So I've tried starting a few team careers, anything from theme teams to "OH HEY VOECKLER, LEZ TRY AND WIN THE TOUR!!!"-attempts with Europcar.
However. The start of season objectives/planning seems ridiculously bad designed in my eyes. Either I'm doing it wrong, or it's just made terribly.
Ad1) I need to give all riders some kind of 'fullfilling' objectives for the season, however from the start, there seem to be no connections between what races is chosen and wether it's realistic that I will be riding said races or not. It's such a hassle between four different points (schedule, sponsors, objectives and summary) to make sure that you are in a race, have at least applied to the races that matters to the sponsor and that you have people who has ambitions in them - while not having too many. That entire planning process is imo a game of it's own and while I kind of like it, the unintuity of the design just kills it for me.
Ad2) Economy; Why not make it easier to understand how the economy works? As it is now, you need to be educated into economics to be able to figure out how much money you actually are free to use. In PCM, it's like the game doesn't realize that you get a monthly injection from your sponsors - and that you have to pay wages. Why not put all the numbers in there from the start so you can see exactly how things are and what you can spend on upgrading staff or training camps?
Ad3) While on the subject of money; when you're looking for new sponsors, make it easier to see/understand the entire offer. I was watching a streamer going through all the offers and they all seemed ridiculously low (even as a continental team), so he missed out on the best offer (the first one he got) because the offers only state some monthly amount. Afaik, there's more to the sponsors than that, yes?
Ad4) Staff; Again, transparency would REALLY help ouy Cyanide here. No kind of logic dictates that a guy with a better reputation is a better trainer. Make a skill, maybe even make a speciality for trainers. Of course the better trainers will, at some point, build a reputation and like the riders, then demand a bigger wage. As there is already a relationship stat in the game, simply keep it so riders train better with trainers they know.
Ad5) Is there a mod that deals with (some of) the above?
Some fair points, a career is a bit daunting at first because there is a lot to consider, a lot to do every year in early January. Basically, you learn by doing. Though I believe you will find a lot of tips here on this very website. Check out the tips and tricks section, they'll usually be for older editions but little changes from one edition to the next. And use the search function, again, tips for older versions will probably still be valid.
1. Feel free to ignore the sponsor's objectives, at least at first until you get the hang of things. And even feel free to ignore whether the riders like their schedules. Get enough good results and the sponsor will be happy and we are pretty sure rider's happiness has no influence. To be quite honest, I still do that, the riders get the schedule I decide on, whether they are happy with it or not. And I pretty much ignore the sponsor's objectives, too.
So in a way it's optional. If you want to make the effort, it's pretty realistic, after all, then puzzle around until all the parts fit. Sort of a game within the game, with all the charm of a spreadsheet. But really, you don't have to, the financial penalty will be minute.
2. It's not that difficult. Ok, it can be unclear exactly how much money you start the season with. But you do know how much you currently spend per month and how much the sponsor pays you per month. Check in early January. Calculate the difference between income and spending (will usually be negative) and multiply that by 12, deduct it from your current balance. It'll surely be positive, so you know you get through the year. If you want to add a trainer who costs 10.000/month, again, multiply by 12 and find out if you can afford him. Of course there's also race income, but that obviously depends on how well you do. I ignore it completely, better be safe than sorry, but certainly in the WT it can be quite substantial. After a while, money will be no problem.
3. Not really. I mean, there's also the focus of the team, which is reflected in the objectives. So if you have no cobblestone specialists you probably should not pick a Belgian team, that might be more important than the monthly amount. But generally, that's everything.
4. I wonder if that is true. It says so on loading screens but the trainers have individual stats and that's all I go by, not their reputation. Their stats and reputation never change, by the way. What you are suggesting, even with relationships, would be a whole new "module" for the game.
I can't begin with how many times I've started a team career and died because of all the planning at the start.
If it can, more or less, be ignored, I'm fine with that.
I'm trying to make a French team that, at some point, will be a WT team, but to get there I need both talent and results. Another guy suggested to me that I just make objectives for 1-4 riders and simply copied them to everyone else so I have a "spring classics group", a "giro group" and so on. I might try making a new continental and focus a lot on riders with lower mountain skill and simply go for a lot of wins to get a hang of it.
My thought was that economy would be somewhat easier along the way, but seeing as I've so far never made it out of February........
Thanks for the reply, I'll get back to it and make Credit Agricole again.
MacC wrote:
So am I missing something or are there no "Young Riders" you can choose when setting up a Custom Team>?
there are some young riders, but you need to find them on your own, as it is quite overpowered if you could choose the highest overal rated youth player which most of times has a 6, 7 or 8 potential making your team a beast. as cyanide has said the scouting system has been changed. you need to find young riders on your own now, and that is better for the more skilled players
MacC wrote:
So am I missing something or are there no "Young Riders" you can choose when setting up a Custom Team>?
If you don't wanna find all the best talented guys, i have a list with some names that have pretty nice potential (6-7), and all of them is in the database, so you can pick them every time you start a new career. Some might not find it funny, but all the riders have pretty low avg so it will be a challange in the first season, but you should have a pretty strong team when you go to the World Tour. Also almost all of them costs 2500
Spoiler
R. Richas - France (Amazing Climber)
G. Moscon - Italy (Sick Puncher)
L. Di Plus - Belgium (Good Climber)
S. Cross - Belgium (Good Climber)
L. Vleegan - Belgim (Good Puncher)
R. Zabel - Germany (Amazing Sprinter)
S. Kragh Andersen - Denmark (Good Sprinter)
L. Kämna - Germanny (Good TT'er)
K. Merhawi - Eritrea (Amazing Climber)
T. Hart Gioghegan - UK (Good Stage Racer)
All of them will be good, espacially R. Richas, he will reach over 80 in Mon, Acc, Rec
I had noticed in previous games that Adrien Costa, Rayance Bouhanni and Lennard Kämna all became decent and Rajovic seemed like a good talent.
Most of them only have one stat below 60, which is typically mountain or cobbles, so they're all decent allround with all stats 60-70 and with potential.
Plebani is potential 1-4, Brkic 3-6, rest is 4-7 or 5-8. So overall they're decently talented and I'll try keeping as many as possible of them for as long as possible.
Dark horse is Jan Maas (baroudeur) who are terrible in the mountains, but could be a future winner for me as he's strong on everything else than sprinting. Good on hills, decent on TT/PRL (65/66) and good on cobbles 69.
So there's talent. How much of it I'm allowed to keep is another story.
I've started out signing up for every single U23 and x.2 race I could find in the calendar, then removing doubles (as I only have 12 riders) and then assigning them so they have roughly the same amount of race days.
Everyone's between 100 and 130 race days this first season in very easy races.
I suspect many will be dead tired, come end of season, but so far it's all about accumulating wins, keeping sponsors sort of happy and hope the riders improve.
Good luck. Though it sounds like you did spend a lot of time planning the season, I never assign riders to races, I basically decide on the day who'll race. In the lower leagues I also hardly ever apply for races or change the calendar. It's all optional. Though I might recommend lowering the training intensity across the board, especially with so many racing days per rider.
MacC wrote:
So am I missing something or are there no "Young Riders" you can choose when setting up a Custom Team>?
If you don't wanna find all the best talented guys, i have a list with some names that have pretty nice potential (6-7), and all of them is in the database, so you can pick them every time you start a new career. Some might not find it funny, but all the riders have pretty low avg so it will be a challange in the first season, but you should have a pretty strong team when you go to the World Tour. Also almost all of them costs 2500
Spoiler
R. Richas - France (Amazing Climber)
G. Moscon - Italy (Sick Puncher)
L. Di Plus - Belgium (Good Climber)
S. Cross - Belgium (Good Climber)
L. Vleegan - Belgim (Good Puncher)
R. Zabel - Germany (Amazing Sprinter)
S. Kragh Andersen - Denmark (Good Sprinter)
L. Kämna - Germanny (Good TT'er)
K. Merhawi - Eritrea (Amazing Climber)
T. Hart Gioghegan - UK (Good Stage Racer)
All of them will be good, espacially R. Richas, he will reach over 80 in Mon, Acc, Rec
But they're real riders. i am talking about the generated riders that you could add to a Custom Team after getting "Reports". That's how it was in 2013
But really, you don't have to, the financial penalty will be minute. 
