me a bit of time to realize that you shouldnt be managing them as individuals, you should manage them as a group. And that most of them are just playing supporting roles really. After that I read lots of guides and watched lots of youtube videos to try and get over the learning curve.

For a flat stage (and a not too bumpy hilly stage) start off by deciding who your team leader and sprinter are. Before the stage starts pause the game and assign one of the rest to protect the leader, and one to protect the sprinter. Your protectors should have good flat/hilly ratings, and probably stamina too. Set them both to effort of about 80, they wont really use that much effort as they'll just hang around with the guy they're protecting but a high number will get them to put in more effort getting into position for their task, and staying there.

Still with the game paused, select everybody who isnt a protector and set them to relay and about 55-60 effort, that'll get them moving up the pack. Unpause the game, let it run a few miles and your team should be near the front of the peleton, and the protectors will be doing their jobs. At that point pause again, select all the guys on relay and set them to hold position with effort about 80. That'll tell them to stay at the front, and the 80 effort is an upper limit, they wont use that much often.

For breakaways, most of the time I'll just let them go as long as they're not getting too far ahead. If the gap gets to 10mins, or 1 min for every 10km left in the race, I'll set my non-leader/sprinter/protector guys at the front of the peleton onto a relay to try and chase it down. Every now and then I'll send one of the unimportant members of the team away with a breakaway and either try for a win (it's worked once!) or set him to slow relay to try and slow the breakaway down.

Other than that, the important thing is to make sure your guys dont run out of water. When they're all down to about half a bottle left, send one of the non-leader/sprinter/protector guys back to collect more. Choose somebody with energy left to make sure he can catch back up once he's collected the water, and never do it near the start of a hill. A guy chasing uphill to give out the waters can tire out seriously quickly and be dropped from the peleton, which loses one guy and leaves your team without water too.

That strategy should get you to 20km to go still roundabout the front of the peleton and in a good position to try setting up a train, or following a top sprinter or just hold position to finish with the pack. It's what I used for PCM2011, and so far it seems to work well on PCM2012 too.

[bhlloy]

Just won my second ever stage (at least non-simmed stage) in the tour de normandie - the peleton expended a ton of effort to chase down a couple riders and right around 10km the pace was still pretty slow so attacked with my two best riders, the lead out guy faded badly but gave my team leader enough juice to stay 10-15 seconds clear. Probably not at all impressive to win a 2.2 stage for most people but made me feel a little better about my game...

The other decent result I had was a second place in one of the very mountainous tours in Spain - I was kicking myself because I finished with the eventual winner on the last stage (which was a bitch of an uphill to finish) and if I'd have kept a better eye on the standings and known it was a first/second place battle I probably could have dropped him and won the whole thing as my guy was a better rider. Oh well, live and learn.

On the downside, I've tried to get a train going a couple times and failed miserably. Following at 90 dot from 15km out kills my guys way before the distances DT mentioned, so either I'm doing something horribly wrong or it's intended for a better team than I have.

[bhlloy]

DOLA - question for you Critch. Is infinite relay the slow relay button you are talking about? How/why will that slow the breakaway down and can that have the same effect on the peleton if you set 2/3 of your guys doing it?

[Critch]

For slow relay I meant the normal relay button, but with lower effort. If theres a small break away and your guy is tagged on to it not helping, it'll slow them down or tire them out a bit more. The trick is to make sure his effort is high enough that he doesn't get dropped, but low enough that he's no help.

Not sure there's any way to slow down the peloton if another team is forcing the speed. It's too big to easily control.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

On the downside, I've tried to get a train going a couple times and failed miserably. Following at 90 dot from 15km out kills my guys way before the distances DT mentioned, so either I'm doing something horribly wrong or it's intended for a better team than I have.

Not played PCM12 yet as PCM Daily response was muted shall we say, but on PCM11 you shouldn't be using follow on 90 dot. Only the leader should be dotting, the guys behind him in the train should be set at effort 90 but using the sprint follow that only appears within 20k of the sprint finish.

Based on 5 guys, at around 18-20k mark, and assuming all are somewhere near the front of the peloton
Select sprinter, then tell him to sprint follow the lead out man
Select lead out, tell him to sprint follow the 3rd wheel
Select the 3rd wheel, tell him to sprint follow 4th wheel
Select the 4th wheel, tell him to sprint follow 5th wheel
The let the guys form the train over the next 2-3k, making sure the 5th wheel (the one who will start the whole process) is relatively near the head of the peloton
Then at 10k set your 5th wheel on dot 90ish (not played for a while so can't remember exactly - might need to test this with a couple of practices), with the aim of him running out of gas at 7k
At 7k set the 4th wheel to dot in the same way, aiming for him to run out of steam at 4k
At 4k set the 3rd wheel to dot at definitely 99, and start to physically sprint at 3k (or whatever the earliest opportunity is)
Then it begins to get a bit more of a judgement call depending on how well the train is going, who else is in the race, how good your lead out is and whether your sprinter is explosive or has good sprint stamina (you'll pick this up as you play with the riders more) but rough rule of thumb the lead out man should start sprinting a 2.4k and the main guy slingshots from him at around 1.5k

This worked very well for me with a Contintental team at up to and including 2.HC races, but the World Tour sprinters were too good: if you don't have the guys to form the train or the lead out / sprinters to finish it off, it's not going to happen anyway

For example I found a guy I thought would be a great lead out often lost the wheel of the 3rd wheel, and ruined a couple of sprints for me. But he worked well as 4th wheel, and shoving everyone else one position improved it massively.

sprinter must be very good in SPR and ACC and RES and the lead out not much worse. 3rd wheel needs to have good sprinting and flat speed, while the 4th and 5th don't necessarily need to be good sprinters, but need good flat speed ( as do all the guys in the train - no point in having a sprinter who or lead out who can't keep up!)

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Jari Rantanen's Shorts

Not played PCM12 yet as PCM Daily response was muted shall we say, but on PCM11 you shouldn't be using follow on 90 dot. Only the leader should be dotting, the guys behind him in the train should be set at effort 90 but using the sprint follow that only appears within 20k of the sprint finish.

Based on 5 guys, at around 18-20k mark, and assuming all are somewhere near the front of the peloton
Select sprinter, then tell him to sprint follow the lead out man
Select lead out, tell him to sprint follow the 3rd wheel
Select the 3rd wheel, tell him to sprint follow 4th wheel
Select the 4th wheel, tell him to sprint follow 5th wheel
The let the guys form the train over the next 2-3k, making sure the 5th wheel (the one who will start the whole process) is relatively near the head of the peloton
Then at 10k set your 5th wheel on dot 85-90 (not played for a while so can't remember exactly), with the aim of him running out of gas at 7k
At 7k set the 4th wheel to dot in the same way, aiming for him to run out of steam at 4k
At 4k set the 3rd wheel to dot at definitely 99, and start to physically sprint at 3k (or whatever the earliest opportunity is)
Then it begins to get a bit more of a judgement call depending on how well the train is going, who else is in the race, how good your lead out is and whether your sprinter is explosive or has good sprint stamina (you'll pick this up as you play with the riders more) but rough rule of thumb the lead out man should start sprinting a 2.4k and the main guy slingshots from him at around 1.5k

This worked very well for me with a Contintental team at up to and including 2.HC races, but the World Tour sprinters were too good: if you don't have the guys to form the train or the lead out / sprinters to finish it off, it's not going to happen anyway

For example I found a guy I thought would be a great lead out often lost the wheel of the 3rd wheel, and ruined a couple of sprints for me. But he worked well as 4th wheel, and shoving everyone else one position improved it massively.

sprinter must be very good in SPR and ACC and RES and the lead out not much worse. 3rd wheel needs to have good sprinting and flat speed, while the 4th and 5th don't necessarily need to be good sprinters, but need good flat speed ( as do all the guys in the train - no point in having a sprinter who or lead out who can't keep up!)

What Jari says is what I meant - sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my explanation!

[AlexB]

And obviously with fewer men, the distances change, but always with the aim of finishing as above. As DT says, if you can steal part of the process from another team, all the better!

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Jari Rantanen's Shorts

Not played PCM12 yet as PCM Daily response was muted shall we say

Got to say that after a few days, I'm not sure I dont prefer PCM11. The interface was nicer and cleaner, whereas PCM12 doesnt really add much and what it does add (the season planner) isnt as good as the standalone fan-made version for PCM11.

[whomario]

Damn it ...

I missed out on a TDF win with Van Garderen by a measly 40 seconds (in 2014) and am afraid that that was my best shot at it for a while. Not only were a couple contenders missing with injury (Contador the big one) but also Schleck lost 3 minutes after a fall. It was also the perfect route (i have 6 variants installed) and there´s a few young guys coming up that will continue to get better.

I managed to hang with Schleck and Froome for most stages, but on a mountain finish in Italy on the 16th stage i got caught too far back in the field (paid too much attention to Kessiakof in the breakaway), then worked my way back and then missed out on the crucial attack as i played it safe, figuring it was only a prelude. When it was clear it was actually the real deal, i managed to claw my way back a fair bit and ended up finishing 6th on the stage but still lost 2 1/2 minutes. And it would have been more if Kiryenka wouldn´t have had such a great day (+5 form), he all but willed TVG up those slopes until he basically dropped unconscious with 3 km to go.

On the next stage it was up to Alpe D´Huez and i actually managed to pull back some time on both Froome and Schleck with my best mountain stage of the tour on a glorious day.

Was 3 minutes behind Schleck and 2 minutes behind Froome by then.

Then came the last TT, 50+ KM long. I ended up 3rd (behind Larrson and Tony Martin) and won 3,30 minutes on Schleck and 1,20 on Froome.

Still wasn´t enough ...

I also managed 4 2nd place finishes with my main Sprinter John Degenkolb, either Cavendish or Goss allways beat me.

Also finished 8th in the Giro with Cattaneo, for the Vuelta my main guy is a young american Climber (who i picked as a young cyclist on the custom-team startup) who could challenge for the Top10.

I scaled back my budget a bit to about 3 mio Euros a year/300k a month (yeah, i know it´s still substantial but i´m way behind the really big teams i think)

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by whomario

Damn it ...

I missed out on a TDF win with Van Garderen by a measly 40 seconds (in 2014) and am afraid that that was my best shot at it for a while. Not only were a couple contenders missing with injury (Contador the big one) but also Schleck lost 3 minutes after a fall. It was also the perfect route (i have 6 variants installed) and there´s a few young guys coming up that will continue to get better.

I managed to hang with Schleck and Froome for most stages, but on a mountain finish in Italy on the 16th stage i got caught too far back in the field (paid too much attention to Kessiakof in the breakaway), then worked my way back and then missed out on the crucial attack as i played it safe, figuring it was only a prelude. When it was clear it was actually the real deal, i managed to claw my way back a fair bit and ended up finishing 6th on the stage but still lost 2 1/2 minutes. And it would have been more if Kiryenka wouldn´t have had such a great day (+5 form), he all but willed TVG up those slopes until he basically dropped unconscious with 3 km to go.

On the next stage it was up to Alpe D´Huez and i actually managed to pull back some time on both Froome and Schleck with my best mountain stage of the tour on a glorious day.

Was 3 minutes behind Schleck and 2 minutes behind Froome by then.

Then came the last TT, 50+ KM long. I ended up 3rd (behind Larrson and Tony Martin) and won 3,30 minutes on Schleck and 1,20 on Froome.

Still wasn´t enough ...

I also managed 4 2nd place finishes with my main Sprinter John Degenkolb, either Cavendish or Goss allways beat me.

Also finished 8th in the Giro with Cattaneo, for the Vuelta my main guy is a young american Climber (who i picked as a young cyclist on the custom-team startup) who could challenge for the Top10.

I scaled back my budget a bit to about 3 mio Euros a year/300k a month (yeah, i know it´s still substantial but i´m way behind the really big teams i think)

Aaargh - sorry to hear that whomario. Sounds so close - I can imagine that was super frustrating.

I've been focused on FM the last couple weeks instead of PCM myself. Fits and spurts.

[Critch]

I've been getting a number of crashes-to-desktop, always in the same place. After a stage finishes, view podium leads to ctd about 80% of the time, although never on TT stages. Easy to avoid (by going straight to results and skipping the podium) but still vaguely annoying. I put off starting a career because of the crashes, before realising they were always at the same point.

How are you all planning your seasons? Split the squads into groups of 8, one for each of the Grand Tours? Or something fancier? And is it not a good idea to let any riders compete in more than one Grand Tour?

Planning the season and Team Time Trials are the bits that still stump me.

[whomario]

Team Time Trials i allways quick sim. I´ve taken one shot at it and realized it still annoys me just as much as it did 5 versions back, so i´m saving myself the trouble

Do you use Lachis season planner ? File-Upload.net - pcm_planner_v26beta.7z

Highly recommended.

As for season planning (i should mention that classics are an afterthought to me)

Grand Tours

-First off a big thing : Never, ever use the highest training stage unless you really, really need an edge and then don´t do it for more than a week. The 7th level amasses so much more fatigue than the 6th, it´s just not worth it. The only exception is if i´m gunning for the TDF win, then i set it to 7th level for the toughest week of the tour.

- I generally try to set 1 stage rider and 1 sprinter to lead my squad for each tour. But i also sometimes i have my leader race the Giro at level 5 training which results in 85-90 fitness (so as not to get too much fatigue) to get a decent result while doing the Tour or Vuelta at 95.
Or have a guy be a premium helper in the tour at 90 fitness, then do the Vuelta in peak form.

- I sometimes have a sprinter pull out early of the Giro and then rider the Tour fully, depending on the route (seriously, you guys have to get the pcmdaily expansion pack and the other variants found on their forums)

- Basically i wouldn´t worry too much about guys meant to be teammates, but would be carefull about leaders amassing too much fatigue or race days.


General season planning :

- I do put a a decent amount of effort and planning into it but it´s tough to explain as mostly you have to adjust to your riders. I generally plan about 45-50 race days for my main riders of which 30-35 are meant to get results with the others being as helpers getting race fitness (i allways leave 10-15 days unplanned for just a bit of wiggle room), the real helpers i generally put on all arround schedules that don´t bottom out much but also rarely go above level 5 fitness. I split the helpers into 2 groups : Flat/Classic helpers and mountain/hilly helpers.

- Basically for my Stage riders and sprinters i set 3 or 4 tous as goals each (3 if he does 2 Grand Tours) to go for a good result. 1 main goal with 1 minor goal ahead of it (for example TDF with the Tour de Suisse or Dauphinee) with another goal later or earlier in the season.

- I also often have a younger rider peak during the Giro and couple smaller tours ahead and after (and then not do much the rest of the season) or peak for some smaller tours in march-may, then rest and then try to do some damage in the Vuelta.

- You don´t need a full squad of guys at peak fitness for most races, even a 60 fitness guy can catch water bottles in a flat stage


Just a wide field ...

[bhlloy]

Funny you mention team TT Critch, I just did my first one last night and completely ruined a your that my sponsor had a 5 star goal on finishing in the top 10. After stage two all my riders are already a full minute behind.

Watched the tutorial videos on pcmdaily, might use an auto save and go back and try it again a couple times but may end up just quick simming in future like you suggest

[DaddyTorgo]

Thanks for the thoughts on season planning - I've never really put effort into it, and I should learn how to!

[Critch]

I tried a Team TT and got destroyed, so I watched a couple of helper videos read a couple of hints and tried again. And got destroyed. So I guess I'll go quicksim from now on.

Thanks for the write-up, whomario. I do use Lachi's season planner plus a spreadsheet of all the races I found at PCMdaily. Dont use the PCMdaily files yet though, I didnt think they were compatible with the latest patch.

I think I've been too fixed with the planning, I've got the whole season planned out, all 30 riders scheduled for 60-ish days each. Left no wiggle room, so got to TDF with Wiggins on 80 fitness after an injury. Which wasnt enough to stop Evans riding away from him on mountain stages.

I think I'll try downloading the PCMDaily files, go to their forums and learn about fitness/fatigue, then try planning again with a custom team.

[whomario]

they are perfectly compatible. Only thing you might need to do is download the "older" local.cdb (that´s available here PCM.daily - Discussion Forum: Expansion Pack: Support and Comments (Patch 1.2.0.0)) and put it into your PCM12 documents folder and then set it to "write only"
That avoids the pink flags.

Gameplay-wise it´s definitely compatible. And the extra tours at least (you could allways installl the expansion pack to a new folder and then just copy the extra stages into the PCM12/cm_stages folder)

As said, there´s a couple nice extra variants in their stages forum as well, also for some smaller races.

I have created a couple variants for the Tour of California, if anyones interested (well, actually i downloaded a fabtasy 21 stage tour from pcmdaily and shuffled the stages around to create 2 new 8-stage tours)

[Jon]

Is there like a guide or handbook for this? I'm over my head.

[whomario]

all i can suggest is heading over to pcmdaily.com and hammer into their search engine whatever pops into your head (like "career planning" or "sprinting" ), there´s a lot of good info there.

Also, have you read the manual ? As manuals go, this one is pretty decent : http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/...MANUAL_INT.pdf

[bhlloy]

New pcmdaily expansion pack is out, and I think I'm finally done with this game. Had a ton of fun picking a team, enjoyed setting my team up and looking at the races they added, got two stages into my first minor tour and bleh. It's still the same boring ass game - sit through 120km of peleton racing where it doesn't really matter what you do to get to the final 10km which is interesting. And neither of the sim options is really in depth enough to hold my attention either.

What's funny is I'm getting more and more into the strategy of the sport (watched the vuelta every day I was back in the UK) but this game just doesn't do it for me.

[DaddyTorgo]

Just had a perfect race.

Vuelta Catalunya - Stage 1.

Joaquim Rodriguez (and guys like Froome and Porte were in the race, so it's not cakewalk).

Sent Laurens Ten Dam ahead early in the race to scoop up mountain points. He leads in the KOTM. Sent Wout Pouls to chase down a small break on the second-to-last climb (Cat 3). He succeeded and rode away from them. Come the last climb, the long Category 1. Rodriguez rode away from the front of the peleton, bridged up the 30 seconds or so to Pouls, who was flagging (he was a -5 for form on the day and Rodriguez was a +4), and then he rested up for a minute and rode away from Pouls with like 5k to go and ended up winning by 1 min 11 seconds over Richie Porte and a full 1 min 56 seconds over Chris Froome.

Also managed to place Ten Dam an dWout Pouls at 1 min 11 seconds back, and Rui Costa, Henao, and Pierre Rolland at the same time as Froome.

[EagleFan]

For what it's worth I see the next version is out.

[EagleFan]

Oh sorry, just presale, out on the 20th.

[DaddyTorgo]

Yup - presale...out on the 20th.

Looks like some decent improvements to make it more...accessible - we'll see how it plays.

[AlexB]

I barely played last year's edition: the races themselves are too time consuming for me. If it gets to more a management sim, I'll take a look

[Icy]

Originally Posted by AlexB

I barely played last year's edition: the races themselves are too time consuming for me. If it gets to more a management sim, I'll take a look

Was the same for me... but i still will probably buy this one.

I wish it had the "be a pro" mode of the Console version for a change of gameplay, found so funny to manage only my rider in the console version.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by AlexB

I barely played last year's edition: the races themselves are too time consuming for me. If it gets to more a management sim, I'll take a look

You know that you can speed up time right? I can bang out a race in less time than it takes to play a game of NHL 2k12.

That being said - yes sometimes if my guy gets a lead in a stage race I'll sim ahead...they generally seem to hold leads well.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

New game is released today. Curious if anyone has taken it for a spin yet.

[Icy]

I bought it today from steam but have not played it yet. Barely played past one either but still keep buying them

[bhlloy]

Seems like they took the option to have two sponsors out of the game which is a bit of a bummer, not sure why they made that decision as it hurts the realism as well.

Other than that seems like reaction is cautiously optimistic... going to have to fight the urge to impulse buy this one before the first real patch and PCM DB comes out