Right, so the last PCM version I played was 2012. Now there is a whole new complicated thing about equipment development without any clear information in the game.
I've started a Movistar career. At the beginning of January, Canyon & Campagnolo come nagging about a research & development programme. I just select some random stuff (two models which "feels" sort of bad, according to the information I get). This apparently takes 20 days for the first programme, and a bit longer for the second one (I selected minor and major changes).
Does this even matter? Will it have any effect? In general, how does this whole sponsor/development thing work? Is one option better than any others?
And is the proper equipment selected automatically before any race? So I don't have to bother about that? I thought a rich team like Movistar had mechanics to take care of such things... Edited by Squire on 24-03-2015 14:12
Oh, and while I'm asking about new features; a few other things (don't wanna create another thread):
I understand that the fitness system is basically the same as before, just without the numbers (80/20). Is there any way I can see the "total" fitness of my riders? The "fitness curve" doesn't make much sense. It seems like it just lists the different "fitnesses". Do I just have to calculate roughly with an 80/20 fitness/rhythm effect?
And the freshness thing is new to me. Can someone enlighten me here?
I notice that riders without "excellent" freshness lack some green, yellow and red bar. I love how this makes stage racing more realistic. But some riders struggle to recover their freshness. I understand that an easy stage or two without big efforts will help it during a stage race. But after the race, it seems like it still takes a while to recover? It's a good thing that a rider will be affected by two hard one day races after each other, but when I rode Vuelta a Mallorca, some of my riders hadn't recovered in time for the Dubai Tour three days later. Will better training form help a rider recover freshness quicker?
Some of my riders start out the game with bad freshness. Is this a nice feature which simulates some lazy winter training? Hopefully they'll get it back as the season progresses... And also it seems like the freshness suddenly can drop off for seemingly no reason? I like it if this simulates riders just not feeling too well or something.
I also notice I can bring my doctor to races. Will he help recover the "freshness", or is he just there to heal riders who get a small injury? (Or maybe he will bring syringes and make my riders go faster up the climbs )
And lastly, please reassure me that it's just the game being different and not that I suddenly suck at sprinting I'm having a really hard time making my lead-out train work. I'm used to rider collisions from PCM12, but this is on a whole new level. Guess I just have to get used to it, and have my riders at the front earlier.
The sprinting isn't great. They've tried to be helpful and it goes wrong- the riders will sometimes automatically take other riders wheels, which is perfect for ruining your train. Cyanide have put out a little get around involving changing the rider strategy assignments I think (can't remember the exact details - have a search). I manage to get by by just being really vigilant and overriding strange movements manually. Crap AI is the worst part of the game IMHO - wait til you see the rubbish classic AI, with rivals collaborating just to stop you from winning.
The fitness is explained in the official guide. You can find it on the homepage of the game or when clicking the button in the game, if I am not mistaken. https://www.cyclin...-team.htmlEdited by Lachi on 23-03-2015 19:14
Dee-Jay wrote:
The sprinting isn't great. They've tried to be helpful and it goes wrong- the riders will sometimes automatically take other riders wheels, which is perfect for ruining your train. Cyanide have put out a little get around involving changing the rider strategy assignments I think (can't remember the exact details - have a search). I manage to get by by just being really vigilant and overriding strange movements manually. Crap AI is the worst part of the game IMHO - wait til you see the rubbish classic AI, with rivals collaborating just to stop you from winning.
Yes, I've noticed some strange behaviour from my sprinters. They sometimes follow random riders. They sometimes lose all their speed due to riding into someone else. Sometimes when my lead-out man starts sprinting, my main sprinter often doesn't bother to follow him, but just goes around him as if I pressed the sprint button on my main sprinter.
I found the workaround of setting your sprinter as "free element". It's from July 2014. Hasn't it been fixed yet?
As for the other problems I have, the solution will probably be to get my riders to the front, stay at the front and dot all the way until 1,3km left. Easier said than done with Movistar
Lachi wrote:
The fitness is explained in the official guide. You can find it on the homepage of the game or when clicking the button in the game, if I am not mistaken. https://www.cyclin...
I'm a PCM veteran, so I know how the fitness system works. It's the freshness that puzzles me. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to anything about it. That "guide" doesn't tell me anything I don't know.
Your observations are correct, it's tough to make out a pattern when it comes to freshness, it can go from bad to excellent and vice versa in a single day. It doesn't depend on the training intensity nor (much) on the number of races in quick succession - for example, all my riders always have bad freshness at the start of the Tour down Under even though it's their first race of the season and I don't start upping the training intensity until February. The only way I know to make certain that freshness is excellent for a certain race is to pick that race as a rider objective at the start of the season.
I think I've figured out freshness. I read somewhere that the freshness will be bad in the weeks/a month before a rider's objective. This is consistent with my Movistar game, where 6/8 riders in my Algarve lineup started the race with "bad" freshness. Those riders had objectives at Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico. Their freshness can improve during the race, but they seem to all start out with bad, which renders them basically useless during the first few stages, which is a big deal in a 5-day stage race.
And I also think I've figured out a way to get around this (rather unrealistic) problem! Okay, let's say I want Valverde to win Spanish stage races in the spring (Mallorca, Andalucia, Pais Vasco) and compete at the Ardennes. Then I want him to stage hunt at the Tour and win the Vuelta & Lombardia. Now, if I put L-B-L as an objective, his freshness would suck for Pais Vasco etc. So what I did is give him just the Tour and the Vuelta as objectives. He's not racing in the two months before the Tour, and not much before the Vuelta. The only races that could potentially suffer is the nationals and San Sebastian. I can live with that, if I keep him constantly fresh during spring and the Tour & Vuelta and also Lombardia, as that is after his objectives.
In general, the way to avoid bad freshness would be to make the objectives of riders the first race(s) in their blocks of racing. It doesn't have to be the actual objective you want them fit for, just change the training program manually.
I haven't played through the whole year yet, but this should work, as it seems like all riders who have no objectives coming up in the next month or so are fresh as daisies!
Yeah, that matches my observation. Once all objectives have been completed the rider freshness is usually/always excellent. And riders whose first objective is in June will have excellent fitness up to the end of April (I think).
Hopefully they'll get it back as the season progresses... And also it seems like the freshness suddenly can drop off for seemingly no reason? I like it if this simulates riders just not feeling too well or something.
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