SotD's continental team Team Ultimate have been disbanded.
I do not feel it works for the game dynamics for a ProTour manager to have a Continental team to gather young talents - with inevitably more cap room, so more money to spend on them - thus making it on other teams who simply want a good young rider.
Added onto this the fact that having a 2nd team is a privilege that I do not believe SotD deserves.
You may not agree with the decision, Im sure SotD doesnt, but that is the decision. And its final.
Any Team Ultimate bids in the transfers are therefore now invalid.
You wont like this Im sure, and no doubt you will complain along the lines that Im being 'too much of a leader' or whatever your point is.
But ultimately having a second, continental team is a privilege. And I dont feel you deserve it. You dont help at all with running the game, you didnt follow your team much in the season, and you have some questionable tactics - whether technically within the rules or not.
And even regardless of whether it was you managing it or somebody else. I dont think it works for a ProTour manager to have a Continental team focused on gathering all the young talents. You have more cap room and its not fair on any other managers. Yes this is because I didnt like you trying to disrupt the game in a different way by going for the big riders - but again, that boils down to the fact that I dont think you deserve a 2nd team.
So no doubt, youll be annoyed and think its unfair.
But sorry, thats my decision.
------------------------------------------
This was PM discussion we had earlier:
SN: Simple Choice "Team Ultimate were given to you as you told me it would be a young, developmental team.
As you do not help with the management game at all, it is a privilige to have a 2nd team - and that is something that your bids on Spilak and Ricco are exploiting. Its screwing the game up, and funnily enough, benefiting Festina...
So a simple choice.
Keep to the young, developmental dynamic.
Or lose Team Ultimate
Me: "I really doubt it's benefitting Festina, as the richest teams in the bunch are the CT teams, why those riders a most likely going to the CT.
I can't get one single good rider for Team Ultimate? The plan was always to develop, but I also set myself a goal that was top 10 this season. How is that ever going to be possible if I can't even sign one single decent rider?... bla bla. I ask if it's alright if I buy Elijzen"
SN: "The likes of Elijzen are fine"
Me: "Right, but where is the line?
I mean, he is fine. What about Devolder? He is too good i suppose...
Is Andrei Amador also too good?"
SN: "Ive got no issue with any rider whose average is 76 or below"
---------------------------------------------------------
Since then I have deliberately only offered for fairly young riders and ALL with 76 and below to stay within those guidance...
Now strangely I don't follow the season at all, ruins the game through Team Ultimate and stuff. I really have a hard time seeing how this team should be affected by my Festina tactics, whether SN likes it or not.
Last season my teams best rider was a 71 climber and a 72 sprinter I think. No matter how I placed them they wouldn't win anything whatsoever, this was Team Ultimates chance to improve. I have 16 shit riders and basically i'm trying to get 4 good ones and possibly some better helpers and then fire 4-6 of the shit riders...
I have stayed within the guidances I have been told. No warnings or anything, I just gets kicked out. Very mature!
A) You have done nothing to show you deserve a 2nd team - theres other managers who I would happily award a 2nd team to instead, and if we werent in the transfers period, plenty of potential new managers who would like a team aswell
B) The whole concept of what your team was meant to be just wasnt working
"making it a talent developping team. " "I really hope you will let me, this way some talented riders will get to ride"
Those were a couple of the things you said last year when trying to get a 2nd team, and for last season it was fine, you had riders nobody else had signed, and they were gaining XP and stats for it.
But come the transfers, the whole concept unravelled - and it is because of your Team Ultimate tactics, not your Festina tactics. Firstly, you decide to bid on the Top GC guys, which is ridiculous, and thats why I PMed you initially to tell you to stop - and yes, saying there was no problem with riders under a certain average.
But then of course that just raised a new problem. You have the same salary cap as any other continental team, but are now just focusing it on some of the best young riders available, rather than the slightly lower quality riders who need developing just the same, but are likely to be overlooked. Other teams have every right to target young riders of their own, but you were driving the prices up for many - and I dont think its worth it for a so-called developmental team to disrupt the game in this way.
So already I was contemplating whether to keep this team alive or not, and then the final straw broke as you made 4/5 bids on young riders who were close to the 48 hour deadline. You had been online plenty of times over the past day or so, there was no reason why you needed to do that.
It may seem harsh to you, unfair, and without warning. But the concept of what you initially wanted to do had failed, and I chose to act now before the transfers were affected too much.
The ability for manager to have a 2nd team, a development team, will return - just with more guidelines, and no interaction in the transfer period.
A) You have done nothing to show you deserve a 2nd team - theres other managers who I would happily award a 2nd team to instead, and if we werent in the transfers period, plenty of potential new managers who would like a team aswell
- I'm at work, so I'll read B) later... But this? How do I show I deserve one? I obviously care for my team seeing I want a couple of good riders so my goals can be achieved... I did the previews last season, I read every single PT race, and I'm going to in the CT aswell. The reason I didn't last season was because of the factors already mentioned, that the team sucked so much that I was just waiting for this one to arrive.
I haven't been away in the transfer period, so I really don't understand a word on how I don't deserve it. All I can conclude is, that this once again show that you have something against me, and that this was the easy way to get back at me...
A mixture of actually helping out with the game, a positive attitude, longevity as manager, and activeness not just in the transfers and the off-season, but throughout the season - media threads, commenting in the race discussion threads etc
The sole reason you got your team was because you said it would be a developmental team. And now yourself youre saying that your team sucked, and you only really cared once you got better riders.
Edited by SportingNonsense on 18-03-2010 10:55
The sole reason you got your team was because you said it would be a developmental team. And now yourself youre saying that your team sucked, and you only really cared once you got better riders.
- I have also said that I would really love to do a project like Team B&O, but they don't have 100% sucky riders either... They get some decent talents, and that is all I'm asking, and actually that was what you yourself permitted me... Why do you feel the need to change that after 2-3 days if not for the incident that included YOU and YOUR team?
Nothing has changed at all since we last spoke about Team Ultimate...
SotD wrote:
- I have also said that I would really love to do a project like Team B&O, but they don't have 100% sucky riders either... They get some decent talents, and that is all I'm asking, and actually that was what you yourself permitted me... Why do you feel the need to change that after 2-3 days if not for the incident that included YOU and YOUR team?
That would be fine - if you no longer want Festina
It was YOU who said I could freely go after riders with the average of less than 76... And that was what I did. I even asked permission to what riders I could go for, and now you just decide that "Oh well, I don't quite like the fella, I'll just kick him out, and see how he whines".
I was awarded a team last season AFTER the transfers, I decided to go for some young riders that would develop into semisucky riders. This season I decided to go after 4-5 decent riders, and some semisucky riders. Because I offer 3-400K for a rider like Guldhammer you decide to kick me out. Guldhammer has waaaay below 76AVR, he is young and suits a development team perfectly.
You say I don't deserve a team, I say you haven't given me one chance to prove I deserve one!
I apparently bended a rule bidding for a couple of good riders. You told me not to, I accepted it, and BAM! I get kicked out.
You've offered wages for far more than 4-5 decent riders, therefore raising their prices sky high for the poor guy who actually bought them, and stuck with buying them. You, on the other hand, just swing from one "good" rider to another.
Trying to build a promotion squad with a continental team when you have a pro tour team already is just a rubbish way to play the game.
If you try and quote Wiggle at this point, I'd advise anyone to look at what I've done to Auber 93 - Look.
Trying to build a promotion squad with a continental team when you have a pro tour team already is just a rubbish way to play the game.
- With 3 riders on AVR of 75? You make me laugh. The best I could've got was top 10, which was a goal of mine. And if I'm not allowed to buy riders that can actually get me a top 10 position, why weren't I getting a message that my goals couldn't be that high?
100% Me couldn't promote last year. My team wouldn't be anyway NEAR that level. Where is the problem?
That the season after you'd have the strongest squad in the CT.
If you were buying riders who were maxed, at 75 average, and bidding on them like everyone else bids on riders, then I'd doubt there would have been a problem.
But, it's you. And you were trying to buy riders who could still develop into 78-80 average riders. Ie, promotion material.
I bid for Vanden Broeck as my captain, he was 75 and Maxed out.
I bought Elijzen who was 75 and Maxed out.
Smukulis 74 maxed out.
Thomas Vedel Kvist 71, level 3.
Roger Kluge 75, level 4.
Stefan Denifl 72, level 3.
Jianhua Ji 70, level 3.
Giacomo Nizzolo, 65 level 1.
Aleksej Kunshin, 73 level 4.
Dadley Corwin, 64, level 2.
Daniel Teklehaimanot, 68, level 1.
I had bids for Fiedler and Impey, as I wanted either one of those or Vanden Broeck, so I had a captain.
None of the others are sublime riders...
Team Ultimate would've probably looked like this:
Jacob Fiedler
Roger Kluge
Michiel Elijzen
Gatis Smukulis
Stefan Denifl
Aleksej Kunshin
Thomas Vedel Kvist
Daniel Teklehaimanot
Jianhua Ji
Dadley Corwin
Giacomo Nizzolo
... And 10 of my existing 16 riders.
I should be EXTREMELY lucky to provide that for a top 10 this year, and next year it wouldn't be much better, seing that most riders can't max out in the CT, and I probably wouldn't get very many PT racedays.
I could've tried to get one more good rider, probably Daryl Impey, to have 2 captains capable of achieving my goals of barely reaching top 10.
I really don't see how that can be negative. I bid for riders just like everyone else does. I take what is financially best for my team, and not what I decided to do in the beginning. I was told to lay of the top stars, and so I did. I searched for riders at 76 MAX, and quite some talents able to do what I wanted them to do.
If my team would be fabulous, which you guys seem to think, then my wages would be sky high and I would have to let some of them go anyway, so I don't get it at all!
