I am going to try and create a general game play guide too help those with questions, since almost every day I see a post asking for help in this or that. I guess over the next while I am going to try and cover basically everything from 3d in game racing, career management, and maybe later some editing guides. So for the time being I'm going to save a few posts, and let questions come behind them.
Okay before we get all crazy, let me say I am by no means an expert, and will take advice if people have better ways to accomplish things. Mine are just a base to at least make a completely clueless person have some chance.
So for now I'm going to put a table of contents as such:
First post - heading and all stage advice and keywords
Second post - Flat Stages
Third post - Mountain Stages
Fourth post - Hilly/Classic/Endurance stages
Fifth post - Cobblestone/Flanders stages
Sixth post - Individual Time Trials
Seventh post - Team Time Trials
All Stage Advice (and keywords)
I guess I should start with the basics, but I will assume you at least know the basics of cycling. So I will give you some of the basic terminology used in PCM or at least that I will use.
First thing I am going to say, and cannot stress enough is the value of Form. I put it almost at a 4-1 ratio with skills. So a rider with 82 skill is on about the same grounds as one with a 79 if the 79's form is 12 points better.
Indicators:
Each rider you have has their own indicator interface on the left side of the screen, all of which are important, though some more than others. The Green Bar: (Stamina Bar) This is your stamina bar, the more green the more you have, as your stamina lowers below half (I think), your other energy bars become affected easier, and ultimately if your stamina runs out your speed will decrease dramatically. The Yellow Bar: (Sustaining Bar) This bar is your sustained effort bar, riders who are not pushing themselves to the max but putting forth more effort than they can tolerate for long periods of time. The Red Bar: (Attack Bar) This bar is your high effort or attack bar, it drops far more quickly than the yellow bar does, but also refills quicker, it determines how long you rider can use a burst of speed. The heart: Easily color coded to white, yellow and red. The color corresponds to the bar that will be used. Red will use every bar, yellow all but the red bar, and white will normally use the green bar. Heart rate: This might be the most important indicator you have, as your hearts beats per minute determine what color the heart is and what bars get used. Somewhere there is a list of exactly what heart rate changes the colors, but that is beyond the scope of this for now. Dash/number/colored number This number (starts as a dash) is a race day condition, and will affect your rider that day. There is no way I know of to help adjust it, but as a race progresses your rider will understand how he is feeling that day. It can go from +5 to -5 and I'm assuming its basically a bonus to form. Effort Number This key number (starts at 70) is how much effort your rider is willing to put in to whatever he is supposed to be doing. There is a slider at the bottom on the button bar (next) that allows you to adjust how much effort to use. Water bottles Each rider has two water bottles, and the level of water will diminish as the ride goes on. When a rider is out of water his name will flash blue, indicating he is out of water, if he does not get water, his name will flash red, and he will suffer considerably. (How to refill will be explained lower) Battery The battery is a one time use (per race) that will increase the riders ability to use the red bar slightly. It has two phases once clicked, flashing green, which means it is charging up and going to be used, but not yet giving a bonus. Then glowing yellow and red, which means it is active. If possible always attack while using the battery to increase your effectiveness, and also it will increase the chance of a "green moment". Green Moment While not normally showing, a rider that is attacking may have his name flashing green, when this happens his attack is feeling good, and he is able to attack longer, and use less energy to do so.
Button Bar
In 3d race mode there are several options, for each of your riders, have to make sure you know what I'm telling you to do when I say to set a rider to such. Attack: It's the top left button on your button bar, and should only rarely be touched. Your rider will go full speed, quickly using energy to create a gap. Counter: I'm not sure why it's on the button bar, as it seems to do nothing there, but if you right click on a rider who is attacking you will also get the counter option where it works well. Your rider will follow an attacking rider, normally uses energy quickly to catch the rider, but then significantly less as you sit behind him even while he is still attacking. Sprint: This icon only shows up when either 1.5km away from an intermediate sprint, 3km out of a flat stage finish, 1.5(I think) on a hill stage finish, and 1km on a mountain stage finish. It is as far as I can tell identical to attack with the exception that anyone using the next icon will follow. Sprint Follow: The fourth icon on the top row, and the most important for a sprint train, this will tell riders to stay right behind another rider. It can be used to follow your own rider, or to follow any other rider by right clicking on that rider and then selecting the sprint follow button. Riders on follow will attempt to stay with the rider they are selected to follow and will use less energy. When trying to follow especially other riders than your teammates your rider may not be successful, as another rider may take his wheel first. Protect Probably the most important button on the button bar for almost every stage. Allows you to use one rider to protect another rider, greatly reducing the energy spent by the protected rider, at the cost of extra energy spent by the protecting rider. Maintain position The first button on the bottom row, though I'm not sure what the icon picture is depicting...anyhow your rider will maintain his position or do his best without exerting more effort than his effort number indicates. Dot (wheel arrow thing) This is generally referred to as dot, and any rider set to this will give exactly what the effort number is set to, it is vitally important in almost all aspects of the game. Relay Riders set to relay will form a line at the front of the group they will take turns with riders also set to relay (both your own and other teams) as long as the other riders are willing to maintain a speed close to that of your relay rider. Riders set to relay but moving to slow to take turns up front will ride at the back of the relay group. Riders will put forward unlimited effort to get to the front when asked to relay, so it is advised you do not set a rider in the back to relay without using other methods of getting him forward first. Infinite Relay Works like relay except rider will stay on the front until he is taken off of infinite relay or another rider wants to set a faster pace. Water This command has a rider go back and get water. He will get water for every teammate in his group. Depending on the size of the group this can take time, in larger groups it can take several kilometers as the rider drops to the back of the pack, waits for the water car, then has to make his way up to each teammate. When the rider is parallel to a teammate he will refill the other riders water bottles. This rider will often use energy to complete this task. Refilling water while going uphill is normally incredibly difficult and will almost always completely destroy the rider, often he will not catch back up to get water to the other riders, so it is strongly advised that you refill before any major climb. A rider that is alone will be able to refill his bottles almost instantly even if only a short ways in front of a pack.
Protection Menu
To the right of the button bar are two more icons affecting what display your riders are showing. The top of the two with the protect icon will change your riders display to the protect menu. This is generally a simple way of assigning riders to protect without having to find each rider in the pack and then click through it. To have one rider protect another simply cycle the left or right arrow until you get to the riders name you want to protect and then click the checkmark box. The rider selected will now protect the rider whose name was chosen. There are some limits to protecting such as having to be in the same group. Normal interface I know the game calls it something else, but the second button with the 3 person icon will get you back to the normal interface you have at the start of the stage.
Attributes and effects
I break down rider attributes into 3 categories, Core, Helper, and Other. Core stats are the basic stats of how a rider will perform on any stage based on the terrain. They include Flat, Mountain, Hill, and Cobbles and Downhill. Helper stats add to or affect the core stats based on situations. This includes Time Trial, Prologue, Sprint, Stamina. Last is the Other category, which the stats have no affect on the core stats. This is Acceleration, Resistance, Fighter and Recovery. Core
Each of the core stats is affects your riders in the same manner depending on what type of terrain they are currently on. A higher score basically means they will go faster than a lower score at the same amount of effort.
For Mountain and Hills, before a stage is started a percentage is determined by the computer (can be found in the DB) all climbs for this stage will use this percentage of your skills. If a stage is given a 40-60 ratio of Mountains to Hills, then you can determine your climbing ability by taking 40% of your mountain stat plus 60% of your Hills stat. (a 71/84 rider like Gilbert would be ~78-79). Helper
Helper stats essentially boost the core stats, some more than others. Time Trial and Prologue affect Time Trials, much in the same manner that Mountains/Hills affect, The shorter the time trial, the more Prologue will weigh in. Sprint only kicks in when the Sprint Icon is clicked, and becomes a very strong stat on its own, with the core playing a small role. Stamina is the last helper I have, and for the vast majority of the time it does very little, but on longer races >200km and especially on ones >250km it becomes vital. I'm only guessing but I think that roughly your core stat gets a percentage at certain markers. For example at 200km-250km your stat is 90%Core+10%Stamina, and at 250+ it may go to 80%Core+20%Stamina. It might even be more drastic than that. I might do some testing on this later. Other
These stats are in the category because they do not affect other stats nor are they affected by other stats. The first one being acceleration, it does not affect how fast your rider can gain speed as it would seem, it only affects how long the red bar lasts. Riders with higher acceleration can keep at a red pace longer. Resistance is much like acceleration, except if affects the yellow bar. Fighter is for simulation only as it affects how often a rider attacks to try and make a breakaway. If it does anything else (or anything of value) please let me know. Last is Recovery, most important for stage races it determines how much of your green (stamina) bar comes back each day. Higher is obviously better.
Edited by Kentaurus on 16-08-2011 17:33
On to part two, the flat stages. Now for all parts of in game racing I'm going to ignore form, as it cannot be controlled except during a season. These are simply for in the 3d race mode.
Rider Selection
--Sprinter: The most important rider for a flat stage, he should high the highest stat in Sprint. Other helpful attributes are Acceleration which most sprinters also have high and flat. The standard set of Resistance and Stamina help everywhere, but they are not critical for the sprinter
--Lead Out: This is the guy sitting right in front of the sprinter, he should be your second best in the Sprint stat, and is generally just a slightly worse sprinter than your main.
--Third Wheel: The third to last rider is really the hardest to find good, he needs everything, a good sprint, good flat, good resistance, good acceleration. He will pull your team into the 3k mark and start the sprint.
--Lead out train riders: These are guys in front of the lead out, and will pull your sprinter in close while not letting anyone else get off the front. These guys need high Flat ratings and good resistance.
Racing
Okay rider basics gone over, I will work on the actual stage. First things first, always protect the guy you plan to win the stage with. I normally use my lead out man to protect my sprinter and another climber to protect my GC rider in a tour. Any rider not in the lead out train (or your GC contender) can be the water boy. There almost always is a breakaway, but since your going for a sprint win, you don't really want that. Most of the time a computer team is more than happy to pull in a break, but in case they aren't be ready to send the first three guys of your sprint train and anyone not protecting or being protected out to relay. You never want to let the lead get be be more than 1/10th the number of kilometers left. So at 100km left they break should not be 10'00" ahead, and at 40km left it shouldn't be 4'00" ahead. Simple math. Sometimes as you will see in my video you can ease the pressure on your team by actually getting a rider in the break, and not helping.
Also it is a good idea to try and keep your riders forward in the peloton. The easiest way that I normally do this is to set them all to relay at 50 at the very start of the race. Once a rider reaches the front I have him maintain position with 80 effort to stay near the front. This way you can keep your guys from exhausting themselves on any little climbs because they will be able to drop back without losing touch with the group for a short time, almost always enough in a flat stage. And with only 80 effort, they will never use their red bar and preserve energy for later much better. The vast majority of the race then stays like this and I don't really do anything until 40km left.
At 40k left it's time to start working. The first thing I do is send a non train rider back to get water, this will top us off with water before anything too serious happens and we can't get water anymore. When he gets back I look to do one of two things with him. If the peloton is moving slow, I will set him on infinite relay at around 82-83 effort, good enough to get us to the 10k mark and set the other lead out train riders to relay at 85 effort, which will get them in line behind the first rider. If the peloton is moving fast (as it is in my video) I will try to move him to the front and get him in the main relay group. At 18km left, it's time to organize the train. Go ahead and pause as soon as all of your riders have less than 18km left to go.
Sprint Train
To start building your train, select your sprinter, then right click on the lead out man and choose the sprint follow button. Your sprinter should now have the sprint follow icon next to his status bar. Now select your lead out rider and do the same to have him sprint follow your third wheel. Of the two riders remaining, the one with the better flat stat will be next, if they are the same choose the better of the two. Again select the third wheel and have him sprint follow that guy, then have the 4th guy follow the the 5th, and lastly set your 5th guy to follow your rider in front, this will pull everyone to the very front of the race.
Now before unpausing, set your lead rider to Dot (Individual Effort) so that he is not trying to lead the group of relaying riders from other teams anymore or if the peloton is still being pulled very fast, set your rider to try and sprint follow a sprinter from another team that is near the front. Now we need to look at getting to the 10k mark. Ideally you want your lead rider to run out of gas at this point so you may find yourself adjusting his pace based on how much yellow bar he has left.
Lead out and Sprint
The 10k mark, this is where the train takes over, your first two riders will both be doing 3k you can roughly go to ~92-93 effort to do this for each rider. Red bar becomes the determining factor now. To do this, during the ride from 18km to 10km set the 2nd and 3rd riders in line to 92 effort, but keep them on sprint follow. At the 10k marker set your 2nd rider to Dot (individual effort) and you will see your train go flying by the first rider. At the 7k point do the same for what was the 3rd rider, and is now the 2nd rider. You can fine tune each rider some so they are close to out (but not completely out) of red bar when they reach their marks. Now before you hit the 4k mark you need to set your 3rd wheel rider to 99 effort, again keeping on sprint follow until the 4k, then you set him to dot and very shortly after at 3k you will be able to sprint, go ahead and open it up. Your 3rd wheel will tire very quickly, and either when he is close to out of red bar or at 2.4km left whichever comes first you should tell your lead out rider to sprint. At 1.5km left have your sprinter finally come out for the win. Some tweaking can be done in the sprint section to try and combat riders that pick up your wheel, you will see in my video what happens when Cavendish does.
Hope you all enjoyed the Flat stage guide (sprint). I will be working on a video I took of my running a flat stage, which I will upload as soon as its ready.
Ok Video is up so here y'all go! Kentaurus's Flat Stage (Sprint) VideoEdited by Kentaurus on 18-08-2011 18:40
The key to any mountain stage is protection, well and good stats. First off I would like to make it clear, that even with the most perfect plan in the world, if your best rider isn't at or near the same ability as the main contenders, you really don't have much of a chance. So be realistic, if your riding with Garmin like I was in the first video, don't go thinking you can win with Tom Danielson, he is just too weak compared to Contador, Schleks and so on. Set a goal to finish higher than you think he should, so for my video (which I will use the same team as I did in the sprint video, not all climbers) I will aim to get near a top 5 finish with him. That being said lets get to the general guide.
Rider Selection
This one is fairly simple, the higher the mountain stat the better, resistance and acceleration can come in to play if the stats are within a point for the last spot.
Racing Notes
Much like I did at the beginning of my flat stage video, I like to set my team on a very slow relay at the start of the race to bring them up to the front, and then put them on hold position. I will almost never even worry about a breakaway on these stages as the climbers will catch up, however if there is an intermediate sprint I think is obtainable I might look to send my sprinter into the break.
Water is also a key here, on a mountain stage knowing when to get water for your team is vital, rule one: don't send someone to get water going uphill. So if your going to need water for the coming hill, make sure to do it plenty early, riders almost always will burn out trying to go uphill with water, you end up with a dead rider, and your main riders still won't have water. Downhill is generally a great time to get water, as your water carrier can get back to your main riders, and really doesn't have to use energy to do it. While going downhill you are going much faster (shouldn't need saying) so the distance it takes to get water to the team is much longer, so plan ahead.
Protection
The key to the flat stage is protection. Keeping your main rider from running out of power. My general plan is a 4 rider strategy (works well with a 5 man sprint train for the flat stages). First set your 4th best climber to protect your best rider or GC contender {going to call this guy GC protector}. Then set your 3rd best climber to protect your second best climber {call this guy the 2nd protector}. This will keep your top two riders in good shape for later in the race. Now the race becomes all about sustaining. Once a GC protector tires out your main rider will become vulnerable. This now becomes a judgement call, if your GC rider is able to stay with the group without using much yellow bar it may be best to continue with the 3 riders how they are. If he seems to be using his yellow bar though, it might be best to move the 2nd protector over to him. Likely though both the GC protector and the 2nd protector will tire at about the same time unless there is a large gap in ability. At this point go ahead and set your 2nd best rider now to protect your GC rider.
Final Climbs
The climb on which you should attack on varies based on the rider and the terrain left. Many mountain stages end on Climb-Downhill-Climb and I would only look to attack on the earlier climb if my downhill was at least 8-10 points better than anyone else in the lead group. Otherwise while you have to try and recover going downhill, the best downhill rider of the main group will continue to use energy to pull that group back to you.
So for the most part I only look to really attack on the last climb. There are several different ways to do this, I'm really not a fan of actually using the attack button as it drains your rider very very fast. Instead I rather the simple dot push. On dot mode you have full control of the rider's speed, and I never ever advise going over 84 on a climb. 85 will put your rider into burning the red bar and it will be fairly quick. I like to start at 84 with my protecting rider still in front of my GC rider, this helps create some separation from the field as they will have to use quite a bit of energy to catch back up to my wheel. Once you are clear it's time to tone down your tempo and basically ride like its a timetrial. You want your yellow bar to be just about out when you reach the finish. The steadier the pace, the better off you are.
These are some of the trickiest races to me, for several reasons, the first primarily being the classics, its a one shot event, so no room for errors. Also these tend to have the best chance for breakaways and lastly because there are a small group of riders that are extremely good at riding these events, and they can be near impossible to beat.
Anyhow the basic concepts of the other two race types apply here as well. Protecting your contending rider is vital and on the longer stages, protecting a second rider like you would for a mountain stage is very helpful. We now have stages where the green bar (stamina) might be the most important.
In the actual ride of these, I do advise trying to get one of your off riders into the breakaway, this will keep you from having to pull the peloton which can pay off nicely later in the stage. Again be sure to keep your riders near the front, and be careful of a split in the main field, having to expend energy to cross a gap will almost surely end your riders day.
Towards the end of the race, it is very similar to the end of a mountain stage, Dot (individual effort) is your best friend, but here you will almost always have to attack to get any separation, and the best idea may be to wait until one of the normal contender like Gilbert attacks, and just counter his move, go by him and then dot your way home.
Will be working on the movie, if anyone has better advise I'm up to hear it, I don't do all that well on the hills, and classics are some of my least favorite rides so I don't run them often either.
Edited by Kentaurus on 19-08-2011 14:43
I'm going to start by saying I have very little experience on these races, and seldom do I actually participate in them. My teams are almost never based for these, and so if I have to run them I normally just quick sim. So any advice here from the forum base would be much appriciated.
From Jam200uk (on page3)
Cobblestones
Sorry for the block of text!
This advice is based on past experiences and could be wildly wrong, however, I have had success with it. I have had to play quite a lot of these recently as my sponsor has set high importance on a few of the races e.g. Paris-Roubaix. There is also pretty good money associated with these races. Of course, if the race is a cobble stage and your GC contender does not have good cobbles then this tactic might change depending on your overall goals.
The most important thing to note is that you need a really good cobble stat to win this i.e. 79 or above. Often the races are >200km, therefore, the stamina stat could come into play. Of course, if people reply, they will state that hill and flat are quite important as well, but usually if you have a good cobble man, these stats will be good as well- massive generalisation.
Get all of your riders to the front using relay. Make sure you pick strong riders to support your main contender. Since riders will start falling off the back put their effort up and get them to protect your top 3 cobblestone riders. Try not to rehydrate your riders whilst they are on the cobbles so wait for some flat to appear. Don’t ride in the breakaways- there is no point and it will only waste a rider, however, always stay at the front of the peloton. Use your support riders aggressively, i.e. as soon as they start struggling (bpm goes red) give them their bar- the most important thing is to protect your three main guys. If you can anticipate them going red- even better! If you have eight riders in the race and three are protecting- keep one for water and switch protection roles with a rider who is struggling, with the other. Keeping at the front of peloton is key and very soon you will see your protectors falling off- as soon as this happens, tell them to maintain position and get another rider to protect. Eventually you will have your second best cobble man protecting your best cobble man. Throughout the race, keep your eyes on the favourites and where they are. As soon as they break, which is usually >40km from the finish, follow them. Use energy gel if you have to- it is adamant you stay with them. Depending on how the rider is feeling- I will either set my rider to dot and try and get away and win with a big margin or sprint follow someone like Hushovd- this is assuming I only have one rider left which is more than likely.
Another thing worth considering is when you only have 3 riders left. I usually have my 3rd best protecting my best rider. Quite often, I will switch protection roles between my 2nd and 3rd best. I don’t know whether this is sensible but it seems to give the protectors a little break between protection periods, therefore, total distance protected for my best rider is increased.
With the right rider and form- this tactic usually insures me a top 5 finish.
Hope this has helped and looking forward to the critique!
Edited by Kentaurus on 25-12-2011 08:19
mate i think it sounds like a pretty good idea. there has been a few threads lately with requests for help etc. i saw one response took the user to a basic guide (was very good though) that Cruetrue created back in 2006!
best of luck with it mate. i respect the service you are offering here
Well my internet is out, and not about to type this out by phone, so will post in morning if internet is back. Have it saved in a txt file so nothing lost.
For Cobbled races is always play this way: Put your rider in front on 99 and let your other riders make pace so no other team gets to the front. Then you have 2 choices, if you have a good sprinter, wait for the sprint and counter as much as attacks, when you dont have a sprinter, try going on a small uphill section with own effort on 85, then after the climb continue with somebody who has followed you or go alone if it isnt that long anymore
JD317 wrote:
i saw one response took the user to a basic guide (was very good though) that Cruetrue created back in 2006!
best of luck with it mate. i respect the service you are offering here
Great idea, and @JD317 I'm pretty sure you are talking about me and in my defense it was the best thing I could find at the time to help him So Kentaurus thanks for taking time to put this together, since the newcomers always seem to have trouble locating the information buried in this forums.
EDIT: Link Here is the PCM06 guide if it can help you at all Kentaurus as many of the tactics are still the same today.
Edited by Mresuperstar on 16-08-2011 13:22
thanks for creating a guide.
pcm11 has a very steep learning curve, especially for players who don't follow cycling too closely.
i'm reading Tour de France for Dummies by Lance Armstrong
to greater understand the game concepts.
Sigh I keep trying to write for my flat guide, and keep finding things I need to go over in the basic piece... if anyone can think of stuff I have missed in the basic please let me know, getting frustrated at having my mind try to write several different pieces at the same time.
@mresuperstar - no defence needed mate. i wasnt knocking the guide at all as i deem it to be quite awesome actually. i used it myself when first getting into PCM11 and it was very good. i did say that it was very good...just a bit outdated since it was 2006. i was only stating the obvious
@ Lachi, I'm generally avoiding what the guide always calls things, and going with what the forum calls it, I've almost always seen Dot in the forums, and for the energy gel, it looks like a battery, easier to understand. (not really sure what energy gel should look like though).
Kentaurus wrote:
Sigh I keep trying to write for my flat guide, and keep finding things I need to go over in the basic piece... if anyone can think of stuff I have missed in the basic please let me know, getting frustrated at having my mind try to write several different pieces at the same time.
flat stages...umm...flat stage race contents could include:
- team positioning (could incl positining for rider on water duties)
- reeling in breakaway (if desired)
- setting up sprint train
- sprinting
maybe this is too much info for a basic guide but i would deem these to be basic for a guide. i havent added attacking in there but it might be another subject to consider
i could of course be completely off track here as you might only be interested in controls to use etc. if so...i apologise Edited by JD317 on 17-08-2011 02:18
Ok, so now I have a video up for the flat stage, not sure if I plan to do a video for each one, as I don't think the others have anything near as complicated as running a sprint train.
and in my defense it was the best thing I could find at the time to help him 
So Kentaurus thanks for taking time to put this together, since the newcomers always seem to have trouble locating the information buried in this forums.
