This has bothered me for many years, no decent riders ever turn up for the Vuelta. And I wonder if anybody has ever successfully changed this.
I've played too many seasons to count in various versions of the game and the competition at the Vuelta is always laughable, most of the good riders/captains go to the TdF, a few seem to prefer the Giro (Quintana in my current career always went to and won the Giro), but not a single "true captain" ever turns up for the Vuelta, nobody with climbing over 78, it seems.
So I wonder how radically I should change things in STA_race. Currently, the only thing that seems to be separating Giro and Vuelta is a slight difference in popularity (92 vs 88, TdF at 100). Should I maybe make them all 100 or all 80 or even something like Giro 80, TdF 50, Vuelta 100? Is that what makes the AI determine who races where? Or maybe even try and switch them around in fkIDUCI_class, Vuelta as FranceGrandTour and see what happens?
I remember having this problem in PCM12, I would race the Tour-Vuelta double with Schleck and when I got to the vuelta, my biggest competitor was Vanendert.
Ripley wrote:
Currently, the only thing that seems to be separating Giro and Vuelta is a slight difference in popularity (92 vs 88, TdF at 100). Should I maybe make them all 100 or all 80 or even something like Giro 80, TdF 50, Vuelta 100? Is that what makes the AI determine who races where? Or maybe even try and switch them around in fkIDUCI_class, Vuelta as FranceGrandTour and see what happens?
I thought like you before that popularity determined what races riders entered but that has absolutely no effect. It is in the fkidtype_leader column of the dyn_cyclist table where this is chosen. It would be interesting to find out what decides this. I think it partially has something to do with nationality i.e. Italian riders are more likely to do Giro. And it seems that the best riders to the tour so it isn't random.
I dont think changing the class would help this links to sta_uci_clas which has little of any use in it. It will probably mess up the game too.
Edit: It is fairly realistic though with the exception of Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali look at the recent winners: Chris Horner? Juan Jose Cobo?
Edited by asoutar on 07-04-2015 23:16
Thanks, guys, especially asoutar for pointing me to type_leader. Indeed, checking my current savegame I see 21 such riders for the TdF and 13 for the Giro and just 4 for the Vuelta - and 3 of those are from my team and the only other guy has an average rating (current evaluation) of 75.2. Hmm... so when should I change that around - before the 1st of January, I guess? I'd probably need to check out the next column, too, type_leader_specialisation. Seems like a lot of work, it feels like there should be a variable somewhere (this popularity being the obvious choice) which automatically reassigns these goals. I'll mess around with my save game and see what happens.
As for realism, my mantra (not that I make games, though I used to be a professional games reviewer a long time ago) is: Realism is great up to the point when it negatively affects the gameplay. I don't even have an expensive squad, I have more of a development team and let my best riders go when they start demanding over 40k-ish/month... and still I dominate the Vuelta without even trying. Am I expected to bring my cobblestone team to even it out?
Ollfardh wrote:
That last point is invalid, since both are highly suspicious and there were actually good riders at the start. They just got beaten by a likely doper.
Chris Horner GT History:
TDF:2005-33rd,2006-61st,2007-14th,2010-9th,2012-13th,2014-17th
Vuelta:2006-20th,2007-36th,2013-1st!
JJAC:
TDF:2007-20th,2012-30th
Vuelta:2009-9th,2011-1st!,2012-67th
They could have been the ones doping!
@Ripley
Yes you're absolutely right! You should change type_leader before 1st Jan as the rosters get chosen for the Grand Tours on that day (see dyn_team_race). type_leader_specialisation however is a different story it seems even if you edit that it gets changed by the game on 1st of Jan so you cant change if someone does Tour-Giro double or whatever unless you edit it in dyn_team_race. I have the same thought the game should use popularity to decide it but not to be.
I totally agree with you about realism aswell. If you wanna check out how other races like classics and tours get decided check sta_program and sta_pogram_info - search the forum for for info.
