Welcome to RCS, the story game where instead of leading you team of riders to glory in the more prestigious races, you do the opposite, make races and lead them to be won by the most prestigious teams!
In short, the game is really simple, I'll run a PCM career, before each season you can make managerial decisions: what races to start up, the race rules, routes, sponsors, advertising, prize money, etc. A lot of this will influence the one stat given to races in PCM: Popularity.
The goal of the game is to create prestigious races while carefully balancing your budget so you don't go bankrupt across the seasons. You won't be competing against other players so much as against the game, though the decisions of other players could influence your own, such as if your dates clash.
For a much more complete explanation of the game mechanics you can look into the wonderfully long spoiler below:
Spoiler
Sponsor Choice and Managing
Whenever you create a race, you will receive a PM with offers from sponsors, these will have a monetary offer as well as some clauses and general information, certain sponsors will give you more money but the race will be less popular, for some it's vice versa and this is largely dependant on the region you choose (Sponsors from the UAE for example would give a lot of money but not too much popularity).
On top of that they could have some additional clauses, this could be something like that the race name must contain the sponsor's name or that the race must be located in a certain city.
Finally, each sponsor will have their importance for three categories, these are Nationality, Quality of Racing and Quality of Startlist, the sponsors will calculate your budget according to how well your race matches their wishes in those three sections and they will also influence your race's popularity.
An explanation of the three categories:
Nationality: The performance of the home nation in the race
Qualitiy of Racing: Pretty self-explanatory, though it's worth noting that a flat race will be judged separately from a mountain race for example, because they have different expectations, also stage races will often score more here.
Quality of Startlist: How popular the riders on the startlist are.
These are of course subjective and will be scored by me after each race, just as in real life how popular a race is is largely subjective.
After you select your sponsor, you'll need to think about how you will spend the small amount of money you have after paying the mandatory Race Licensing Fee and Initial Organisational Fee. You can spend it on Advertising or Prize Money to influence your team's popularity (remember that the benefit of advertising will also give you half the additional popularity next season, while Prize Money is a one-off) you'll also have to spend some per stage you organise. Finally you can set the participation fee, a secondary source of income which is how much teams pay to you to compete. Also, any money from your initial budget that you do not spend will be kept for next season as well as any profits.
At the same time, you will be able to submit the route for your race, this can take two forms, either you can submit a zces and cds (preferably containing the zcts) file for the race (either PCM16 or zcts of PCM15) which has been made by you or somebody else or you can choose to create your own route and request that I make it, this will be done without any graphics and with me placing an emphasis on finishing as fast as possible, so you must clearly outline where there are different road surfaces (like cobbles or dirt) and any other details you want me to remember like sprints.
There are three important things to remember in terms of designing your route:
1. The route must have DEM files.
2. Remember the limitations for PCM, for example a lap in a lap race must be longer than 5km and a route can not immediately double back on itself.
3. The route must be made on real roads that are really in your chosen country (I'm not going to be a stickler, but if your race doesn't look like it could really exist in that country, especially if you submit a zces/zcts then I may refuse it).
4. Remember that PCM, as a rule, likes to break, so even if you comply with these guidelines, I may simply have to request you make a new route because PCM simply won't allow a route to be created.
You can also choose the Race Rules, the obvious rules that need setting are format (Road Race, ITT, TTT), Max. and Min. Number of Riders per Team and Max. Number of Teams (no more than 24). But if you think of anything else you can make a note to change that as well and if you really wish you can even submit an XML file (you can be creative here too, maybe a 'points' race by giving huge time bonuses at every sprint? Whatever you want within reason). Finally you can choose what date(s) your race will be held on.
At the end of each season, you may choose to make whatever route changes or race rule changes as you like, however you will incur a small popularity penalty if you make a very large change such as: Changing the Date by more than 10 days, moving the race considerably from it's original destination (new country, region, city if it's held only within one, etc.), changing from a one-day race to a stage race and vice versa, changing format, etc.
Promotion and Relegation
Your race will promote and demote based on two factors, popularity and the amount of money in your bank account at the end of the season, these combine to make your promotion score and the formula can be seen in the Costs Google Doc. If you exceed or equal the promotion score, I will send you an offer to promote, which you may refuse or accept, however if you drop below or equal the relegation score, you will be forced to relegate.
The Season
The season will be a career simulated by me it will be played on PCM16 and begin in 2017, using the PCM.Daily 2017 EP. I will present the season in monthly or bi-monthly updates, with each race owned by a player 'reported', I am yet to decide if the reports will be simple text reports or videos, though I am leaning towards the latter. I will also share the results of major races so that we don't lose touch with the Pro Cycling World, you can also request the results of a specific race or the results of a specific rider if you wish too.
Aside from our races, I will do minimal DB editing throughout the career, I may override some PCM transfers if I don't like the way they are going or I may relegate some races to .HC or remove them entirely if I feel we have created too many real races for the WT races to fit in.
FAQ
Obviously I haven't received any questions yet, but in anticipation of some likely questions here are some answers, I will also add any answers I feel necessary to this section:
What if my company goes bankrupt?
If your company goes bankrupt then you lose and your races go out of business, you're free to start up a new company and try again.
Can I have more than one race?
Yes, there will be no set limit on the number of races you can have - within reason. However, after your first race, you will get a smaller sponsor investment for any new races, which requires you to make a profit off race-sign ups to stay in business, so be wary of starting too many races in the first season. Also, your company's budget can be use for any race, so just because you have money from one race, doesn't mean it can't be spent on other races.
Will this be too time consuming?
Not at all! Sure, you can power game or spend hours getting your routes perfect, but you can also spend 10 minutes creating a race quickly that you don't worry about too much. You aren't competing against other players, so it's not like you are at a disadvantage for not putting hours into it.
Sign-Ups
The following application form can be filled in in the thread to sign-up:
Company Name:
Company Nationality:
Initial Race Region:
The Company Nationality will not have any actual influence on the game, however your Initial Race Region will influence where the sponsor offers for your first race come from, you can select as a broad or as small an area as you like, you can even write "Any" and I will choose three interesting countries for your sponsor offers to come from, however if you already have a very specific idea of where you want your race to be, I'd recommend choosing the specific country, region or even city you want the race to be held in.
Note that you don't have to use PCM regions whatsoever.
Once you apply in the thread, I will send you a PM with three sponsor offers for you to accept and a Google Docs link, this Google Document will be where you make the decisions about how you spend your money and the race rules. If you'd like, it's encouraged to make a post presenting your race and route after it's creation, however that's totally up to you.
If you wish to create another race, just apply as such in the thread (it's the same Race Company Name for all your races)
Race Company Name:
Race Region:
Race Division:
For the first season, I will limit new races joining to be .2 as you need a lot of spare budget to create a new race from scratch in a higher category. I'd also generally recommend only doing 1, max. 2 races (definitely not more than 1 stage race) for the first season at least, given your budet could be very tight.
Also, thanks to jandal for inspiration, suggestions and proofreading.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask, otherwise feel free to begin your company!
Edited by trekbmc on 13-04-2018 10:51
Company Name: Asociatie Pentru Turul Ciclist al Romaniei (association for the cycling tour of Romania
Company Nationality: Romanian
Initial Race Region: Romania
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game
Love the concept trekky, will play for sure, looking forward to it!
Company Name: Sexy Cycling Ltd.
Company Nationality: Italy
Initial Race Region: Lazio
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Thanks for the interest guys! Looking forward to seeing your races, those who have applied will be receiving a sponsor PM ASAP if they haven't already.
I'm giving out the first individual Google Docs now, they are relatively simple to understand and apply to all of your races but just in case here is an explanation of what to put where (it looks really long, but trust me it's all very simple, I just over explain )
Spoiler
First there is the Company Sheet, this shows 3 things for each season, the total initial budget of all your races, your total final budget and your total End of Season budget.
The Initial budget is the sum of all the money sponsor(s) have given you for your races.
The final budget is the budget after you have bought advertising, decided on prize money amounts, payed all your fees, etc. This may be negative, though it is generally advised against going too far negative.
The End of Season budget will be the same as the final budget for now, however, once your race(s) has been run, it will be updated to include the amount of money you have gained from race fees, if this is negative at the end of the season, your company will go bankrupt! Otherwise it will roll over into the new season.
More relevant is the races sheet. This is where you make your decisions.
in the 2017 section, you can set details for your race, the licensing and initial organisational fee have already been entered by me and you can enter the Advertising and Prize Money depending on how much you want to pay (in the costs sheet), you can then in the Advertising Pop. and Prize Money Pop. section enter the change in popularity you incur depending on how much you have spent.
The stage fees section is the sum of how much you pay to organise each stage of your race, the prices for which are available in the costs sheet. Note that if the stage is ridden on less than 40km of different roads (a circuit race or time trial, for example) the cost is different.
There is also race fees, this is the amount you charge each team to compete, set this in the same way as the advertising and Prize Money, but note that it is a positive for you which won't affect your budget until the end of the season. You can also enter the popularity change of the cost as per the Costs sheet.
Finally, in cells E3:E6, you can enter the max. and min. number of riders per team, as well as the maximum number of teams (no more than 24), you can write any details about the format, if it's a simple road race, just write Road Race.
Can we name the races we create with the same name as RL race, but with the RL race "disappearing"?
I'll put an example: Imagine i pick Slovenia as the nation where my company is based. Naturally i would create a Tour of Slovenia (if i would create a stage race), but there's already one. So in that case, would you delete the original race, and use my race? Or i wouldn't be able to use that name? It could be useful for RP, as if your company were buying races, in the same way ASO and RCS do in RL. But with the reputation levels like if was a new race
Company Name: TMM Sports Management
Company Nationality: British Virgin Islands (becuase, you know... tax reasons)
Initial Race Region: Pacific Northwest, USA
Because being able to use pre-existing cycling companies is always useful, especially after their success designing CX races for CX:AND and their recent work for as an yet un-announced project
I know the kind of race that'll be, but it'll be fun to have a second smaller and different race, so:
Race Company Name: TMM Sports Management
Race Region: Texas, USA
Race Division: .2
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Thanks for signing up guys! Sponsorship PMs are coming in.
Two notes:
1. If you want to change the name of a specific sponsor for RP reasons, that can probably be arranged.
2. Just remember that this sponsor will stick with your race forever, so you will always have to fulfil the clauses you sign up to.
Aquarius97 wrote:
Can we name the races we create with the same name as RL race, but with the RL race "disappearing"?
I'll put an example: Imagine i pick Slovenia as the nation where my company is based. Naturally i would create a Tour of Slovenia (if i would create a stage race), but there's already one. So in that case, would you delete the original race, and use my race? Or i wouldn't be able to use that name? It could be useful for RP, as if your company were buying races, in the same way ASO and RCS do in RL. But with the reputation levels like if was a new race
That's an interesting idea, I suppose it depends on the circumstances, sometimes it could be seen as removing the competition, but I can see the RP sense as well. I think I would allow it in a case like you just mentioned though (assuming irl Slovenia is 2.2, I'm not really sure ).
Here we go non-basque then, but we'll of course try to tell a story with our project.
International Company Name: Hanse Foundation Full National Company Name: Hanse-Stiftung für Leistungssport- und Nachwuchsförderung im Ostseeraum Company Nationality: German (Baltic Sea Region) Initial Race Region: Baltic Sea Region
The generic initial budget is the money you are given to organise that race, right?
For a .2 race, you are given 20k + what you get from sponsorship? In that case, i guess it's not very important if you create 1,2 or 5 races from scratch right?
Aquarius97 wrote:
The generic initial budget is the money you are given to organise that race, right?
For a .2 race, you are given 20k + what you get from sponsorship? In that case, i guess it's not very important if you create 1,2 or 5 races from scratch right?
Not quite, for your first race, you'll be given an average of 25k from your sponsor, then your specific sponsor could offer slightly more or less (the + and - system), then for any extra races, your sponsor will give you an average of 20k instead. The first season for any race will be the hardest, so that's why I recommend creating two at most, if your second race fails to make a profit (because the mandatory race fees alone will take up your whole budget) your first race could provide a safety net to save your company, however, it's perfectly fair to make 5 races if you want and there's no saying you won't manage to survive if you plan very well.
Company Name: Fiets en Vriend: The Imperialistic Flanders Cycling Confederation
Company Nationality: BEL
Initial Race Region: Flanders
I think we shouldn't remove races as Aquarius suggests, it's would be better to kill the competion, then take the name when the old race is dead. In your example your race name could be "Pepsi presents: Tour of the Slovenian Hills". Let's see Tour of Slovenia compete with that