Thanks mate. Yes, it might end up as a bit of a "devl in the details" but I hopei it's worth it if Grand Tours and MTO stages get more interesting that way.
Also thank you for the XML files.
Another issue, though: Since the end of this season's Tour de France (season 6) the game crashes a lot. Sometimes every 5 minutes, sometimes it takes 2 hours, depends. It actually started around the start of Vuelta Burgos and it keeps happening up until now (Lombardia). This is weird as it hasn't happen before in such a repeated, constant order. Any ideas guys how to fix this?
It usually happens while stages, in which I am not included, simulate or sometimes just when I'm in the team menu, like when I look at UCI rankings of past years or so. Races and normal quick simulation seem to work though. I could imagine there's somewhere a data or so that causes this crashes, but I am no expert in such things so I really don't have much of an idea. I play on a Laptop, Windows 7 and usually let my iTunes run together with the game because I like to listen to music. However, I have done this all the time and I find it weird that this issue comes forward now and I doubt that this has particularly something to do with iTunes or my Laptop but rather the game itself (but I could be wrong too).
Edited by Shonak on 10-09-2013 13:48
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
For me it's more fun but seeing as the game more or less falls apart, it becomes all very frustrating.
Just searched a bit through the technical issue forum and this guy had the same problem as I do. https://pcmdaily.c...d_id=24034
(Basically) the same issues. Really wonder if this is more a problem of my laptop, of the DB, the game itself or whatever. And how to fix it. By the way, the crashes don't occur during off-season although the season transition on Dec 31 crashed 3 times while the third time it did load fully. I think it might has something to do with simulated stages and the loading screen itself but the crashes occur quite irregular I'd say so I can't say for sure.
Edited by Shonak on 11-09-2013 01:23
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
@Blueprint: Is there a chance you could upload your Database? I manged to play a few MT stages and it was way more exciting with reduced resistance. Unfortunately the game is next to unplayable due to the constant crashes and obvioulsy I'm not very eager to edit everything again. Have you also changed the Age of Decline for some/most riders?
Might start a new career with Lampre, Astana or Movistar. Not sure yet, we'll see.^^
Edited by Shonak on 12-09-2013 15:21
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Shonak wrote:
@Blueprint: Is there a chance you could upload your Database? I manged to play a few MT stages and it was way more exciting with reduced resistance. Unfortunately the game is next to unplayable due to the constant crashes and obvioulsy I'm not very eager to edit everything again. Have you also changed the Age of Decline for some/most riders?
Might start a new career with Lampre, Astana or Movistar. Not sure yet, we'll see.^^
Age of Decline is set just fine in PCM.Daily DB, don't worry about that. However, I do change it for all the generated riders once every season, so they won't decline too fast.
Uploading the database is a little bit tricky, as I did some work on stage xml files too and did not keep track of which files I have exactly edited. Maybe I can upload all the stage xml files with the DB, will check this weekend.
Hehe, but I imagine if he has 85 at MTO he'd be riding everything on his saddle. Not exactly what I'd call realistic. They need to give him a proper animation, just for him.
Anyway, didn't you read my private message I sent you? I have downloaded the Post-Update TDF and the stats look all really good. So I actually don't need it anymore. I really don't know why the resistance and other stats were so high in my first career, I think it's because I installed the DB before I installed Patch 1.4.0.0. It all looks good now, anyway. Anyhoo, sorry for the inconvenience and thanks again.
However, the game still crashes actually. It's not so bad as it used to, but yeah... I re-installed it and all but it still struggles. Might have to reinstall it again and again, dunno.
I usually change at the start of the new careers following things:
STA_cyclist_progession
Sponsor Year Max for certain teams
Some rider stats from other teams to make competition harder
I also copied Blueprints youngrider files before the start of the career, however I am pretty sure that they are not the original error that keeps crashing the game.
You guys think that any of these database changes might cause the game to crash? Otherwise, I might just have to reinstall it again and again until all's good. Should one delete saves when deleting the game, maybe this error is more a saving issue, dunno.
Careerwise: Between my constant complaining and frustrating crashes I actually manage to play a few stages. I chose Lampre-Merida and I really enjoy playing them so far. Pozzato got a 2nd place at Ronde van Vlaanderen and a 3rd at MSR. He crashed and had a flat tire at Paris-Roubaix... and got 26th rank. Meh. Scarponi focuses on Giro, rode a good Tirreno though. 2nd place and a stage win. Ulissi took a stage at Catalunya. So they are really fun to play so far, although one really has to manage his resources. They are infinitely weaker than my Volkswagen squad, which I actually prefer.
Might start a Euskatel career though, if only they had a good rider for cobblestone *sigh* Edited by Shonak on 16-09-2013 13:14
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
I don't know about the crashes, but I think they could be related to the increased size of the .cdb file and limited RAM resources in your laptop. That's just an educated guess though and I'm afraid there's not much you can do about it, but maybe some in the Technical Issues forum can help you further.
Did the Giro without Nibali, quite a challenging experience. Wiggins was on his way to win the GC, but crashed out of the race and had to leave the victory to Hesjedal. Van Garderen and Uran completed the podium, but my Astana team can be very satisfied with Brajkovic 4th, Tiralongo 8th, the mountain jersey for Aru and 2 stage wins (Ponzi, Tiralongo). Much better than expected and a lot of fun to ride so aggressively.
As far as I can tell, these races are always the most fun. When superior riders fight for GC and you just try to take a few seconds from them now and then, go for stage wins or just sometimes go all in for no apparent reason. When you ride with a leader it's always very careful riding (at least for me) most of the time.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
I'm back playing the game. I got a bit frustrated with the gap between the PCMDaily DB and the generated riders, so I got some different xml-files and started a new game with Astana. So far it's looking much more balanced and the best youths will hopefully be good enough to eventually challenge the better riders.
Had a much better 1st season than expected, swopping up many GC wins and a few classics. Very surprised by how awesome Iglinskiy and Gasparotto are. I've always avoided the pure punchers and gone for riders who are good in all climbs, but I understand better how to use them now. I'm using them as leaders in hilly tours and it's going great, winning Paris-Nice and Tirr-Ad amongst others.
2nd season now and it's much more challenging. It seemed the AI riders were all unfit for most of the 1st season. Nibbles got the Giro-Vuelta double last season, and I was planning to let him do TdF this season, but the sponsor gave 5 stars for 1st in both tours so I'm hoping for a repeat.
I hope to renew the Astana contract and focus on eastern European and Italian riders. Although I have signed Kelderman as all the others more natural choices I tired to sign had no interest.
Edited by eple on 21-09-2013 16:03
Good to see you back, eple. I totally get your point with starting a new career: My Volkswagen team felt a little bit dull too, right now I enjoy Lampre-Merida.
And I really mean I enjoy them. Meaning, very little crashes. I suppose I only have to complain enough and the game fixes itself. For example I switched the documents folder, so maybe that's a reason.
Right now I'm at the end of the Vuelta. I play with the Post-TDF update, very good stats mostly.I already fixed some stats again (making Mountainlimit 82, which seems to mean that way more breakaways win a stage) though, but this time I made a back-up copy. Also, I used Blueprints xml files again. Right now, crashes are very little, although they still occur.
Seasonwise things look pretty good and I had some memorable races.
Pozzato did good at MSR and Ronde van Vlaanderen, won Vattenfall Cyclassics and might be looking at a good run at the Canada classics now. Paris-Roubaix was a disaster though, since he crashed two times and got a flat tire. Rank 26 in the end. Pozzato also did good at small italian one-day races. In total he is the guy with the most victories this season, 6 or something like that.
Scarponi also crashed in a race two times at the Giro d'Italia. The second time was a huuuuge crash with like 150 riders. That was just insane. Never seen a crash like it. Except for most of the GC contenders and the riders int the breakaway, basically everybody crashed. He managed to get 4th place though thus fulfilling the sponsor goal. There was no way past Nibali & Wiggins anyway, but he could have probably made 3rd place with a little bit more luck against Talansky. Scarponi came in close 2nd place at Tirreno-Adriatico, 4th place at Crit-Dauph.
Overall, I did not get any GT wins at all but at least some stage wins. Cunego won stage 4 & 18 or so at the Giro in breakaways, while Cimolai won a flat breakaway stage. Ulissi got Mountain Jersey at the Tour de France and two stage wins. Pietropoli won stage 3 & 4 at the Vuelta. Also some fine Top 10 rankings at the Ardennes classics.
So, some decent succees. I like it when my team isn't so strong (maybe I should start with a cont-team next time?). Financially I ran into some trouble though. At first I had 2 legendary coaches, now I only have one international. There's just not enough money and I made like 60k loss each month. Next year I can invest again in some more coaches since I get rid of some very expensive riders (Petacchi, Serpa). Also I reduced existing contracts, for example Scarponi, Cunego. So I save a bit. 4 riders will leave the team in total, new ones come in: Poels (awesome!), Guarnieri (finally a second domestique for cobblestone, also a good sprinter), Verona (my favourite talent at my last career at Volkswagen, really wonder how this guy will do this time), Pozzovivo (2nd team captain at Giro, probably main one at Vuelta) plus two italian youngster, scouted in Venizia.
Looking forward to next season now. Sponsor renewal is then and I hope to cash in a little bit more. Maybe I even get Nibali or Aru, but I'm actually quite satisfied with my squad. Less winning, more fighting.
EDIT:
Careeroverview...
Tour de France 2013
1. Froome (Sky)
2. Contador (TST)
3. Quintana (Movistar)
best result: Ulissi on rank 18 or so. Niemiec got injured on stage 20 at GT rank 14 -.-, 2 stage wins
Vuelta 2013
1. Rodriguez (KAT)
2. Henao (SKY)
3. Talansky (GRS) - he took 2 minutes away from Froome at the Angliru stage. Well, that will probably never happen in real life but still quite nice.
best result:
Cunego 19th, Ulissi 20th. Pietropolli 2 stage wins.
MSR:
RvV: Cancellara (Boonen injured)
P-R: Cancellara (Boonen still injured)
L-B-L: Hesjedal (... yeah, that was weird)
Lombardia: Sagan
WC: Valverde
WC ITT: Talansky
btw, I had to downgrade Kwiatowski a bit. He won Paris-Nice and Catalunya. He's good, but not really that good yet. Also downgraded Froome & Quintana to 82, whilst upgrading Contador and Nibalis potential to 82. Maybe I'll downgrade some sprinters for better competition (Cav went all out at TdF). Hm, I'll see.
Edited by Shonak on 22-09-2013 21:47
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
eple wrote:
Very surprised by how awesome Iglinskiy and Gasparotto are. I've always avoided the pure punchers and gone for riders who are good in all climbs, but I understand better how to use them now. I'm using them as leaders in hilly tours and it's going great, winning Paris-Nice and Tirr-Ad amongst others.
Astana is always a great choice! And Gasparotto & Iglinskiy are very useful indeed. I tend to not let them ride any grand tours, but focus on Tour Down Under (easy 1-2 result) and then build up to the classics from Tirreno/Paris-Nice through Milano-Sanremo, Catalunya and Pais Vasco. Then a long break, some races in August and a second form peak on the Canadian WT-races, the Worlds and Lombardia. Success guaranteed
Normally I let Nibali ride the Giro & Vuelta too, but, as I wrote earlier, I decided to take advantage of the 2013 Tour de France parcours to have a go at the yellow jersey. So, Nibali started his season in the Volta ao Algarve and then did Murcia and Almeria to have an early season peak in Tirreno-Adriatico, which he won pretty easily. Then a classic Poggio attack in Milano-Sanremo, but the peloton was alert and Nibali got caught.
After Sanremo, Nibali took a break and warmed up for Tour de Suisse via Tour du Luxembourg and GP Kanton Aargau. In Suisse, he once again won easily, with strong support from Fuglsang and Kangert. Then he took the Italian TT championship, but the road race was too flat to make an impression.
In the meanwhile, we've also been busy at the transfer market: Ponzi, Tiralongo, Seeldraeyers, Huffman and Brajkovic are leaving Astana. Found strong replacements though with Pozzato, Betancur, Felline, Bongiorno and neo-pro Nazarbayev, an amazing talent from Kazachstan, likely to become a strong GC contender in the future.
So finished 2014 Lampre Season much faster than expected. Sim'd through of lots of races though (as usual), especially nearly the entire Vuelta (except for 3 MT-stages, had to play Angliru stage of course <3 ) because the competition was so extremely dull and boring... I normaly play either Tirreno-Adr. or Paris-Nice (depending on Sponsor), MSR, Vlaanderen Classics, Ardenees Classics, Grand Tours, WC, Lombardia... so I'm a pretty straight-forward guy I suppose. I can't get bothered to play Crit-Dauph or Tour de Suisse for example when I'm already anxious for Tour.
Still a great season with a lot of surprise. Pozzovivo got a 3rd place at Giro 2014, 6 seconds behind Rodriguez. Still it's a won 3rd place rather than a lost 2nd place since Mollema dropped out of the race at 2nd place a few days before the final day. Very close though. Giro route was quite boring though, too many flat stages, 2 time trials and a MT-time trial. My squad was pretty decent and I had riders to sent into many breakaways. Happy with Scarponis win on a snowy mountain and Cattaenos monsterdecent where he dropped Evans and some other good riders to win a second stage. Pozzovivo mostly tried to hang onto to Uran, Rodriguez and Mollema. It sometimes worked great, sometimes didn't. The two time trials didn't excatly play into my cards, just as the many flat stages, but most attacks I tried wern't successful anyway with him. On the last MT-stage of course I tried it again and again but there wasn't much that I could do against Purito (set his Age of Decline up to 36, maybe I shouldn't have done that :lol. Pozzovivo has improved since then in MT so he might even has a shot at the Giro next season. We'll see.
It was even closer at the Tour. Nibali had the yellow jersey for nearly 2 weeks and then Froome won the last time trial and won by 5 freaking seconds! Yeah, he took around 2:45 of Nibali. Poor guy. I hope, Blueprint, you had better luck with your Tour. Third place for Quintana. Plus, it was definitely my favourite tour again (the one where I won with Sagan/Volkswagen a MT-stage, the one Tour that starts in Germany). These stages are just wonderful, especially the Mountainstages are next to perfect designed. And the little cobblestone section is always great.
Managed to get 4 riders into top 25 (niemiec, Ulissi, Anacona, Poels). Stage win with Niemiec (breakaway, the stage I won with Sagan, very hilly first, then a mountain and a descent right into finish... know that stage pretty good by now ). Ulissi got the Mountain-jersey, however it was close. He was 9th overall and I tried to get the necessarcy points (especially since Feillu always went into breakaways). I managed to win the first HC-cat on the last MT-stage but Ulissi was then completely powered out and lost several GT-ranks. Wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a sponsor goal alas it doesn't matter so much.
Vuelta was, as mentioned before, pretty dull. Contador was long-time injured so I thought he might be racing but it all turned into a Froomeshow. Still my guys were doing okay, I sent like 5 U25 riders and Caroli got a 23rd place. He is an amazing talent and really shaping up good in his first year. He also got a 23rd place at Lombardia.
On another note: I won MSR with Poels. He actually had to set pace for my sprinters but he was too strong that day and just took off, Pozzato still got 2nd place too. Ferrari took Quebec. Also Ulissi, Poels and Cunego did good at the ardenees (no win though). Pozzato with decent results at cobblestone classics and Autumn classics. 2nd place at Tirreno-Adr. with Pozz, although that was a close one. Quite boring T-A stages with not much happening.
Seasonoverview (just for the fun of it ):
Tour 2014:
1. Froome (OPQ)
2. Nibali +5 seconds xD (AST)
3. Quintana (MOV)
MT-jersey: Ulissi (LAM)
stage win by Niemiec
4 lampre riders in Top 25, starting from 13 I think
Giro 2014:
1. Uran (SKY)
2. Rodriguez (KAT)
3. Pozzovivo (LAMP)
stage wins by Scarponi & Cattaneo
Vuelta 2014:
1. Froome (OPQ)
2. Betancur (AGR2R)
3. D. Martin (GRS)
Stortoni 20th, Caroli 23th, no stage wins
MSR: Poels (LAM)
RvV, E3: Boonen (SKY)
P-R: Offredo (ALM) - yeah for sure, he won from a breakaway, very close. Quite awesome
L-B-G: Betancur (ALM)
Lombardia: Gasparatto (EUS)
WC: Gasparatto (EUS/Italy) - I actually wanted Nibali to win but of course I was happy to finally pull off a WC-win again after my first year at Saxo with Breschel
WC-ITT: Wiggins (GR/SKY)
New signings:
Matteo Trentin (from OPQ)
Damiano Caruso (from Cannondale)
Salvetti (20 yrs old, Northclassic specialist)
Andrea Chessa (22 years old, when I scouted him he already had 74(!) hill)
So, thankfully, no weird transfers amongst the top-riders.
Overall: I signed a new 2 year sponsor deal with Lampre, granting me 2.5 mio/year, so that's an increase of roughly 400k. Next year is Merida, hope to increase the value too. Pretty satisfied with my squad,although I am missing a big star rider, it's actually more fun to play this way. I had a chance of hiring Nibali but then declined, thinking that I want to concentrate on young riders (9 riders are 25 or below). Game got me sometimes quite frustrated (e.g. Tirreno) and I hope that especially these small tours will offer better stages.
neo-pro Nazarbayev, an amazing talent from Kazachstan, likely to become a strong GC contender in the future.
On the management part, this is just the best there is, when you see a talent shaping up into a great rider over several seasons. Edited by Shonak on 27-09-2013 19:41
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Seems you are doing great with Lampre, keep up the good work! Nice transfers too.
And I did have better luck! The Alpe d'Huez stage seemed to be disastrous with Quintana & Froome attacking and Nibali not being able to respond. He crawled into Contador's wheel and managed to drop the Spaniard (better said: Contador exploded) when Quintana surprisingly dropped Froome. There was no stopping the Movistar rider, who won the stage with 1'04 ahead of Nibali, who easily passed Froome, who was apparently totally dead. Hunger knock?
The second Alps stage to Le Grand Bornard was much easier. No real attacks uphill, so Nibali tried attacking downhill and got a small gap. In the final kilometres, Wiggins pulled the group back to Nibali's wheel, but no one was capable to outsprint him anymore. Third stage victory!
Finally, the stage to Semnoz was another tough one. Nibali was stupid enough to try countering Quintana's attack and nearly blew himself up, like Froome and Contador on Alpe d'Huez. However, he decided to let the Colombian go and suffered through a few minor attacks from Froome, but managed to stay on the wheel. So Quintana grabbed another minute on his rivals, but it was enough for Nibali to secure the final victory!
Results:
1. Nibali
2. Froome
3. Quintana
4. Contador
5. Van den Broeck
Blueprint wrote:I have a problem now. Was planning to use Nibali in Giro & Vuelta in 2014, but will I ever forgive myself for not defending the Tour victory???
Well, why not just take all three? No but seriously, I think Giro-Tour Double is far more exciting than Giro-Vuelta Double. If you only want to race Vuelta for sponsor reasons, then I might get it, although I think that the money value, you'll receive, won't significantly change anyway with or without a Vuelta win (then again, I mostly just sign the new contract before or after the Tour)
EDIT: Just received my sponsor goals and did a few races of course too (Cunego 2nd at Tour Down Under, say what?). Sponsor goals for Merida suck. Paris Nice Top 10 was fine, but Top 5 at Amstel with 5 stars is... a tough nut for my team. See, Ulissi is my best rider for hilly stages with 78. So, I'm actually racing a team of puncheurs who lacks the punch for any of the big Ardennees races, especially since Ulissi develops slower than I hoped (Ulissi took MSR btw). Plus, Amstel is just the worst for my team... it's not as tough as Liege where I can make up by smart riding, no, it always ends in a damn mass sprint up the last hill (hard difficulty). So I didn't race Amstel yet cuz I actually do have a life besides PCM (hard to believe I know haha), but I think that my plan of getting more cash from Merida is going to fail a bit. Other important sponsor goal is Tour de Suisse Top 3, so that should be do-able.
As for my riders: Mass Exodus. I didn't realize I signed already 30 riders for next season so I couldn't prolong any of the contracts. This let me obviously now in a quite bad situation and many good riders and young talent s going to leave probably (Pozzovivo, Trentin - after one season, Wackerman) and other riders I don't want to keep. All of them are replaceable and my top talents as well as Ulissi have long-time contracts of course. I'll probably have to go flat out crazy on the transfer market this season though (I need a new cobblestone rider for example since Pozzato has one year left on his contract but probably won't perform next year as good as previous years due to Age of Decline, and also someone with better hill stats would be welcome - I'm eyein' you Gasparatto).
Your Young rider XML files are awesome, Blueprint, by the way, but I think I already said that. Edited by Shonak on 28-09-2013 21:26
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Ouch, that's a tough mistake to make about the contracts. Anyway, top-5 in Amstel should be doable with a guy like Ulissi. At least, it always seems to work for me with Gasparotto, who's probably not much better. It's also much easier than winning Giro & Tour with the same rider in one season...
And thanks for the compliment, will share my talent Nazarbayev in the appropriate topic
No but seriously, I think Giro-Tour Double is far more exciting than Giro-Vuelta Double. If you only want to race Vuelta for sponsor reasons, then I might get it, although I think that the money value, you'll receive, won't significantly change anyway with or without a Vuelta win (then again, I mostly just sign the new contract before or after the Tour)
