In my Argos career, Omega Pharma has signed Cancellara and Vansummeren for next season, so that with Ballan and Flecha both retiring, they have 5 out of the 7 best cobblers now (the other two being Pozzato and Boom). That's not going to be boring at all
I'm in year 2018 in my walmart carrer, Rein Taaramae wo the giro by putting 2:30 minutes on Gorka izaguire, Rigoberto Uran would have won if he haden't lost 13 minutes on the first stage,
I do also have 3 80+ cobblers in Sagan, Offredo and Gaudin,
the whole cobbled season was a fantastic succses except for P-R, where Gaudin was caght in a split, Sagan fell and Offredo had a -5 daily form,
Anyways, the team is set for the TDF where Tejay Van Garderen is looking to win the GC after a couple yearsof top 5 riding, Talansky is there to help him out, as Talnsky is starting to turn the page n the prime of his Carrer,
my main sprinters are Benat urain, Nacir Bouhani and Peter Sagan
Sagan has deveoped more as a cobbler and a hilly classic guy instead of a sprinter, but he has still been great addition
Sergio Henao i ready to win la Vuelta after being on the podium for 3 straight years without winning it,
all in all, I love this carrer
EDIT: this is 2016 not 2018 sorry
Edited by maxime86 on 11-06-2013 23:36
@Maxime Wow, 2018! That's nice! Would it be annoying if I ask how good Kelderman developed?
Update on my ING - Shell career
Small writeup:
Spoiler
Promoted to PCT, got Chainel, Dumoulin, Groenewegen, Le Mevel, Wellens, De Bie & Olivier. Second season, March.
Chainel managed to win Driedaagse of West Vlaanderen (Not sure how anymore, I believe it was by wheelsucking after late cobbled sections and then winning the sprint).
Then, after some minor cobbled races, it was time for 2 2.HC races.
At first, Criterium International. Strong line-up. Used one of the many Crit International variants, this one was: 1. Flat. 2. 22km hilly TT(not the easy to win kind of hilly TTs though). 3. Tough hilly stage.
Groenewegen couldn't do a lot in Stage 1, due to guys like Coquard(developed to 78 SP from 77SP now) being on good form there. Groenewegen developed to 76 SP btw.
On the hilly TT, I had Olivier in amazing form, and despite him not being a great TTist, he got 5th. Dumoulin(way better TTist normally, but bad form) got 6th.
The last stage was great though, it ended up with a sort of a sprint with the 10 men that were left. Olivier got 5th, Dumoulin about 8th I think.
In the end, Olivier got 4th on the GC + U25 jersey, and Dumoulin 7th.
Then, there was De Panne. Using the 2013 route by SN, and that route proved to be very open.
What a great success this race was, my gosh
Stage 1 has some tough cobbled sections and hills. I got my neo Van den Berg in the break. After the last cobbles, I decided to let Dumoulin attack. Break was a minute ahead. Dumoulin got to the break fairly quickly.
Van den Bergh rode away from the break along with Dumoulin. He was empty fast, but Dumoulin had a nice gap.
It got very close to the finish. Dumoulin 45 seconds left, 6km to go. Dumoulin 35 seconds left, 4,5km to go. Dumoulin 25 left, with 2km to go, but completely empty. Etc.
Sprinters came closer and closer.
This was the outcome. SO CLOSE!
Spoiler
Stage 2. I had full responsiblity to chase the break. Well, my team can't handle that, so I didn't.
I put De Bie in the break, and refused to do anything. Others refused as well. There was a strong break with Hermans(71 SP) and Salomein(72SP). With 10km to go, it got very tactical, with a lot of attacks and hard relays etc.
De Bie survived with a few others though, and won the sprint. Chainel was smart and attacked before the end as well, gaining him an 8th spot on the GC, and De Bie a first place(also fighting for boni secs earlier, so 18 secs out front )
Spoiler
Stage 3 just got normal, but Van der Sande(75SP) couldn't do much.
Stage 4 was the TT. De Bie isn't very good at TTs, Hermans, Devenyns & De Maar are better, though the latter 2 were gapped a little bit on stage 2. De Bie was in good form though.
This was the result:
Spoiler
Securing points jersey and U25 jersey as well.
Plenty of ranking points
In fact, we're even 12th on the CQ ranking! 12TH!!!
We'll fall back a lot, I've got a lot of my riders already peaking. Promotion isn't realistic at all. In fact, even 2 CT teams are in front of us, so if things end like this, we're still not promotion.
Also, Dumoulin developed in a beast.
75 FL, 71MO, 75HI, 75TT, 75PRL, 72COB.
Long story for a few races, but I wanted to tell you this, I had some great fun!
Spoiler
Still playing on hard though, don't worry, otherwise I'd have moved up now.
eple wrote:
Good stuff, Jesleyh. Great tactic on stage 2. I'd like to see your squad list with attributes, if you don't mind posting one.
Thanks
Here it is.
Team developed really hard. At least some of them(Groenewegen, Dumoulin, Wellens, Olivier and Kok, Bovenhuis and Ter Haar good as well). A few disappointments in terms of development(Eijssen, De Bie, and some of the domestiques).
Anyway, a team that can clearly handle keeping in PCT, but is way too bad for the 12th place in CQ ranking they currently have. They will fall back at least to 25th I think. But that's all fine.
Btw, if someone noticed, file is named wrongly, it says April_2013 instead of 2014
Cheers! Dumoulin looks good. Can sneak the odd great win, I'm sure. I don't recognize many names there though. Are they mostly young talents?
I'm thinking for my for pcm13 game I'll start with a small conti squad. Maybe even as small as possible, and look for talents. I'm realizing that what I enjoy most is not winning but the development part of it. Building a squad and seeing the riders improve. As soon as they have reached their potential I get bored of it.
eple wrote:
Cheers! Dumoulin looks good. Can sneak the odd great win, I'm sure. I don't recognize many names there though. Are they mostly young talents?
I'm thinking for my for pcm13 game I'll start with a small conti squad. Maybe even as small as possible, and look for talents. I'm realizing that what I enjoy most is not winning but the development part of it. Building a squad and seeing the riders improve. As soon as they have reached their potential I get bored of it.
Yes, most of those are (rather big) talents, on both PCM and real life. I expected most of my leaders I chose at the start(Groenewegen, De Bie, Olivier, Eijssen, Wellens) to develop hard. 3/5 certainly did
It's fun, because I follow most of them a bit in RL(only result-wise) as well.
Starting with a small Conti squad is certainly a good idea! It's basically what I always do(this time it wasn't that small though). Sometimes I choose a CT team I like, and sometimes I make myself a small CT team.
eple wrote:
What would be a good squad size, you think? Minimum is 8, right? I guess with 12 you can make up two squads, but it leaves less money for staff.
I would advise at least 12, so you can spread it over 2 races
eple wrote:
What would be a good squad size, you think? Minimum is 8, right? I guess with 12 you can make up two squads, but it leaves less money for staff.
Depends on how big you want your team.
If you start with 0% money, there's a minimum of 10 cyclists, 10% = min. 11 cyclists, 20% = min. 12 cyclists. (Over 20% is PCT so no option)
I'd start with 12 or 16 cyclists. At least that's ideal, others are of course an option as well. The numbers under, above or between that give problems. Some are not having enough cyclists to do all races you want, and with some you can't get your planning right if you devide in groups
I think I started with 16 cyclists. And I devide them in 4 groups instead of 2. But if you want a smaller team, 12 seems perfect.
Though if you do that it's best not to ride Italian NC, 9/10 you'll have to alt F4 
