I notice the problem on classics mainly. Its not a clear break situation, though, but when I am in the leading group with Degenkolb and Kristoff, while I play Terpstra, they refuse to work. They are clearly better sprinters and should both take pulls, but I classics it messes everything up. f.e. if a group with big favourites got dropped due to some sharp tight climb, I can simply place a rider if my team in their group, so they stop working. Also I don't like, that mostly in GTs, the other teams sit up and allow a clear break win. Its f.e. a Mounainous stage, which I could win(81 MO) but others could as well(82 MO,81 MO). But they let the break reach over 30 mins. So I have to place a guy up front. After time, other teams start helping and we pull pretty hard. So I though that I stop pulling with my rider since he's pretty tired. When I did that all other teams sat up and stopped their work.
during big tours when you have a big lead, breakaways are easily accepted as the persons riding in it would never reach the time of the 1st in the classement. they just don't care, until they get a matched opponent on the chase of the classement they will chase him not the breakaway. as they want to use there recuparation to the max to not get any tiredness during a big tour
Riding and winning from a breakaway is probably the hardest skill to master in the game but it's also one of the most satisfying as well. I've won loads of stages from breakaways on hard level and the single most important thing to success is probably concentration and knowing what you're going to do, it's like a game of poker knowing when to apply effort and when to follow.
It's important as Coolrex said to know what the time the riders in the breakaway have and 6 or 7 riders is a good amount in a breakaway. It's important that your rider works on relay at around 60 and then watching to see if the others work as well. If you don't work and just sit on the back then the others will try and drop you which is a disaster for the breakaway. Normally the breakway will need to speed up later in the stage so you could be riding 75-85 in the breakaway.
There are so many other factors to consider such as daily form, acc and sprint ability and most importantly the terrain, you have to think is it better for your rider to attack the breakaway near the end of the stage, hang in for the sprint and in the sprint you need to take the right wheel, obviously the better your rider the better the chance of winning. My last two breakaway victories after having been in the break all day , have been with Gilbert won by attacking with around 10km to go from the breakaway group and the other by Gallopin beating the other riders of the breakaway in the sprint. Those are obviously good riders but you can win with lesser riders.
Also don't waste your time trying to win on a very flat stage as that really is impossible.
Edited by Tafiolmo on 29-08-2015 23:14
thx Paul23 for your feedback about classics. there are probably indeed some pbs with that case. We'll check it.
for GT's what I understand is : you would prefer that if you close the gap until something correct, other teams could then say: ok now the gap is not so big, it's worth working with you and try to go for the stage win?
(I tought it would already be the case in the game but i'll ask how it works exactly on such a case)
@coolrex: i'm not sure to understand very well your last message. Could you give more details please ?
How about when you attack and a few favorites follow you but won't relay.
An example:
You have a rider who is placed 5 overall, you attack on a climb and manages to distance the yellow jersey and several others. With you is nr 2 and 4 in the GC, but none of them wants to take turns.
This is exstremly unrealistic, since nr 2 in the GC stand to gain the overall, and he just sits there and refuses to go to the front.
On the last climb?
yes most of the time you would get (IRL) some help from the others. except if it's Valverde, he would find a reason not to take the turns
FreireCyanide wrote:
On the last climb?
yes most of the time you would get (IRL) some help from the others. except if it's Valverde, he would find a reason not to take the turns
Yeah but it's a bigger problem on hillier courses, like if you attack on the last hill, and you still have 15-18 km to the finish. And if you don't want it all to come back together you have to pull to the finish only to get outsprinted and sometimes distanced on the last 3 km by the guys who refused to take turns
When you attack on your own, nobody is following you, and you are a climber or hillspecialist. on a flat race like the Route of Qatar, you are 32 seconds behind the 1st place because of the Time Trial, you have 80 mountain and 76 hill, and you aren't able to attack because the peleton chase you. (69 Attack, 68 Flat, 70 Stamina)
coolrex wrote:
When you attack on your own, nobody is following you, and you are a climber or hillspecialist. on a flat race like the Route of Qatar, you are 32 seconds behind the 1st place because of the Time Trial, you have 80 mountain and 76 hill, and you aren't able to attack because the peleton chase you. (69 Attack, 68 Flat, 70 Stamina)
Tafiolmo wrote:
Also don't waste your time trying to win on a very flat stage as that really is impossible.
Not entirely impossible and extremely satisfying if you pull it off
I did it with a puncher on an 80 km flat criterium. Though it was a relative small peloton, that might have done it!
is there any reason that they chase a breakaway for example if you are the GC leader of the tour the france but you are a sprinter, when the mountainstages start why they will chase you if you try to breakaway? bcs you are definetly trying to breakaway for the sprints, but why they chase you? they must know you are an impossible rider to win the mountain stage.
and as last, why isn't there a fix for the National Championship getting 20min headstart with a breakaway, which will trigger the peleton to stop riding and they won't chase you anymore.
No specific reasons doing the AI is making some rules then basically adding specific and specific and more specific cases because a cycling AI is all but easy and has a lot of cross parameters.
Here I guess there is probably a rule with a high priority that make the other teams react when the yellow jersey try to be in the first breakaway, no matters the other conditions.
And if we simply pull off this rule, then it would be quite easy to exploit the AI and take advantage of this situation, so i don't think it's so stupid.
I'm not sure a sprinter like Kittel with the yellow jersey on his body could take easily the early breakaway on the first mountain stage, As a contenter for the green jersey i would ask my team to chase him hard and definitely not let him go so easily. Maybe IRL they would let it go, but maybe not...it's so a so obvious case here if you ask me.
After all i don't think it's very important to focus on that point, i mean it's quite strange but I think players can leave with that very specific case.
For several hours of work on this task, you'll have something which is very rare.
The national championship case is in my opinion maybe more important to check.
There is indeed nothing really specific for small rosters on such races and not a lof of fallbacks so some strange cases could happens.
BTW when reading the forum (about AI) i've the feeling that there are a lot of points but not all are on the same scale of priority/importance. Maybe it would be more productive to try to regroup them and then vote (or whatever system) for the most prior points to fix or enhance.
Having a list with only very specific cases is not very productive because we have to try to reproduce that very particular case (and most of the time we have not all the exact parameters) and then fix it. Having more general guidelines like "Fix the national chpt problem where the peloton stop riding and let a breakaway with 20mn of advantage right after the start" is more interesting, or "no more attacks of leaders at 85 km of the finish in the Ronde van Vlaanderen or other flemish classics" (for instance).
Of course that would not mean we'll doing them all with the same order, let's say #1 would require a total revamp of the whole architecture or a #2 would take 1 month to fix for 1 programmer while #3/#4/#5 would take alltogether 2 weeks for the same programmer, it's quite obvious we would
While I didn't win any stages from the breakaway, I did find it weird that FDJ never chased me down in Tour de France when playing Pro Cyclist mode. I was a clear threat for the green jersey, and they had Kristoff as captain. They never or at least rarely even tried to chase me down when I went in the breakaway, essentially giving me 20 points for "free." I have video of the situation. Episode #51 to, and including #57. https://www.youtu...P9Q_T-Zfjx
They certainly lost Kristoff's shot at the jersey for Kristoff by never really chasing me down. Not that I'm really complaining. It made for an exciting Tour for me.
on 85% or some shit like that, the breakaways in career are chased down by the peloton immediately if there are more than 3 riders. It has to be some random mountain stage during a stage race or something for it to allow more than 3 riders. IRL its usually 4-5 riders but in the game its almost impossible.
On most stages, the first 4 or 5 breakaways will be chased by the peloton. Best way to make sure you don't kill your rider going for a break is to wait for the breakaway that the peloton doesn't chase, give the breakaway around 1mn and then attack and join the breakaway. It's easy to know which one of the breaks the peloton isn't chasing. Pace of the peloton is slow and the heart rate of your riders won't go up.
In GT's, once the gaps have been established, during the second or third week, it's easier to go for a break. The first one is usually let go and there are some big gaps that can happen, so with a bigger chance of winning the stage.
If you have a small squad and you're objective is a stage win, it's better to let your best rider lose as much time as possible during the first week and first hilly/mountain stage, then you can attack continuously day after day and go on breaks.
In other saves i always mentioned the same problem as the original poster stated, teams chasing down every, no matter who i send out to attack.
But lately i have been lucky with break aways i guess, i could win Quebec with Battaglin who attacked straight from the beginning and i managed to win a Tour etappe with Battaglin also on a break away right from the beginning, 3rd week and he was on 20 mins.
So im not complaining to much about it anymore and i'll just keep trying.
Breakaways are my specialty. It was the first skill I mastered.
Step 0: Remember that the peloton has a veto over the breakaway.
Step 1: Determine if you are an acceptable breakaway candidate. If you solo attack off the front, and the group immediately chases you down on a solo attack, you won't be allowed to get away. Either your reputation is too high, you seem too strong, or you are too close to the GC lead. Pay close attention to the nature of the close down. Were you the only rider attacking? If other riders tried to follow your attack, who were they? How strong were they? If the situation is unclear, I generally try a second time. If that fails, stop trying. Your rider has already burned too much energy.
If your rider isn't at the front at the start, choose your moment to attack wisely. Wait for the peloton to be going slowly. Or, wait for a favorable piece of terrain (a cobbled section or hill to get the gap). Or wait for the peloton to relax after just having closed down some other attack.
Step 2: Congratulations! You've made it into the break. Now how are you going to win the stage? I won't deal with sprint or KotM point breaks because those are simpler, IMO.
First thing to realize is that the gap to the peloton is not primarily controlled by you. Sure, you have to put the effort in to get the initial gap...but the peloton has a far bigger motor than your group, and when they want to keep the gap below three minutes, they will...no matter how strong you are.
So, don't bother trying to extend the break by your own effort. I find that once the gap gets out past 2.5 minutes, I reduce my riders effort by 5. So relay 60 (after initial attack) until 2.5 minutes, then relay 55 until 5 minutes, then relay 50 until above 7.5 minutes, and so on. There is no point in working really hard in the break early on.
Side note: Do work in the break. You need to have everyone participating in order to have a chance at the stage win. Sometimes, the other riders won't participate, which can be really annoying. That's life. Breakaway riding is an exercise in disappointment most of the time.
Step 3: You've managed to get a good break close to the finish. The peloton is closing in. How do you win the stage and beat those pesky sprinters?
Remember the key in step 2? The peloton has been determining the gap to the break. Ponder the implications of that for a moment. If you understand that, you haven't killed yourself fighting the peloton over the break distance. Until now. With about 40 km to go, you will want to start thinking about putting in more effort.
I generally look at the gap around 40km and see where it is. If it is still over 2 minutes, I continue relaying at 60. Your other break partners will probably panic and start pushing hard. Let them. They can do work for you. Just don't let them get away from you.
Once the peloton gets within 2 minutes, start relaying at a faster speed. What speed should we use? Here's where things get devious. The peloton's goal is to catch you at a certain point of road (somewhere between 3-5 km from the finish). They don't want a long period without a break to tempt strong riders to try to solo. This means that the peloton is trying to coordinate their efforts to steadily eat into your pace. Linear math is easiest, so they take your current speed and adapt their own. Therefore, your effort level in the break should be constantly varying!
Generally, I increase my relay speed by 1 every kilometer. I chose my relay speed by the distance remaining in the race. If I am in a group, relay speed = 100 - km remaining. If I am alone, relay speed = 90 - km remaining.
What this does is mess with the math of the pursuers. The AI ends up behind the curve as your projected time to reach the 3-5 km window changes.
Step 4: Does this always work?
No. If your rider isn't having a good day (or isn't strong) or your break is small or not powerful...you will run out of steam somewhere around 5 km to go. This is normal. See real life.
However, if your rider is uniquely suited to the terrain, or the break is strong (and they foolishly panic and work early), then I've found success with this strategy. Even on flat stages! (My first BeAPro win for my pure climber was a flat stage breakaway in a strong break of ~8-10 riders (selection caused by early hill on the route.)
Step 5:
Always pray for rain. Nothing helps a breakaway better than a peloton dealing with crashes. Rain is your friend.
Breakaways in Monuments and big single day races are almost assuredly doomed to failure. The peloton and leading riders are going to be too strong. As a very young BeAPro rider however, a break in a classic is a good way to get experience points. You aren't going to win anyway, might as well practice and get some sponsor time.
Supernutz wrote:
Breakaways are my specialty. It was the first skill I mastered.
Step 0: Remember that the peloton has a veto over the breakaway.
Step 1: Determine if you are an acceptable breakaway candidate. If you solo attack off the front, and the group immediately chases you down on a solo attack, you won't be allowed to get away. Either your reputation is too high, you seem too strong, or you are too close to the GC lead. Pay close attention to the nature of the close down. Were you the only rider attacking? If other riders tried to follow your attack, who were they? How strong were they? If the situation is unclear, I generally try a second time. If that fails, stop trying. Your rider has already burned too much energy.
If your rider isn't at the front at the start, choose your moment to attack wisely. Wait for the peloton to be going slowly. Or, wait for a favorable piece of terrain (a cobbled section or hill to get the gap). Or wait for the peloton to relax after just having closed down some other attack.
Step 2: Congratulations! You've made it into the break. Now how are you going to win the stage? I won't deal with sprint or KotM point breaks because those are simpler, IMO.
First thing to realize is that the gap to the peloton is not primarily controlled by you. Sure, you have to put the effort in to get the initial gap...but the peloton has a far bigger motor than your group, and when they want to keep the gap below three minutes, they will...no matter how strong you are.
So, don't bother trying to extend the break by your own effort. I find that once the gap gets out past 2.5 minutes, I reduce my riders effort by 5. So relay 60 (after initial attack) until 2.5 minutes, then relay 55 until 5 minutes, then relay 50 until above 7.5 minutes, and so on. There is no point in working really hard in the break early on.
Side note: Do work in the break. You need to have everyone participating in order to have a chance at the stage win. Sometimes, the other riders won't participate, which can be really annoying. That's life. Breakaway riding is an exercise in disappointment most of the time.
Step 3: You've managed to get a good break close to the finish. The peloton is closing in. How do you win the stage and beat those pesky sprinters?
Remember the key in step 2? The peloton has been determining the gap to the break. Ponder the implications of that for a moment. If you understand that, you haven't killed yourself fighting the peloton over the break distance. Until now. With about 40 km to go, you will want to start thinking about putting in more effort.
I generally look at the gap around 40km and see where it is. If it is still over 2 minutes, I continue relaying at 60. Your other break partners will probably panic and start pushing hard. Let them. They can do work for you. Just don't let them get away from you.
Once the peloton gets within 2 minutes, start relaying at a faster speed. What speed should we use? Here's where things get devious. The peloton's goal is to catch you at a certain point of road (somewhere between 3-5 km from the finish). They don't want a long period without a break to tempt strong riders to try to solo. This means that the peloton is trying to coordinate their efforts to steadily eat into your pace. Linear math is easiest, so they take your current speed and adapt their own. Therefore, your effort level in the break should be constantly varying!
Generally, I increase my relay speed by 1 every kilometer. I chose my relay speed by the distance remaining in the race. If I am in a group, relay speed = 100 - km remaining. If I am alone, relay speed = 90 - km remaining.
What this does is mess with the math of the pursuers. The AI ends up behind the curve as your projected time to reach the 3-5 km window changes.
Step 4: Does this always work?
No. If your rider isn't having a good day (or isn't strong) or your break is small or not powerful...you will run out of steam somewhere around 5 km to go. This is normal. See real life.
However, if your rider is uniquely suited to the terrain, or the break is strong (and they foolishly panic and work early), then I've found success with this strategy. Even on flat stages! (My first BeAPro win for my pure climber was a flat stage breakaway in a strong break of ~8-10 riders (selection caused by early hill on the route.)
Step 5:
Always pray for rain. Nothing helps a breakaway better than a peloton dealing with crashes. Rain is your friend.
Breakaways in Monuments and big single day races are almost assuredly doomed to failure. The peloton and leading riders are going to be too strong. As a very young BeAPro rider however, a break in a classic is a good way to get experience points. You aren't going to win anyway, might as well practice and get some sponsor time.
Sorry to revive this post, but I have to thank for it to the writer. It is one of the best, if not the best, breakaway posts I have read. Incredible, and it 100% works,
