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Criterium du Dauphine Libere Discussion Thread
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| dave92 |
Posted on 26-03-2012 21:26
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Classics Specialist
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just came back from vacation, and before reading any of the results need to compliment the great Cleaver reference in the preview.
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| fenian_1234 |
Posted on 26-03-2012 22:43
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Huge TT result for Rogers - he's been smoking everyone in the longer TT's this year. If he cannot limit his losses might just hang on to a Top 10 finish. Ivars up there too sniffing around a top 20 finish. |
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| fenian_1234 |
Posted on 26-03-2012 22:51
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SotD wrote:
alexkr00 wrote:
Kami, if you don't want Burghardt to lose points maybe you should build a cobbled team to chase down breakaways. You can't just buy a team leader and expect other teams to do your work.
Problem is that it doesn't work. You can have the strongest cobbled lineup in the world, but if the other teams won't help chasing because they are shitty it doesn't make a difference. And in all fairness quite a few teams give a damn about the cobbles, and so they only have 1 or perhaps 2 strong cobblers. The rest is just random riders taking place, perhaps with 66-68 cobbled stat.
I agree that it has been too random this year, and that splits have caused too many random things. I like that you will draw experiences through the season, so you will learn from it and improve towards the next season. But what can I learn from Fothen crashing out of the Giro? Contador crashing within the last 2km og California, and what can I learn from the abnormal splits that have cost my team leaders somewhere between 30min and 1hour in total this season? Nothing. I can't seem to find that it is more likely to happen without a strong team. It happens no matter how strong they are.
So next season I could go for the exact same team, and without the bad luck be 2nd in the PT rankings. Luck shouldn't determine that much imo. 2 places in the PT, 3 at the MAX due to randomness. The rest should be put into quality of the team, and the cleverness of the manager. And in all fairness that last part was EXTREMELY important previously. SN has done wonders with teams on par, and Sony Ericsson won with a decent team last year. Who could take credit for that? The managers. Just like they should. It wasn't because all the others crashed that Sony Ericsson won.
My view on it is slightly different. I think by and large the PT has been pretty good with as p3druh a touch of randomness at times.
The races with the biggest problems I reckon have been CT.
I'm no stage making expert, but I put it down to the way the stages are been made/settings entered into the .db. Something like the Dauphine is made for everyone and gets a decent amount of play. Something lower profile like Guatamela or Tachira just doesn't get the same and I think that's why some of the races in the CT have been quite infuriating. Could be completely wrong of course, but is my impression..... |
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| mb2612 |
Posted on 26-03-2012 23:29
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Team Leader
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fenian_1234 wrote:
SotD wrote:
alexkr00 wrote:
Kami, if you don't want Burghardt to lose points maybe you should build a cobbled team to chase down breakaways. You can't just buy a team leader and expect other teams to do your work.
Problem is that it doesn't work. You can have the strongest cobbled lineup in the world, but if the other teams won't help chasing because they are shitty it doesn't make a difference. And in all fairness quite a few teams give a damn about the cobbles, and so they only have 1 or perhaps 2 strong cobblers. The rest is just random riders taking place, perhaps with 66-68 cobbled stat.
I agree that it has been too random this year, and that splits have caused too many random things. I like that you will draw experiences through the season, so you will learn from it and improve towards the next season. But what can I learn from Fothen crashing out of the Giro? Contador crashing within the last 2km og California, and what can I learn from the abnormal splits that have cost my team leaders somewhere between 30min and 1hour in total this season? Nothing. I can't seem to find that it is more likely to happen without a strong team. It happens no matter how strong they are.
So next season I could go for the exact same team, and without the bad luck be 2nd in the PT rankings. Luck shouldn't determine that much imo. 2 places in the PT, 3 at the MAX due to randomness. The rest should be put into quality of the team, and the cleverness of the manager. And in all fairness that last part was EXTREMELY important previously. SN has done wonders with teams on par, and Sony Ericsson won with a decent team last year. Who could take credit for that? The managers. Just like they should. It wasn't because all the others crashed that Sony Ericsson won.
My view on it is slightly different. I think by and large the PT has been pretty good with as p3druh a touch of randomness at times.
The races with the biggest problems I reckon have been CT.
I'm no stage making expert, but I put it down to the way the stages are been made/settings entered into the .db. Something like the Dauphine is made for everyone and gets a decent amount of play. Something lower profile like Guatamela or Tachira just doesn't get the same and I think that's why some of the races in the CT have been quite infuriating. Could be completely wrong of course, but is my impression.....
I think the CT tour has the issue as stated above, that people are making bespoke stages, often with worse or no drm files, leading to stages which cause more randomness. One example would be my tour of SA queen stage, where the fact that I made it with a single lane road for most of the last 50km, meaning that there are always odd splits on the penultimate climb.
The other is the fact mentioned earlier that teams often have only 1 leader and not much else, meaning they can't control a race if anyone decent is given time. Look at the top three in the CT tour, all have hilly riders who hunted in packs, meaning that they have the strength to put someone in the break or chase if they don't have anyone there. Breaks still get away too easily, but it's as much on the teams as the game. How many times have Puma let the break get away from Bennati?
 [url=www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=33182] Team Santander Media Thread[/url]
Please assume I am joking unless otherwise stated |
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| CountArach |
Posted on 27-03-2012 00:42
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Grand Tour Champion
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These last 3 stages have been great reports.
On the issues of cobbled teams I like to think that, if nothing else, my team has proven that a couple of low 70s cobbled domestiques and one in the high 70s is enough to destroy races and bring it back together.
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 07:05
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
Joined: 29-11-2006
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Could be the small roads. Perhaps we should make a two lane as the narrowest? I know it's not realistic, but the results made of the single lanes aren't either. Just looked at the Div2 race, which looked PERFECT on paper, but the narrow roads made it impossible for the Peloton to regain contact.
Is this the way to solve the split issue?
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 07-12-2025 15:21
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| mb2612 |
Posted on 27-03-2012 07:09
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Team Leader
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SotD wrote:
Could be the small roads. Perhaps we should make a two lane as the narrowest? I know it's not realistic, but the results made of the single lanes aren't either. Just looked at the Div2 race, which looked PERFECT on paper, but the narrow roads made it impossible for the Peloton to regain contact.
Is this the way to solve the split issue?
I think many stage makers have stopped using narrow roads.
The D2 race was more in trouble because the teams were working for their cobbled leaders, who they kept dropping, so they would slow down to let them catch. Also D2 has been a breakfest all season with the small teams and so many riders of a similar level.
[url=www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=33182] Team Santander Media Thread[/url]
Please assume I am joking unless otherwise stated |
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 08:36
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World Champion
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mb2612 wrote:
SotD wrote:
Could be the small roads. Perhaps we should make a two lane as the narrowest? I know it's not realistic, but the results made of the single lanes aren't either. Just looked at the Div2 race, which looked PERFECT on paper, but the narrow roads made it impossible for the Peloton to regain contact.
Is this the way to solve the split issue?
I think many stage makers have stopped using narrow roads.
The D2 race was more in trouble because the teams were working for their cobbled leaders, who they kept dropping, so they would slow down to let them catch. Also D2 has been a breakfest all season with the small teams and so many riders of a similar level.
Yeah but we have race deciding splits in every single PT race aswell. So it's not only for the D2 races, or CT races for that matter.
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| roturn |
Posted on 27-03-2012 08:48
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Team Manager
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The narrow roads are definitely one big factor as most splits happen there. Already in PCM10 the narrow roads annoyed even before the blocking issue.
On mountain stages the narrow road shouldn`t start before 1-2 km to the top. Then it doesn`t really matter as the group is already smaller. Most stagemaker already do this.
In classics like my Milan San Remo, Amstel Gold or the cobbled classics like Ronde VV you unfortunately need these narrow roads on the specific points. Otherwise most of them will end in a sprint of 100+ riders. Luckily the AI seems to handle these races better than hilly stage races.
In general we might have a look on the stages and should avoid the stage races with narrow roads all up the hill/mountain and also the stages with wavy climbs when there are 25%/-10/18... and so on during one climb in 10m sections. |
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 27-03-2012 08:50
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World Champion
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SotD wrote:
mb2612 wrote:
SotD wrote:
Could be the small roads. Perhaps we should make a two lane as the narrowest? I know it's not realistic, but the results made of the single lanes aren't either. Just looked at the Div2 race, which looked PERFECT on paper, but the narrow roads made it impossible for the Peloton to regain contact.
Is this the way to solve the split issue?
I think many stage makers have stopped using narrow roads.
The D2 race was more in trouble because the teams were working for their cobbled leaders, who they kept dropping, so they would slow down to let them catch. Also D2 has been a breakfest all season with the small teams and so many riders of a similar level.
Yeah but we have race deciding splits in every single PT race aswell. So it's not only for the D2 races, or CT races for that matter.
I agree this PCM is too much random in opposite to the previous ones (i was not here on the forum but i have read lots of past man-game reports from the different years). For me it is fault of many joint factors as narrow roads, the unpassable riders (nice realistic feature but it somewhat screw up the gameplay also in single-player) and most of all shitty AI especially on the flat/downhill and the fact that we can see team leaders working for the sprinters or better placed teammate who sucks on the steep terrain and so...
In Div2 these factors are intesified by balance of the riders and 5 men teams. I have the clearly best puncher in Division and he was twice in top 10 as the best results, with almost races ruined by breakaway (cobbled races even worse in this), so i know how you guys feel 
Edit: Now as i see the results of 6th stage i also forgot to mention crashes, they ruin the favourites races too often, but that is close to the real life.
Especially Festina and Jack Wolfskin seems to be cursed this year 
Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 27-03-2012 09:02
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| ember |
Posted on 27-03-2012 09:01
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Team Leader
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Narrow roads together with the new blocking system is a killer in PCM11, that's for sure, especially on mountains/hills that's not the finishing climb, I feel. For the narrow roads on cobbled, the favourites somehow usually manage to stay in the right group. I haven't got a clue why that happends.
But yeah, I think it could be a good idea to go for mountain stages that have 2 "lanes," as a favourite or two always is in great danger of being blocked, simply because he can't pass the rider in front of him, who's out of energy. Fair enough, splits are part of the game, and part of cycling. But too many isn't great.
But all in all, I think the season has been good so far. Though, I don't have that much to compare with, as this is my first season where I follow absolutely all races closely. But looking to PT, Boonen was dominant on cobbles, the Giro had a good top 10, and the same goes for the Vuelta. The hills are always going to be a bit random, but Schleck and Bakelants were definitely the 2 riders who did best through the spring when speaking of hills. La Doyenne were a great example of good racing, I think. Early splits happened, but determined chasing made riders/groups come together again, before it splitted for "real" with 40-60 kilometers left, and in the end it was a great battle between the strongest puncheurs out there. MSR was another good monument, were Festina were paid off nicely, having two winning options.
But of course, having "too much" bad luck is never fun, and it will never be. But you can't really do anything else than come back stronger next season or next race.
Edited by ember on 27-03-2012 09:03
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:35
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
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So yet again I feel like breaking the game disc, even if it's not in my drive. This game fucks me over, again and again and again. Serpa already fucked over on a previous stage, so it doesn't matter shit, that he does well here. And obviously a shitty AI to let him attack instead of Contador, who crashes for the 3 time in 4 races for him.
I officially hate this game.
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:41
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Team Manager
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This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:50
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
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SportingNonsense wrote:
This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
It wasn't meant to put more time on you. More like a question on how to solve the problem. Cause it's really sucky seeing your captains slipping over, and over. And if they don't crash they position themselves behind some random shit rider who drops for no obvious reason.
Is the other PCM version better suited for this Man-Game? Or what could be a solution?
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:51
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World Champion
Posts: 13662
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SotD wrote:
SportingNonsense wrote:
This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
It wasn't meant to put more time on you. More like a question on how to solve the problem. Cause it's really sucky seeing your captains slipping over, and over. And if they don't crash they position themselves behind some random shit rider who drops for no obvious reason.
Is the other PCM version better suited for this Man-Game? Or what could be a solution?
I think only one is to hope for better AI in PCM 2012.
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:55
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
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Avin Wargunnson wrote:
SotD wrote:
SportingNonsense wrote:
This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
It wasn't meant to put more time on you. More like a question on how to solve the problem. Cause it's really sucky seeing your captains slipping over, and over. And if they don't crash they position themselves behind some random shit rider who drops for no obvious reason.
Is the other PCM version better suited for this Man-Game? Or what could be a solution?
I think only one is to hope for better AI in PCM 2012.
Well it's not out yet is it? And the last couple of versions has been unplayable before the patches, so it could be 4-5 months until the new version is good enough for the Man-Game, and even then it's only guessing, as we can't tell if it will be any better.
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:55
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Team Manager
Posts: 31706
Joined: 08-03-2007
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Avin Wargunnson wrote:
SotD wrote:
SportingNonsense wrote:
This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
It wasn't meant to put more time on you. More like a question on how to solve the problem. Cause it's really sucky seeing your captains slipping over, and over. And if they don't crash they position themselves behind some random shit rider who drops for no obvious reason.
Is the other PCM version better suited for this Man-Game? Or what could be a solution?
I think only one is to hope for better AI in PCM 2012.
Indeed, the next season will either be PCM2011 or moving to PCM2012.
Im not sure how the game decides which riders should ride where in the peloton. Beyond that the race leader is always near the front, and if you have a top favourite for the stage, they will be too.
I will be changing the Team IDs around at the end of the season, just in case it is that, but Im not sure that they really affect anything
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 10:59
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
Joined: 29-11-2006
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SportingNonsense wrote:
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
SotD wrote:
SportingNonsense wrote:
This race just gets more and more random.
With the stages, its hard. Its challenging enough to pick the races based on profiles alone, and getting a balanced overall calendar - I dont really have the time to also play through each stage and see if they use too much narrow roads or not.
All these crashes are a fault of the game though, not much to do about that
It wasn't meant to put more time on you. More like a question on how to solve the problem. Cause it's really sucky seeing your captains slipping over, and over. And if they don't crash they position themselves behind some random shit rider who drops for no obvious reason.
Is the other PCM version better suited for this Man-Game? Or what could be a solution?
I think only one is to hope for better AI in PCM 2012.
Indeed, the next season will either be PCM2011 or moving to PCM2012.
Im not sure how the game decides which riders should ride where in the peloton. Beyond that the race leader is always near the front, and if you have a top favourite for the stage, they will be too.
I will be changing the Team IDs around at the end of the season, just in case it is that, but Im not sure that they really affect anything
Okay, I just can't see why my riders have been so affected then. Pozzato has been the 2nd or 3rd favorite for the Paris-Nice or Tirreno. He also has been for some stages, but he tends to crash out or be caught in the split. Same this has happened for Contador even being 2nd favorite. Fothen was probably not a favorite in the Giro, and that might be due to simple bad luck.
But I can't seem to find the way of beating it for next season. If only I could find a path of bad behaviour in the game, then I could plan my way out of it, but I simply can't find it. No matter how good/bad my team structure is for a certain race, it is the same bad luck.
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-03-2012 15:33
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
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Contador clearly in the shape to take a podium here, but splits and crashes puts him in 8th, and probably 9th after tomorrows final stage. Bakelants will surely gain atleast 30 seconds on him.
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 27-03-2012 15:36
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Sprinter
Posts: 1982
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Looks like 5th is as good as its going to get, and I'm happy with that, especially with the breakaway results. Great work ember, cranking out the reports fast and they are really exciting.
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