I believe we don't have this thread for PCM19 yet, so here we go. I'll start
I got inspired by Cunego59's story to start my own Cofidis career, and to challenge myself further and because I'm a sadist who likes to watch my riders suffer i upped the difficulty to 1.10. Anyway.. My goal is to win the green jersey in Le Tour with Viviani while being a factor in all world tour races with the likes of G. Martin, Herrada, Laporte, Consonni and Haas.
I just finished january, where we, of course, went to Australia with a B-team led by Haas/Consonni, and simultaneously went to Gabon for La Tropicale Amissa Bongo with something that looks like an F-team led by Perichon and Berhane.´
Haas just missed out on the Australian Championships, where he couldn't keep up with the pocket rocket in the decisive sprint. Despite his good form he was shocked to see the startlist in STDU, which included the likes of Alaphilippe, Valverde, Woods, Schachmann and Kwiatkowski. Damn. This meant that we had to aim a bit low - a top 10 would be a success.
Consonni had some trouble at first against the many top sprinters but managed one podium result. Meanwhile Haas struggled to follow the 4 best, Valverde, Alaphilippe, Izagirre and Porte, on Willunga Hill, but ended strong and won the sprint for 5th. He also secured himself a single bonus second on a stage, which helped him to secure an 8th place in the GC, as Valverde took his first major win this season at the age of 39.
In Gabon, our Neo-pros couldn't follow the pack on the bumpy roads, and A. Viviani was only able to sprint a single time, where he reached a 7th place. Perichon on the other hand managed three top 5 placings in a row on stage 2, 3 and 4, and his efforts culminated in a seldom victory on stage 6, as he barely kept off the sprinters after attacking on a small hill before the finish. YEAH.
He wasn't able to scrap enough seconds to win the race though, but a 3rd place was more than expected behind Calmejane and Hirschi.
I thoroughly enjoyed these races, and the realism surprised me a bit. Especially the sandy bumps of Gabon were pleasant! Now we're looking towards february, when our leaders will prepare for bigger goals on home turf in smaller french races. Viviani and Herrada look to do well in the UAE Tour, but we'll see how that goes later. Au revoir Edited by purepasd on 04-02-2020 10:07
We don't have a general career discussion for PCM 17, either, so I'll just post here.
I have saved maybe 5 replays in my life, I should surely have saved more, but here's the first replay I saved with PCM 17.
The setup: After all my PCM 14 exploits, which I'm still writing a story about, I decided to play a career on automatic in PCM 17. There's a lot I could write about that experience, it can be incredibly frustrating, but also surprisingly successful, another time mabye.
Anyway, I started with a custom team, the tasty Nutella Cycling Team, we've made it to the World Tour and we're riding our first Giro. A stage win is our sponsor's top goal this season. It obviously would have to come from a breakaway. We've reached stage 13, so far no luck, but now our Spaniard Cristian Rodriguez has made the final selection of three riders. Problem is, he's up against Julien Bernard and Dylan Van Baarle, both clearly superior sprinters. No chance in hell he can win the stage. Or is there?
Since I refuse to get a google account I simply posted on imgur, which allows videos up to a minute in length. So here's the final minute of racing from two angles. (Right-click and select "view video" for a larger size, or "fullscreen", though it's a bit blurry.)
First, with the UI still turned on and missing the conclusion: https://imgur.com...
purepasd wrote:
Perichon on the other hand managed three top 5 placings in a row on stage 2, 3 and 4, and his efforts culminated in a seldom victory on stage 6, as he barely kept off the sprinters after attacking on a small hill before the finish. YEAH.
That's a really nice win for the old man I'm obviously interested to see how this continues!
Ripley wrote:
The setup: After all my PCM 14 exploits, which I'm still writing a story about, I decided to play a career on automatic in PCM 17.
Interesting concept, never really thought about that. How does this work in praxis? You do all the season planning, transfers and set strategies for the races and then the AI controls your riders throughout the races? Oh, and fantastic finish, I watched the first video and thought, what a shame that he can't get past them with his bad sprint, but then the second one surprised
Interesting concept, never really thought about that. How does this work in praxis?
Yeah, everything outside 3D mode like always. I do make changes to the strategy screen before and during the race, though riders usually ignore my orders and I will often manually pick somebody to get drinks, otherwise the captain or sprinter might inside the final 10 km. As I said, it can be very frustrating, the captain and free riders often too far back in the peloton, a breakaway rider simply stops racing, etc. But oddly enough, I've been very successful nonetheless.
This thread is a starting point for further tips, though I don't totally agree with them: https://pcmdaily....d_id=43082
I'm having an awesome be-a-pro right now with Kazakh strongman-Sprinter Denys Lykchagin. 2020 dailyDB of course. Have had some fun so far with 17 victories in the first season. May post a couple of results/achievements here.
Signed for the 2nd season with Caja Rural, who already have Aberasturi and Consonni though. Have to get used to the career team choice system.
Also i observed that the flat stat develops way too slow in comparison to the sprint stat for sprinters.
Also the flat stat really develops horrendously, as I don
purepasd wrote:
Perichon on the other hand managed three top 5 placings in a row on stage 2, 3 and 4, and his efforts culminated in a seldom victory on stage 6, as he barely kept off the sprinters after attacking on a small hill before the finish. YEAH.
That's a really nice win for the old man I'm obviously interested to see how this continues!
Thanks, It's nice to be able to follow along you and your career with Cofidis aswell, although you're advancing at a much quicker pace
Back again after completing half of february, and what a month it has been. We've finished our trip to Australia with the CAGORR, where Consonni aimed high. With the top sprinters going back to Europe, he was considered one of the favourites. After an easy day it all came down to a sprint, and with the help of Haas and Vanbilsen our sprinter finished strong. He thought he had it, but was beaten on the line by Hofstetter. Oh well, life goes on.
On we went to Mallorca, and we brought most of our squad to be able to substitute riders depending on the routes. Jesus Herrada loves these hilly races, and it showed. He wasted no time as he won the first punchy showdown ahead of Poels and Costa.
The day after he went 7th after he missed the attack Sergio Henao who took victory, but the day after the king of Mallorca was back, as he took another win in front of Fraile and Vlasov. Steamrolling
The last challenge was for Viviani who left off as the absoulte favourite. With Sabatini leading the way to the line, it was a piece of cake to take this one, and you can clearly see the joy in his face as he crosses the line in this close up:
While most of our team was busy quadrupling our victories in Spain, Martin started his season in the GP Marseille, where he made the decisive move on the final hill, but unfortuneately was oversprinted by both Hardy and Mohoric in the fight for victory.
In Provence it was two stages for Martin and one for Perez, as Martin did let Hivert get one aswell in the last stage. Herrada finished on the podium twice, hence it was a 1-2 for Martin and Herrada ahead of Gallopin and Hivert in the GC. You won't get a picture of these victories as it gets tedious to watch Cofidis riders win non-stop, and it gets for me as well.
I've considered to up the difficulty to 1.12 or 1.15, but I don't think it will help much, as I believe it's more about bad AI and positioning than about stats that makes the AI so weak. Does anyone have experience with a higher difificulty? Hopefully the results will be more realistic as we attend bigger races and other riders will get more into shape like ours, because right now it's not exciting to win. From here we go on to Algarve (where the stars usually also go), Tour du Var, UAE Tour and the opening weekend. See you guys next time!
I've considered to up the difficulty to 1.12 or 1.15, but I don't think it will help much, as I believe it's more about bad AI and positioning than about stats that makes the AI so weak. Does anyone have experience with a higher difificulty? Hopefully the results will be more realistic as we attend bigger races and other riders will get more into shape like ours, because right now it's not exciting to win. From here we go on to Algarve (where the stars usually also go), Tour du Var, UAE Tour and the opening weekend. See you guys next time!
I am currently doing a career with FDJ and I'm on my second season. I've played the game for 5 or 6 years now and except from when I first started, I've always played at Hard level. But I'm considering changing the difficulty as well. In my first season, I won around 35 races but I've already won more in my second season and I've just started Romandie!! It is a lot of French races, but I have won Paris-Nice and Tirreno and won stages at Down Under, Catalunya and Basque Country.
None of my riders, except maybe Gaudu, have massively improved since the start of my career. The other leaders of my team (Pinot, Demare, Kung, Sarreau and Molard) have not really improved.
For some reason, Pinot and Demare accepted new contracts at the end of season 1, with a lower salary, so I was able to get more and better riders than I expected. I got Sivakov and De Plus to help Pinot and also got Senechal to be my Classics leader. Then I had some money left and decided to get Jungels as well (without losing any major riders. Only lost riders like Bonnet, Delage or Armirail). I should have stopped there.
De Plus and Sivakov have massively improved in only 3 months (De Plus went from 78 to 81 and Sivakov from 77 to 80 in the mountains, so both have won several early season races). I now have 3 great cards to play in the mountains rather than just one.
Jungels is good everywhere and has also won 5 or 6 races for me and Senechal has also won a couple of races. He did pretty badly in the classics though.
To come back to your point, I think that generally, the level at French races, which I imagine you are racing as you are Cofidis, is pretty low. So I think it's easier to win them. For example, I have Demare and Sarreau who are decent sprinters, nothing more, but when they're in French races, their only competition is Coquard, Bouhanni or De Buyst. And both are better, so except if they're on a bad form day, they will probably win because of the lack of real competition. Demare rode the Giro and Vuelta in season 1 but did not win a single stage as he wasn't as good asthe top sprinters. Consonni is a good sprinter, Martin is a very good climber, so if the competition isn't really there (if Gallopin and Hivert are your competition), it's easier to win.
I am thinking of not racing the French races next season, to see if the competition is harder. I don't know if it will help, but I think I will give it a go.
purepasd wrote:
I've considered to up the difficulty to 1.12 or 1.15, but I don't think it will help much, as I believe it's more about bad AI and positioning than about stats that makes the AI so weak. Does anyone have experience with a higher difificulty?
I play on 1.10-1.15 (apart from TTs), and indeed the AI doesn't get better, but it definitely means you have to rely on form peaks, other ways to improve daily form and sneaky tactics more.
The flat sprints and hilltop finishes get outright impossible to win if you're not a clear favorite, in the lumpy stages with flat finishes you can play the AI by spreading the peloton in the right moments and setting up a sprint train when nobody else does to catch the favorites out of position.
And in the mountains, you just really have to master the dot and be willing to risk the race by dropping early to conserve yellow bar (and maximum yellow bar in the first part of the race), in hope that you can time your bars to the finish line and overtake the bonked riders ahead. Expect to just see the top guys ride away from you though.
Especially 1.15 is very realistic there, but you just gotta understand the implications of that on your gameplay experience.
mousti wrote:
When playing career, changing the frequency of prize money or falls does it change it during a career game? Or do you have to start a new career?
I'm obviously interested to see how this continues! 
