By: Masterblaster01 | Average Rating: 4.56 | Game version: PCM13
Before we start i would like to make a note: If you are having trouble planning a season, try starting with a (pro) conti team. It makes a real difference planning 10-16 riders or 26-30 riders.
"How to plan a season" guide for dummies
First of all, look at your sponsor objectives (it's not neccessary to do this, but it will help you get started).
Look at which GT is the most important one according to your sponsor.
Make 3 groups: Giro, Vuelta, Tour.
Now choose the riders you want to take with you. Start with picking your absolute leader.
Now pick 3 helpers for the mountains. This should be decent or more than decent climbers.
If you have a good sprinter and you want to take him with you, pick your sprinter and a good leadout man.
Last but not least, take 3 time trialers with you. They should help you get trough the TTT and they can for a sprinttrain and/or take wins in a breakaway
Next: The other GT's. Pick your riders in the same way. Take into consideration that one rider cannot go for the GC in 2 (or 3) GT's. However, it is possible to make your GC rider for the Giro for example help your leader in the tour. But don't expect him to go for the GC. Just let him take it easy when not needed, maybe let him loose some time and take a stage win.
So. Pick your riders the same way you did with the most important GT. Time trials can ride 2 GT's, helpers can as well. Giro-Vuelta is the most common combination i think.
Note: In my Astana carreer for example, i have 19 riders for all 3 GT's. Most of them doing the Giro-Vuelta combination. 1 or 2 riders do the Tour-Vuelta combination.
Now all the GT's are sorted out, you can start giving your riders some goals. This will automatically make the right (basic) fitness schedule for your riders. The riders can be sorted in 3 basic groups.
1. The GT riders. Add the GT they will ride to their goals. Maybe remove some other goals to avoid a lot of red in the end of the season and avoid them complaining it's a difficult season. You can add the "build-up races" as well as secondary goals. Will get to those later on.
2. The strong non-GT riders. Most of the time these are the classics riders. Good HILL stats and/or good COBBLE stats. Add the classics to their goals if they are not already added. If they are already added, don't touch it Maybe you can also add the WC if it are good hill riders (depends on the WC cirquit but most of the times it's hilly i guess)
3. The weak non-GT riders. Just leave them be
Now, slightly adjust their fitness schedule.
1. GT leader: Make them peak in the last TWO weeks.
2. GT sprinters/Time triallers: Make them peak in the first week.
3. Classics riders: Make them peak in March-April and arround the WC/Il Lombardia. If you add the riders goals their schedule will be correct most of the times.
Now you're done with planning your riders season! That leaves one part: Add them to the races in the Calendar » Riders tab.
1. Plan the GT's. Quite easy as you have put them in groups.
2. Plan the "build-up races". These are the races that are most important building up some rythm.
For the Giro: Tour de Romandie (or the Presidential Tour of Turkey for the sprinters)
For the TdF: Critérium du Dauphiné OR Tour de Suisse
For the Vuelta: Tour de Pologne (but there are still quite some days between the TdP and the Vuelta, so you can also choose the Eneco Tour, but it's as flat as a pancake.)
3. Add all the riders to their goal races (marked with a star). You don't have to fill the races up yet.
4. Plan your sponsor goals (write them down somewhere. You can also write down your sponsor goals (like top 3 or stage wins). When you notice with planning that you have a good squad going to the race, you can adjust your objectives giving you extra money.)
5. Plan the rest of the WT races.
6. Fill up the races that already have some riders planned (goals). You can check this on the left top side. Just try to fill up the races that show 1/8 as good as possible.
7. Your choise: Fill up the rest (0/8 races) or remove them from your calendar. My advise is to remove them from the calendar, because you already have a lot of races, and the GTs are still a long way to go when just starting
Note: When planning, just take your fittest riders. The most 'green' ones. Just make sure they don't exceed 60 race days by TOO much. Try to make them all around 60 race days. So plan the riders with the least racing days first, unless it's a GT, build-up or sponsor objective.
And the last note:
Be aware it takes some HOURS to plan a whole season. 3-4 hours is no exception
Planning does not have to take 3-4 hours. I planned my recent HTC career in less than 45minutes. I can plan a CT season in less than 30minutes. 3-4 hours is excessive and unnecessary (not an opinion it's a plain fact).
Not saying this is a bad tip/guide, most of it is very good but it doesn't transfer well to PCT, CT teams, or teams like Argos or other SP/FL heavy squads. Also note i do most of planning on paper, or on word or something.
My adjustments:
Note: Before you start assigning races to riders, you should have your sponsor goals and calendar decided. This will give you extra guidance and focus.
1. Instead of 3 groups, start with 5 (assuming you're WT) CB, HL, Giro, Tour, Vuelta. If you're PCT make a couple, Sprint and Climber (Cobbles if you're good there), then another one for any GT's you get wildcard to. If you're CT, same as PCT just without the wildcard groups.
The from here it's fairly obvious. CB has the best cobblers or those to go to the Flanders races. Same for HL except around the Ardennes. Giro for Giro etc.
Now organize your riders by AVG. Start with whichever GT is your focus. Pick a leader, then 3-4 dedicated helpers. Work through the other two until each GT has 4-5 riders decided. Then fill them in with other riders, strong weak whatever. You will have a clear group going for your main goal, then some others to help when needed.
2. Doing the fitness schedules is easy. Firstly, just ignore happieness, it's broken... Then yeah the finished plan will look like it did in previous games. No more than 2 top form peaks (3 if they are evenly spread across the whole season)
3. It's harder for CT teams. You can either pick a couple of big months to peak for, with lots of races. Or you can go for decent form over a long season with a few races every month. I recommend long season decent form. PCT is pretty similar to WT.
4. You don't then need to use the Riders Tab thing at all (this can save you a bucket load of time) as long as you keep a record of your initial groupings.
If you do want to assign riders here thats cool. Start by putting CB on the cobbles, HL on the hills etc etc. To save some time again, only do the main races and 1-2 warm up races. Warm ups are obvious, it's a series of one-days or a tour that takes up 5+days and ends about 3 days before the big race starts.
I then just assign the other races at the time, with whoever fits. Most of the time these are races i don't care much for but are decent form builders/sustainers/fun whatever. Especially as number of race days no longer impacts, this saves a lot of time. Also with the Riders Tab you can check who's going to be decent shape to ride at the start and adjust fitness plans to get enough riders in shape at the right time.
5. Goal Races don't matter to riders, as the happiness is sort of broken. Turns out that if they don't ride that race they don't care! It's awesome! For realism you can assign them like that but it's not a big deal.
Remember it's always different for CT teams. You don't have these big long races which you have to be at peak form for. It's better to be a decent level for longer, maximising your chances of scoring. PCT depends. Europcar is more WT planning like, but Novo Nordisk is more CT planning.
It is more important to get your Sponsor Goals than your rider preferences.
Race days don't limit you, so you can get away with only planning generally.
If you've been planning for 2hours or more, you're overthinking it and wasting time. The quicker you get playing, the more fun you have.
Holy f*ck that got long... sorry for that, but i feel these are important things. Especially that it should not take a long time!!!!
Anyone know how to plan to ensure the riders have minimum freshness? I'm usually ok with the GTs as they have a stage race finishing a week or so before.
My main problem is with a rider who I want to peak for the Worlds, and race vattenfall, plouay, quebec and montreal, but they always seem to have bad freshness for the canadian races. why?
Maybe you can also add the WC if it are good hill riders (depends on the WC cirquit but most of the times it's hilly i guess)
