New to the forums, new to the game, but an old hand at stories. Hi all, I am wicked01, and as a keen amateur cyclist, on the brink of becoming semi-pro, I decided to get PCM 2012.
Now most management games I can do, but this is a whole new level. Thus taking team Sky for my first career mode, I will post up my races, and my career.
As this is my first attempt, if I win anything, it will certainly be a fluke, so if anyone can point me in the direction of a good guide I would be very greatful, otherwise, this thread, will slowly turn into one as my skill at the game progresses.
So the Sky Team.
Do they really need any introduction? You have Wiggo, Cav, Eisel, Stannard, Rowe, Swift and the rest of the crew. They dominated the Tour De France, although Froome could not quite match the shere genius of Contador in La Vuelta.
Team Sky are behind the sudden rise of interest in cycling in the UK, the Tour of Britain has never been had so much coverage, nor so much much success for a British Team, my belated congratulations go out to Jonathan Tiernan-Locke.
So what more could one ask for? A team built for success, with triumph in mind and a rather green manager... Surely nothing could go wrong?
My first installment should come tonight, with pictures, my attempt at tactics (which dont ever work) and my goals for this season!
Good luck and welcome.
I'm sure many of us more "seasoned" PCM-players will give you advice, as your career progresses. For a large part it is learning by doing.
In my opinion the first road to success is to plan the upcoming season in detail for each rider (it takes a god bit of time, but is rewarded). My main rookie-mistake in this department probably was overdoing it, so that when I reached September all my riders were exhausted.
Regarding race tactics it depends quite a lot depending on the race, your roster and the competition. Usually I like trying to get a decent rider in the early breakaway. That way I can try to force other teams to do a lot of hard work, leaving my team full of energy for the finish.
I am reading through other stories as I speak and learning tactics, ideas from them! Quick question to someone, I assume it is Ctrl+t as it is in Football Manager to take screenshots?
Indeed it us. And CTRL + U to remove info on the screen, that way your screenshot looks better.
Good luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them!
A quick apology - No pics, no stats atm - RL moving very quickly so do not have the greatest amount of time to a detailed report, but a quick summary and a few questions...
So the Tour Down under is underway as I type with the first two stages completed on easy (I have set it to a harder difficulty now). Having never attempted a sprint train in my life on a game, I hazarded a guess... This leads me to my first question.
With 1.5km to go, for some bizarre reason my sprinter Sutton was leading the train, wasting valuable energy. I had to get him to stop then restart again to ensure that he had a good opportunity to sprint, which in the end did work, but surely there is an easier way of setting up a train?
So I won that stage fairly easily thanks to Sutton's sprinting ability.
The next stage I tried an alternative tactic. With 5k to go and my train prepared, I launched them all into an attack, this gave me a nice 50 second cushion, then Hayman decided to get a puncture so as a result I launched the rest in a mass sprint with 1k to go and focused on getting Hayman back on track. Thus managing to keep him ahead of the peleton, I gave Team Sky a nice 3 minute lead in the overall standings.
I know for sure that I am doing this all wrong and will provide screenies later on.
The third stage, in my opinion was the most interesting and varied. I decided as G. Thomas had the KOM jersey that I should try for the BOTD. Three times I tried, each time I failed, then on the fourth attempt I succeeded in breaking with both Thomas and Henao. Quickly I created a 5 minute gap, and ensuring that they stayed out in front I went back to fill my waterbottles for the rest of the team using Hayman. Now this is where things started to go strange. Hayman, having picked up the waterbottles, suddenly fell back from the peleton for no reason, falling at 2 minutes behind. He caught up again, but in the process managed to drink both his waterbottles dry, so off he goes again for the waterbottles, and once again he is 2 minutes behind?! So EBH, the leader and the man heading up the GC had to do the waterbottle duties, and he was fine? Back to the break and by this time having won the KOM of that race, Thomas and Henao now had a 7 minute break on the peleton and with 30k to go, it looked like they could make it. But of course the peleton had other ideas, and within 10k the gap had been reduced to 4 minutes. Henao then started to flag so I let him drop back, and this left Thomas on a one man mission with 20k to go. Did he make it? No sadly not, he was caught by the rest of peleton with 5k to go. Sadly in anger I forced another team sky break and this lead to a second succesive EBH win.
So what did I do wrong? and how do I do these trains?!
Next question - training camps - are these good to go to? and if you do go to them, which ones are the best etc?
Again I apologise for the wall of text - its unsightly I know, but the stages shall be reported in a much more appropriate fashion from now on!
My advice on sprint trains; pretty much get all the guys you want, and line them up using the sprint follow button. Highlight the designated rider, your sprint leader is a good place to start, and right click on his lead out man (your second best sprinter) and press the button with the S and an arrow. This makes the sprinter follow the lead out man. You can add in one more lead out but you don't have too. Then, in order of flat road ability (highest later in the train) make the domestiques sprint follow each other. There's no limit to the amount of riders you have doing this. It can be 1, then lead out then sprinter. Or it can be six, then lead out and sprinter. Anyways, after you've made your train, the first rider should have the lowest flat road, then get progressively higher and higher until the lead out man/men. Here, flat road becomes irrelevant, and you simply order them in sprint ability. (watch their acceleration stat too. You don't want tour lead out accelerating away from your sprinter with 3k to go...). You can start organising your lead out with 18 kms to go on a flag stage, and sprint from 3. I usually start working on the front when I have enough riders for them to do 3kms on the front each. Simply pick your effort level (71 from about 18-10kms, 80ish from 10-7kms, then 90+ for the final 7 kms). I personally use the infinite relay (some will say to use the dot, but it's personal preference) and then with 3 kms to go, there should be no more workers and it should be down to your sprinter as his lead out/s. For 2 men (sprinter, lead out) I go 1.5kms each. With your lead out sprinting from 3kms left, and your sprinter going at 1.5 left to race. If you decide to use 3 riders, it's 3, 2 and 1, with the riders sprinting 1 kms after the previous rider starts. This generally works for me, and I've even beat a 78/79 sprinter with a 70/72 sprinter before... Good luck and hope this helps.
Good to hear you still plan to start the story. I've tried to do a few stories, but I've failed every time. Hopefully you've got more dedication to it than I have...
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
