I'm new to the game, but with these types of manager games I always like to start small and work up. So I decided to start with "Drapac Professional Cycling", but I'm having some trouble getting started.
First thing I do is send 8 riders on a pre-season training camp, the cheapest possible, for 5 or 6 days.
Then comes the Australian Championship, I've done this a few times and the best I have managed to place is 4th.
I'm not sure what to do after this point. My main concern is that I begin with a 35k monthly deficit (Staff wages). I guess I need to win some prize money to break even.
I have tried the Tour of Qatar and Oman, and the best I have managed to place in any stage is about 20th.
What kind of races should I be entering and what should my goals be?
Enter races that are ranked either 1.2 or 2.2. The top teams can't enter these races so you will be competing against teams much closer to your own in terms of stats. That should get you some results and some money. The team you take there will determine your goals - whether you want to target stage wins or GC places.
With the training camps, don't both with them. Firstly, the AI can't use them so most people consider it cheating (though it is your game, so that is up to you). Secondly, when you weigh up the amount of money it is going to cost you against your return on investment you won't really get much out of it.
EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forum Edited by CountArach on 19-08-2012 07:33
sack the staff members.
i had a 35k deficit with An Post. what i did was sack the doctor, scout and one of the trainers keeping the cheaper trainer. what's great is the lack of an employment tribunal and redundancy pay.
hire a replacement trainer for the sacked one. the cost of this is the singing on bonus of 2 months.
the staff wages are now 10k a month awhich is workable and i think with some success with eeckhout and bagdonas (mostly eeckhout ), i'm now solvent for the season which is a great feeling.
gp costa azul in portugal at the middle of march proved a great cash cow for me with eeckhout winning 3 of the 4 stages, the overall and points jersey.
races
races can be tough going. i did qatar. my best was 5th with bagdonas but look who was there - cavendish, guardini, kittel, greipel, hushovd, farrar and other good riders. but 20th may seem that your sprint strategy is wrong. the thing with sprints is to get to the very front of the race. i like to lead it out myself, not to be relying on other sprint trains. sure this strategy is not going to work all the time with other teams having greater firer power . work out your sprint train before hand, and then work down the riders as your go with going at 99 on the effort cursor with the singular dot. when that guy runs out of either red or yellow, go to the next guy on the line and use him on the singular dot and etctera etctera. of course this depends on how many riders you have in the sprint train but the more the better. if you can't use 6 riders in the sprint train, maybe adjust the strategy for what you can do.
ideally you don't want your sprinter to have to take it all by himself with the 3km left. you want 1 guy at least wwith him at that point, i'd prefer 2 guys at least and then your main guy take up the sprint at 1 - 1.5km to go
the three considerations in planning a sprint train, is flat, sprint and acceleration. maybe the earlier members of the train, more consideration be given to flat rating with the later members for acceleration and sprint.
Edited by IFF on 19-08-2012 13:41
I think I'm starting to get the hang of the races -a bit-. Youtubing Lead-out sprint train improved my results enormously. Had a bit of success, though I still have some massive derps sometimes.
Apart from trying to win races, is there anything else I should be doing? I have about 50k euro now, should I be doing something with this money? Although I am still losing 10k per month/quarter? to Staff Salaries, so it's not really very much I guess.
How many races should I be entering? I try and enter pretty much all of the .2 races, but I get rejected a lot. From 01/01 to 31/03 I entered 4 tour events (2-7 stages) and 3 day races (including Aus Champs). Is that too few races? Should I even bother entering .1 races? Or just stick to .2?
Should I be hiring a cheapo scout and scouting for new riders? I feel like I could use a good time trialer, best I have is 65 TT which is alright, but would be nice to get a boost from time trials rather than a deficit. But then not many of my races so far have had time trials anyway (though I have one coming up which has 2!) I feel like I have a pretty good team though, considering my available budget of 28k.
Probably a stupid question, but can you "sell" riders? What does winning races/awards etc actually do to riders?
Again thanks for the help! More info about how my career game is going below if you're interested.
So here's my career so far:
I started a new career with your advice.
Did not attend any training camps.
Fired my scout who had a 10k salary after a month. I didn't fire the doctor as he's only 1k per month and my riders have gotten sick a few times already. Trainers are 4k and 6k, which
And concentrated on .2 races.
I managed to win the Australian Championships this time around with a break away from Lachlan Norris.
He has become my Polka Dot jersey boy, I'm in April now and he's won 4 Polka Dot Jersey's on various tours.
I did OKAY in the Tour of Qatar, but I tanked out hard on the time trials. I think my best placing in a stage was 11th.
Tour of SA was better, I won the Polka Jersey and I also won the last stage. After the second day I was leading the overall team award, but I pushed my Climber too hard going after points I didn't need and burned him out so he finished a couple of minutes behind the peleton and that killed my chances at the team award. I got quite a lot of top 10 placings which was good.
Istrian Spring Trophy and Vuelta a Murcia I won the Polka Jersey, and had a few top 10's.
GP da Costa Azul I won 3/4 stages (came 4th in the other), and I won all of the awards. My first tour win, which is nice. Phelan was my main man in that.
And I just won the first stage of the Tour of Sochi, again with Phelan, and Norris is in top spot for the Polka Jersey. But there seems to be a lot of strong climbers in this tour so I don't know if he'll hold onto it. There was a big group of 9 breaking away trying to get the points so it was pretty tough. Won 2/3 of the Mountain climbs, and I think one sprint. Although I totally derped on one of the sprints and thought that I had passed the points line when I hadn't and de-clicked sprinting right before the line -.- But I still got third so that was okay.
), i'm now solvent for the season which is a great feeling.
