i'm currently doing a career with plowman cravern on hard and after a slow start i'm beginning to pick up some good results. however a couple of things are starting to piss me off and i was just wondering if there was something wrong with my game or if everyone has the same problems.

1. As i mentioned, after a slow start i'm picking up some good results and after the first 3 stages am currently dominating the FDB Insurance Ras with Gibb in yellow, Bellis in green and Gaywood 2 points from the KOM jersey. On stage 4 there are 3 KOM sprints with the biggest two hills of the race at 16 and 10 points so i send Gaywood into the break to claim the jersey. The first two climbs are quite close to the start and i put him on infinate relay and he takes them both quite easily but the bloke in 3rd in the standings is also in the group and takes second to keep the gap close. The final climb is nearer the finish and is worth 16 points. Taking advantage of the fact my leader is in yellow i don't do any work in the break and Gaywood sits at the back saving energy. By the time we reach the climb he has built up nearly all his blue bar but i cant attack! as we climb the hill he goes to the front again but i still can't attack. with about 1k to the top the two blokes behind me (including the bloke in third) attack and take the 16 points while Gaywood has to settle for third. He's now only 4 points clear in the standings and will have to go with the break again on the last day.

The question is why couldn't i attack on the last climb with almost a full blue bar? He'd done no work all stage while the others had been relaying all day. Whats going on?

2. I'm a small team with limited talent and resources. surely any kind of win, podium, jersey or even top ten should be an achievement. In my past careers with LPR and Milram i only needed to wear a KOM jersey for 1 day or get a top 10 finish and i'd have a + in the sponsors satisfaction column. Here's a list of some of my achievements so far this season:

Tour of Wellington: Higham wins KOM comp
Bikeline 2 Day: Southam 4th in TT
Shay Elliot Memorial: Bellis 4th
East Midlands Classic: Bellis 2nd
Lincoln GP: Oliphant 4th
FDB Insurance Ras: Gibb 1st stage 3, Bellis 1st Stage 4 and 4th on stages 2+3, Gibb two days in yellow (so far), Bellis 2 days in green and currently second in gc, Gaywood 2 days in KOM jersey (so far)

The only one that got any recognition was Oliphants 4th in the Lincoln GP, and that was because the sponsors goal was to finish in the top 5. surely if i achieve their goal i should get more the ++ that i got.

i just think it's unfair that i'm going to achieve so much this season with a small team but because the sponsors aren't recognising it i'm not going to get an improved budget next year.

what is the reason for this lack of sponsor satisfaction?

sorry for going on a bit

cheers

ringo

this is pcm 07, it's a differant system from 08. there's no yellow bar and there's a blue bar to show how much energy your riders got for an attack. in this system the red bar is bad and the fuller it gets the closer your rider is to bonking.

thex: Are you refering to PCM08? The question is about PCM07, at least it is in the PCM07 forum.

oops i thought it was pcm 08

deleted it already...

no problem

but you have to say what stage it was if it was a hilly stage and your rider was not as good as the other on hill stat then it is clear that he didn't get enough energy back...

it was classed as a hilly stage but there was nothing in it that was too difficult and there was a long flat section of about 50/60k's before the climb. he's got 69 for hills which was higher then anyone else in the break. and he's got 70 for sprint and 74 for acceleration so in theory he should have been able to ride away from them easily. he hadn't done any work the previous day because i was resting him for this stage.

does anyone have the profile of stage 4 of the FDB Insurance Ras they could post up?

well than i just have to say pcm 07 is shit buy pcm 08

1. Perhaps he was drinking? When the green bar is empty your rider takes a bottle. It takes some time to fill up the green bar again. During that time your rider can't attack.
However you probably already knew that, but this is my best guess.

Or perhaps you mixed up the to attack buttons and used the counterattack button instead of the attack button. If now one else is attacking you can't counter.

2. What is your difficulty setting. If it's hard or extreme it's harder to satisfy your sponsors. Or perhaps it has something to do with your experience points on your manager data page, but again this is just a guess. Until now I didn't had much trouble keeping my sponsors happy.

I have to ask this simple question:
Did you have him selected on the rider list on the left of the screen? Sometimes i've had a rider selected in the race, but not on the left, therefore whenever i would click any button, nothing would happen.
Also, sometimes the AI gets the green flashing attack (nearly always i find) and gets to go faster and further than you. The AI usually has 89 fitness as well during their peak racing time. So if you have lower fitness, they will attack faster than you also.

thanks snoep: no he wasn't drinking. and it wasn't that i pressed the wrong button, i didn't even have the option to press the button. You know when you can sprint the sprint button becomes highlighted, well the same should happen to the attack button. my rider had about 3/4 of his blue bar full, if not more, but the attack button still didn't light up so i couldn't press it. thats what annoyed me. if he'd been beaten fair and square i'd say well done and move on. but it's the fact that i couldn't sprint despite doing no work and having a full bar while the riders who should be more tired from working all day just rid past me despite my rider doing 99% effort up the hill!!!

i'm playing on hard but with a really shit team so i should get some recognition for the achievements.

rjc: thats a good point. on a few ocasions i've told a rider to do something before realising he wasn't the highlighted rider. but he was in the break so he should be the only rider that could be highlighted otherwise he wouldn't be on the screen.

as for fitness i've noticed that because i race so little it's impossible for my riders to get more then 80% fitness at the start of a race. this can go up during a stage race as they gain race fitness. i suppose they could have been fitter then my rider. but then again all the teams at my races prob don't race too much because they are all small teams. but i supppose on hard the game prob just gives everyone i race against 90% fitness or something

You were observing someone werent you. just realised. lol. if you are observing someone you can't attack, only counter attack that person. also note that it takse about 500m for the attack button to become available after turning off observing.

yep, that must be it. bollocks, i didn't know that. So really there's no real point in observing someone cause it just disadvantages you if someone attacks

cheers rjc

no more observing for me

No, turn off observing when you get to the business end of the race and you can attack based on more info than you would have.

Usually takes a bit of time after you turn it off for you to be able to attack.