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How to plan a career?
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| MartijnVDD |
Posted on 29-07-2012 13:39
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 801
Joined: 26-06-2012
PCM$: 200.00
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Hi guys!
I'm new to the game and really enjoying it so far, but whenever I want to start a career I don't know where to start.
There's planning, training, fitness schedules, training camps etc.
Here are a few of my questions:
1) Exactly how important is planning? How far and how detailed should I plan ahead? Should I make a complete team for every single race at the start of the season? How important is the amount of race days per rider?
2) How important are the fitness schedules? Should I make a custom schedule for every rider? Should I stick to the default schedules?
3) In addition to fitness schedules, how do I build up fitness through racing? How many races should I race before e.g. the Tour de France?
4) Should I assign a trainer to every rider? How many trainers should I hire?
5) How important are sponsor goals?
Those are the questions that I could think of.
Any kind of help will be appreciated, whether they are tips, formulas, schedules etc.
I've tried several careers already mainly with Lotto-Belisol, Vacansoleil-DCM and Radioshack-Nissan-Trek, but I never get to racing because I get stuck at the planning which is really annoying. =D
Thanks in advance! |
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 13:44
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8516
Joined: 29-06-2007
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Did you already read the threads about the same questions? Did you read the tips and tricks? The forum search and the tips and tricks can be found at the left side.
You can play a career without doing any planning, just participate in the races as the game suggests. If you think that you want to achieve more, then you can start with the fitness schedules.
Training and trainers, young riders, and so on are only relevant if you play more then one season.
Edited by Lachi on 29-07-2012 13:45
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| MartijnVDD |
Posted on 29-07-2012 13:48
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 801
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I checked the Tips & Tricks section which has only one topic on careers and I read the 2006 Career Guide.
I tried searching some of the other stuff like fitness schedules and such, but usually ended up with irrelevant or unsatisfying topics.
Any suggestions on which threads I should read?
EDIT: Lachi, I also downloaded your Season Planner which is a great help, but I just lack the knowledge to use it successfully.
Edited by MartijnVDD on 29-07-2012 13:51
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 13:57
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Grand Tour Champion
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I thought that you want to play the races and I just told you that you don't need anything to play the races
Edited by Lachi on 29-07-2012 13:57
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| Saevel |
Posted on 29-07-2012 13:57
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Amateur
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I'm pretty new myself, but I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.
Ideally, you should plan the whole season ahead, as player form is a deciding factor. I think it affects all attributes pretty significantly, and could mean the difference between an underdog winning a race because of good form, or a favourite flopping out because of poor.
This can be a little too much management, though, especially if you're new to the game. My advice would be this: Use the pre-made fitness schedules, and plan quickly for the most important races, making sure the most important cyclists you want in that race aren't in crap shape.
As for trainers, I think one trainer can deal with 8 cyclists at a time and still have "excellent" effectiveness, but this might not matter much, I don't know. I usually try to get 3-4 cheap trainers who specialize in one or two fields.
Sponsor goals don't matter much right now, as you can't get fired, but it might be important for the budget of your next contract (maybe someone else can fill you in on the specifics here). |
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| omchi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 14:02
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Junior Rider
Posts: 31
Joined: 01-06-2008
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When you start a career, first thing to do is in my opinion plan whole season, or at least big part of it. i usually plan all races till Vuelta and during Vuelta i see which rider can make some more races and which rider is completely dead :-D. So when planning season u must know what key races you will participate in and which riders will attend those races. E.G. you play with Lotto, so you have 3 key riders-Van Den Broeck, Greipel and Vanendert. So VdB probably goes for Tour as his main goal for season. This allows you to combination Giro-Tour, which is imo hard, or Tour-Vuelta or Tour only and some week races (Paris-Nice, Tirreno and so on). I would try to peak his form for P-N, with some lower category race before it, that will improve his racing fitness a little (murcia, algarve, races in february) and then he can maybe race in Catalunya or Pais Vasco. After this give him a little rest and start building up his fitness that it will get highest during 2nd and 3rd week of Tour. Before Tour i would use him in Tour de Suisse or Dauphine and maybe before, in may in Tour of California. |
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| krzychu92 |
Posted on 29-07-2012 14:07
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Amateur
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1. You can change planns whenever u want. U don't have to planning whole season for every rider. But in my opinion u should do it for liders and main helpers (10-15 riders). I allways do this.
2. Fitness shedules are important. Very importand if u want win race. I allways making custom shedules for 10-15 riders. Sometimes for everyone.
3. From training u can get 85-90pts of fitness (not sure... probably 85?) more points u getting by racing. Some people says u must have 90pts of fitnes and ~20days raced before TdF. Hm...it depends. If u will have 32 probably nothing wrong will hapend. I won Vuelta by Contador with 82 fitness at first day of Vuelta (later in second and third week I had 95-99 fitness) and 1 day raced before Vuelta (due to suspention).
4. It's your decision. If u asign trainer rider will develop faster. But if rider has 36 years he won't develop...
5. If sponsor is happy will give u more cash for next season. If not sometimes u need to find new team sponsor.
Usualy when I'm starting carrer it takes 3-4h for planing races, fitness and training. I don't know why but I like it. And it works leter in season. |
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| MartijnVDD |
Posted on 29-07-2012 14:45
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 801
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Lachi wrote:
I thought that you want to play the races and I just told you that you don't need anything to play the races
I thought I asked tips on planning my season. Where's the part where I say "I only want to play races"?
Saevel, omchi and krzychu92, thanks for answering!
Edited by MartijnVDD on 29-07-2012 14:46
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 14:50
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8516
Joined: 29-06-2007
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MartijnVDD wrote:
... I never get to racing because I get stuck at the planning which is really annoying. =D
It is not so easy to understand you, because for example you said that my planner is a great help but in fact it did not help you at all.
BTW: Some of the information given is wrong.
But I try to answer your questions differently:
First you should play the races and get better there. The easiest thing would be to play single races. I think it is a waste of time to plan a whole season if you neither can profit from it nor finish the season.
Edited by Lachi on 29-07-2012 15:01
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| MartijnVDD |
Posted on 29-07-2012 15:08
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 801
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Lachi wrote:
MartijnVDD wrote:
... I never get to racing because I get stuck at the planning which is really annoying. =D
It is not so easy to understand you, because for example you said that my planner is a great help but in fact it did not help you at all.
BTW: Some of the information given is wrong.
Getting stuck at the planning is annoying, not the planning itself.
The planner would be more useful if I knew the answers to at least some of my above questions. E.g. it's very useful to know the amount of days each rider's racing, but I don't know if there's an unwritten law about the maximum amount of days each rider can race without getting too tired.
The planner is also useful because of the easy interface, the possibility to see the racer's favoured races etc. etc. etc..
If some of the info given is wrong, then feel free to correct it.
EDIT: I did practice single races. I bought the game as soon as it was released in Belgium having seen my cousin play the 2009 version a few weeks earlier. Ever since I've been riding classics, practising lead out trains, rode all three big stage races several times, looking up tips, watching videos.
Now I wanted to try a career, but didn't know how to plan and such. I couldn't find much satisfying info on the subject, so I decided to pose the question here.
Edited by MartijnVDD on 29-07-2012 15:13
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| KeyC |
Posted on 29-07-2012 15:19
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Your riders begin to tire at 60 race days, I think.
So the 'race fitness' will begin to cap lower for every race thereafter. |
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| lluuiiggii |
Posted on 29-07-2012 15:38
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8542
Joined: 30-07-2010
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1) Planning is everything  What I do is set goals for my leaders and then plan their season (you seem to already know this, but Lachi's Planner is the way to go here), including the races where they'll perform and some prep races. After that I fill the gaps with the helpers that will be most useful for them in each race, and after setting a lineup for every race in the calendar, I go rider by rider and build their schedule (also in the Planner). Concerning race days, you need at least 15 to have max racing fitness at 20, and after 60 days the rider will start losing max racing fitness, approximately 1 point in each 2 days (you can see the exact values here: https://pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread....ost_452729)
2) Well, planning is nothing if you don't manage the rider fitness  As I said, I prefer to build an exclusive schedule for each rider, because then I can get everything according to his races and it's easier (if I want to choose the default schedules, I'll need to go in the game, where I can't see his races as it happens in the Season Planner, and will need to actually choose a schedule for him among them all - much more work imo).
3) Iirc, each race day adds 1~2 (most likely 2) points in racing fitness, and each day with no race takes 1 point out of it. In GTs, sometimes you can use the first week to build up those last point of racing fitness (for the leaders, the sprinters need to begin the race in the best fitness possible). You can reach the Tour f.e. with 10 days and still be in top form by the beginning of the 2nd week. So ultimately I'd say it's up to your planning (will the rider to race another GT? Does his other goals come before or after the Tour, assuming he's not A. Schleck? )
4) I'd only assign a trainer to the riders that have potential to improve, and your leaders (even if they'll only improve few). With more than 8 riders, the trainer won't be 'exceptional' anymore, so I try not to pass that number. Number of trainers depend on size, budget and type of riders in your team, usually there are 1 or 2 trainers (for example, if you're a small team, it'll be hard to manage to afford 2 trainers; or if you're a team with 20 riders, but only 6 have any chances of increasing considerably).
5) No important. Well, at least before patch 1.2.0.0, not sure now. What happened was that the budget was fixed for the whole sponsor contract, and you couldn't renew: no matter how much you pleased/made your sponsor hate you, it wouldn't matter in your budget (it is fixed and your next budget would be negotiated with another sponsor). But now that renewing sponsors is possible perhaps it's good to please him in the last year and try to renew for more money.
For season planning, together with Lachi's Season Planner I like to use the Fitness Planner, which can be found here. It's 'designed' for you to be able to do the whole planning process to it, but I just use it for the fitness schedules, since it gives detailed info about fatigue and their fitness level through the year. Good to know if you're overpowering the schedules
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 15:39
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8516
Joined: 29-06-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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Some info about planning:
https://pcmdaily.c...d_id=20337
https://pcmdaily.c...d_id=23795
https://pcmdaily.c...d_id=23635
I am too lazy to search more but I found these searching for "fitness"
Correction of the worst errors in the posts above:
- Fitness training gives a max. of 80 points. Race fitness is 20 max.
- Sponsors don't pay more money. Sponsor happiness is worthless in this game.
- There is no fixed age about the training. A rider will stop evolving as soon as the potential us empty or he reached his critical age, whatever happens first.
- Cheap trainers are a waste of money |
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| MartijnVDD |
Posted on 29-07-2012 16:02
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 801
Joined: 26-06-2012
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Lachi wrote:
[Helpful info]
Okay, thanks for helping.
I hope I didn't sound rude at times. If so, it's because the internet always makes people sound rude.
lluuiiggii wrote:
[Helpful info]
Thanks a lot! |
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| Ste117 |
Posted on 29-07-2012 16:25
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3684
Joined: 21-02-2009
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I use the in game season planner, but I plan race by race or month by month. First I will choose the races I want to participate in before the deadline. Then a few days before each race I will choose my riders depending on race fitness/days. Also this takes into consideration injuries, like I had Tom Boonen out injured for March and April, so therefore I could plan around that in getting my riders into shape for the classics knowing I have Boonen injured.
MG Team manager Team Ticos Air Costa Rica
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| lluuiiggii |
Posted on 29-07-2012 18:40
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8542
Joined: 30-07-2010
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Lachi wrote:
- Sponsors don't pay more money. Sponsor happiness is worthless in this game.
Yes, but when renewing the contract, feature activated in Patch 1.2.0.0, do you think the happiness will have any effect?
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 18:48
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8516
Joined: 29-06-2007
PCM$: 200.00
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Why not testing it:
- Modify the DB to reduce contract length to 1 year.
- Start a career with the modified year
- Simulate until you can prolong the contract
- Make 2 copies of the save and raise the sponsor happiness on one, and lower it no the other
- Try to prolong the contract
But I am pretty sure that you can prolong the contract at the very first day of the season, and therefore it would not matter at all.
And as long as it is possible to get a new sponsor who pays more without great goals, then it would be stupid to prolong with the old sponsor to get less because of happiness.
But finally, I don't think that Cyanide even thought that much about this feature. Maybe it is just a decision: Do you want to prolong? YES / NO |
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| lluuiiggii |
Posted on 29-07-2012 18:58
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8542
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Actually if you go to the tab "renew sponsor" right in the beginning of a career it says it's too early to think about that. I'll guess that it becomes available in July, together with the transfers, but no idea really.
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| Lachi |
Posted on 29-07-2012 19:00
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8516
Joined: 29-06-2007
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Hopefully not. How would you prolong the contracts with the own riders if you have no sponsor? |
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| lluuiiggii |
Posted on 29-07-2012 19:12
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8542
Joined: 30-07-2010
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Well, just went into the "Renew" tab again, and it indeed is July:
Testing a career now to see what happens.
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