That's a nice surprise.

Shonak - Best Reporter - Totally deserved

Thanks sutty, and everybody else who voted for me. Congratz to the other Velo d'Or winners - who would have thought we can call ourselves that one day?^^

Thanks a lot everyone. Really happy to get the award

This is really the last call for managers, sign up now or wait until the next season break

Well, thanks for all the votes guys. I lost a bit of motivation in the transfer season, but the Best Forum Game award definitely makes up for it!

So I was the reason for the decreasing and the increasing motivation? Awesome.

Well done Ollfardh, congratulations to you and the many contributors of EPIC, to a great 2014 season!

Congrats to a well deserved award Ollfardh
I really apprecciate all the work you are putting into this

Glad my vote contributed to this great game, I'm sure that if you keep the spirit high, this might be on the site in a few years

Congratulations Ollfardh, now seems like a good time to thank you for all the hard work you've put in to make this game run pretty smoothly through its first season, and most importantly of all fun for all of us, I've certainly enjoyed it very much (even if I wasn't so active for a bit in the middle-towards the end of the season) and am looking forward to the coming season

Yeah i didn't vote for EPIC because to me it's not the best forum game (well that was obvious) but grats anyway. Now all you've got to do is make it better for season 2

You can start by updating the FAQ in the coming week or i'm gonna take it away from you

Congrats, you deserve that

Great to see EPIC take the award. Much deserved though the details still need some twerking.

Congrats Ollfardh, lets hope we can see the game strengthen

A well deserved victory. Although the game is not perfect yet, which isn't possible to achieve in 1 season, it is lots of fun.

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We at Cannondale would like to direct your attention to our HQ for an initiative that focuses on the stars of the future. A small U23 league were the biggest talents in cycling will battle it out on different routes.

Link to the correct post -> https://pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread....st_1010808

If you don't want your team or custom riders to participate feel free to say so, otherwise I'll assume you have no problem with them participating.

As always, let me know what I can improve

Coming up next are the applications, goals and races of course. I'll try to make the goals more dependant on division then last year. Was the application proces good? How about the point distribution?

Application Process: Fine

Goals: It would be good if WT teams targeted WT races of course but sometimes there are big CT races that are important to a team for one reason or another. Absolute maximum of 1 CT goal per part though, either set or countered.

Point Distribution: Not great. Last season there was no difference between 4th and 10th. Look at the time gaps in the Vuelta and tell me how it's fair that the guy in 4th scored as much as 10th? It also makes it quite boring if you have a top 10 contender but no better as you know you're going to get xx points and the actual finishing position doesn't matter. I, for example, didn't care that TvG had his collapse at the end of Le Tour because he was guaranteed the points anyway.

I know it's a lot of work but an ICL style system would be much better. Just down to 10th would be enough but for the GTs maybe even consider down to 25th. Same with classics. 5th in a monument should still be worth a lot more than winning an average one day classic.

Idealy I'd agree with you, but I don't want to make it even harder to get the points right. A lot of my time went to calculating the rankings last year.

5th in a monument should still give you more then the lowest CT races iirc.

As for improvements I think it's mainly concerning development of young riders. Looking at how the drafted talents developed in especially the physical suppport stats from the 2013 DB to the 2014 DB it's pretty much impossible to repeat that in the game. So a general boost to development of Sta, Res, Rec for youngster would be realistic.
I have some more detaield thoughts and ideas I'd be happy to PM you if you want.

The race selection part worked fine IMO.

Points system also works decently IMO, though points to top 20 in all WT stage races could be good. Especially as we'll see more superstars in the one-week stage races this season due to fewer of them riding two GT's efter restrictions and wishes.
Also more differentiation as brewers suggest would seem fair.

Goals: Regarding the goal restriction for WT teams I think it's fair for realism that teams can target several CT-classics that are important for them due to nationality of the team ot a key rider. Still the difficulty has to be in balance. If e.g. Euskaltel decides to put a GC top 10 in Langkawi as a goal that would result in harder countered goals where as a GC top 10 goal in Burgos is logical.
I don't think the number should be restricted as I think it's fine for a team like Europcar to focus on French races and having a high priority of doing well in domestic races.
Perhaps a rule where WT-teams have to motivate CT-goals and risks having you replace the goal if the motivation as to why that CT-race is so important is not good enough?