There are a lot of good articles about how to win stages, races, etc when you actually play but what about some strategies for winning when you sim?
I have not had much luck winning races or stages when I sim and I am even using Team Discovery in the PCM Spain DB.
Any feedback or info on what you guys do when you sim would be great. Plus how do you decide which equipment to use? It seems like most stages have both climbs and sprints. Do you always go with the climbing bikes if there is a climb and forget the sprint bike setup? Do you give different riders different bikes?
What I've found:
1) Take risks apparently means that you are going to try a late breakaway on a stage. In northern classic races, or in stages with late hills, if you set your leader to take risks you can often get a win (with Hincappie you should get quite a few). I'm not a big fan of cobblestone races so I often sim them and I get some decent places with this strategy. I never try breakaways in cobblestone races, and if I have a top guy I'll set some helpers to pull the breakaways back for my leader.
2) Flat Stages/Mass Sprints - Obviously set your sprinter to "sprint in mass finish". If he's a top contender you'll want to set some helpers to pull the breakaway back in. If you don't have a good sprinter to lead out your top guy... don't bother with a leadout man. It seems to hurt rather than help. I often send a couple of free riders on breakaway on flat stages just in case... and if there are even some slight road bumps toward the end I'll often set my team lead to "take risks" for a late break.
3) Time trials: No strategy
I never sim mountain stages (they're the most fun). I'll never sim a stage if I'm in contention for a win (too big a risk of a big loss). I usually only sim some 1-day races, most time trials and an occasional flat stage (especially if I don't have a sprinter in the race).
mdd31 wrote:
There are a lot of good articles about how to win stages, races, etc when you actually play but what about some strategies for winning when you sim?
I have not had much luck winning races or stages when I sim and I am even using Team Discovery in the PCM Spain DB.
Any feedback or info on what you guys do when you sim would be great. Plus how do you decide which equipment to use? It seems like most stages have both climbs and sprints. Do you always go with the climbing bikes if there is a climb and forget the sprint bike setup? Do you give different riders different bikes?
I don't have a sim strategy per say but I can tell you what I do.
Discovery is actually a bit harder of a team to play with than most people would think. Getting good results can be tough, but a lot of that has to do with training and fitness, and peaking the right rider for the right races, and also trying to separate your thinking about what Discovery would do in real life racing as opposed to what you want them to do in the game.
Anyways, it's not a strategy like I said, but I do certain things that I would like to think helps me, but have no idea if it does lol.
I used to always buy equipment, cause I thought it made a difference, but now I don't and I only figured it out after taking on Toyota and the ct tour. I didn't have the money to buy anything, but still got promoted in my first season of CT, and just won Paris-Nice with Contador in my first season of PT.
So I would say forget equipment, if it does make a difference, it is very, very small. But if you still want to, I have a list here of what I used for what stages, frame, wheels and helmet. Numbers in brackets are the end result.
Those were what I thought were the best set ups. I would use the flat set up for all green flat stages, and a few orange hilly stages if the profile was almost flat except for a few bumps here and there, and I went with that set up because of the 31 mtn value. If the stage actually had decent sized hills, or small mtn climbs, I would use the hill set up, I thought 42 and 42 was a great compromise. Mountain is obvious, any stage that was red I used mountain, unless the climbs were very small, or there was only one small climb at the start, then I used the hill set up.
The TT's speak for themselves. If the TT was all green I used flat, if it was yellow or orange I used the hill set up, it only gives an extra 3 in the mtn value but hey, why not lol. And for the mtn TT's, I went with that set up because it was the only one I could find that would give me a high TT value, and a high mtn value. Do these values make a difference, honestly, I don't think so but who knows. When I get the money to spend on the equipment I will probably buy it just because it makes me think I am doing everything I can to win a race, regardless of whether it helps or not.
As far as actual strategy goes, well, this is what I do.
I make sure that I only take fit riders to a race, I try for 75-80+. I sometimes throw in a rider who is 60 or below just to get some race days in. I always put protected riders as free, never have more then 2-3 free, a leader, a sprinter if applicable, and the rest are team mates. So at the most, 3 free, 1 leader, 1 sprinter, and 3 or 4 team mates depending on whether or not it's an 8 or 9 man race. I try to aim for 1 free, 1 sprint, 1 leader, 5 or 6 team mates, anyways, you get the drift I'm sure.
If it's a flat race, and I have a sprinter who can win it, I always put everyone on chase down breaks from stage 1 on to the end. If I have lets say 6 team mates, a sprinter who would be my leader, and a free rider, I put the free rider who would be a good fighter and flat rider on take risks, the sprinter/leader on normal ride, and check off mass sprint and sprint for points, and the other 6 I have all checked for chase dangerous riders, but usually only 3 who help chase down any breaks. Those 3 riders would be grunts, good flat riders, and preferably decent fighter stats. If I get the leaders jersey at any point, I make sure everyone defends, and chases down everything in sight, and at that point I would make my free rider, a team mate for my leader, but still leave him free.
I personally never put anyone on breakaway. In my countless hours of simming careers, I have only ONCE had a rider who was listed as breakaway win anything, and that was Matthew White, in some nameless forgettable stage in some nameless forgettable race lol.
I prefer to always put any rider who could win something like that on free, and take risks. My interpretation of take risks is that not only will the rider try to find a good time to pull away from the pack if he can, but also find opportune times to attack, or jump in a break, even if he isn't listed as "breakaway".
So because you are riding Discovery, I will give you an example of what I mean. Lets say for Paris Roubaix, I would have Hincapie leader, on take risks, Gusev free, take risks, Vaitkus as sprinter, normal ride, check mass sprint, and the following as team mates, with all checked for chase down breakaways and dangerous riders, Devolder, White, Padrnos, Cruz and Murn.
I do that because I have two, maybe three riders would could win it all, those being Hincapie, Gusev and Devolder.
I basically do the same for tours, classics, any race, mountain or hills, flat whatever. Tours with Discovery are bit different because you can have a few good riders who can do well, but can't lead because of leipheimer or Contador. Riders like Popovych, Brajkovic, Danielson, maybe even Devolder.
If they are listed as a luxury team mate, then I almost always use them as a team mate unless it's a smaller race then I put them as free, or even as leader depending on the situation.
I don't often try for the climbers jersey, since my main goal is to win overall, but in the CT I did, and I would put my most fit, best mtn rider on take part in points for climbers jersey, regardless of whether or not he was free, or a team mate, I'm not too sure if it makes a difference because a lot of times, the rider who was a team mate, would get more points then a rider who was free, both same shape, both same mtn stats, so I don't think it makes a difference on what role you give them in that case.
I always leave sprinters on normal ride, but check off the sprint for points and take part in mass sprints. Again, I have tried sprinters on take risks and have gotten interesting results, most on the bad side, so now I just leave them on normal ride.
For mountains and climbs, or hilly stages, I always put my leader and free riders on take risks, and of course on flat stages, change them all to normal ride. Not too sure what no exertions does exactly but what I saw happening with that was my leader lets say, on no exertions, would not gain as much fitness during a race, as he would if he was on normal ride, and that is not good depending on what fitness level you want him to be at during the race. Just my observation, maybe someone else has a different opinion about that.
Pretty much I just do what I think is best, and what will give my team the best chance of winning at the end of the day. I always take good flat riders to flat races, hill riders to races that are hilly, or stage races that have stages that are hilly, and mountain guys to mountain stages or stage races with mountain stages.
I never hire more than a few riders who will be competing in some of the same events, like starting with Discovery, having leipheimer, Contador, Popovych, Brajkovic on the team is great. If you resign all of them don't add another GC rider for main tours. I always let leipheimer go and get some good young GC guy to take his place, but making sure he is either a luxury team mate or protected rider because too many cooks in the kitchen is a bad thing and ruins morale and you will not get the results you are looking for.
Anyways, hope this helps a bit, if there are other things you want to know just ask.
Thanks for the info rip! I used some of your ideas and was able to sim out a win in the Paris-Niche as well as a third place finish. Peaking riders really seems to be one of the keys to success. Once a rider peaks do you drop his training to 0%? I currently have my peaked guys at 40% training but I need to ease back at some point so I can start rebuilding towards the TDF in July.
mdd31 wrote:
Thanks for the info rip! I used some of your ideas and was able to sim out a win in the Paris-Niche as well as a third place finish. Peaking riders really seems to be one of the keys to success. Once a rider peaks do you drop his training to 0%? I currently have my peaked guys at 40% training but I need to ease back at some point so I can start rebuilding towards the TDF in July.
The only part of this game that still eludes me a bit is the training and fitness aspect.
I have started to take some points from the article cmfos wrote, and the summary of that done by teamobile.
Basically what I do is leave most of my riders on auto training I guess you could say, I only manually train my top riders, specifically GC men and classic riders.
In my career I am doing now with Toyota for example, I had Contador ride the Paris Nice. He went in with around 80 fitness, but still won by almost 3 minutes, as soon as that race was over I dropped him to 0% until he was back around 55-60, then I put him at 50%, and will leave him there until preparation for the tour in June.
Since I signed Contador late in the year, he did not have a race program, so I let him ride the cali road race, and then Paris Nice. He will ride Romandie, then the Dauphine, and that is it. He has 16 race days right now, Romandie and Dauphine will bring it to 30. So in June I will start upping his training % accordingly for the tdf.
Like I said, I am probably not the best to give out advice on training and fitness lol, but I do what I think works, and it seems to work for me most of the time.
Mountainous TT: B'Twin Contre La Montre, Mavic IO5 Batons, Hed Disc Superlite, Lazer Chrono 3 (27/15/52)
I do not prefer to put the emphasis on mountain in the Mountainous TT setup. If the time trial only consists of climbing a mountain, the game doesn't let you use the time trial bikes anyway.
