I've been trying to find a coherent, successful race strategy for doing well in cobbled races.
I've learned that Mountain stages need excellent use of the dot.
I've learned how to setup my own sprint train and how to use it effectively.
I've learned how to choose my moments to attack as a puncher to win those hilly races.
But how the heck do I deal with the slow attrition of a cobbled race successfully?
Early on, I had my leader on hold position (99) with a protecting rider, but he would get stuck behind on the run up to a cobbled section and would then be out of position for the Spartacus attack.
Recently, I've ended up putting all of my riders on relay leading up to and through a cobbled section, so that my leader and support is up front ready to deal with any attacks. This seems to jive well with real life.
I'm currently running a LottoNLJumbo save, and trying to meet the sponsor expectations for cobbled classics (1st in E3, 1st in Ronde von Vlanderen, etc.) with just Van Marke is very tough.
I'd lower the sponsor goals a bit, 1st is kinda hard on cobbles because you can't make a mistake during the race. Vanmarcke is good, but he doesn't have the best team either.
Ollfardh wrote:
I'd lower the sponsor goals a bit, 1st is kinda hard on cobbles because you can't make a mistake during the race. Vanmarcke is good, but he doesn't have the best team either.
Ah. Kind of impossible during the season.
I haven't switched sponsor goals before. What is the impact from lowering them in game?
In cobbled classics dot with 75-80 effort in the last cobbled sections works fine to save yellow and red bars. Maybe you need to raise to 85-90 for not lose the favourites wheels. At the first sectiones, you can use 65-70 effort.
And protect your rider with some rider good in COB stats and Plain.
Use 99 in hold position destroy your rider. I never use 99 effort.
canojuancho wrote:
In cobbled classics dot with 75-80 effort in the last cobbled sections works fine to save yellow and red bars. Maybe you need to raise to 85-90 for not lose the favourites wheels. At the first sectiones, you can use 65-70 effort.
And protect your rider with some rider good in COB stats and Plain.
Use 99 in hold position destroy your rider. I never use 99 effort.
I've found pure dot use to be insufficient to allow your leader to join the final selection on a cobbled classic. (Unless your rider is superior to the attacker, but that isn't the norm).
If your rider isn't in the final selection coming out of the cobbles, it's impossible to catch the big names again.
Hold 99 actually doesn't destroy your rider in this situation, as the favorites attack (use the sprint function) and hold doesn't follow attacks. No, hold 99 is bad because your rider gets stuck behind other riders who aren't following the attack on a narrow road.
In my experience, hold 99 only destroys your rider (when he shouldn't be destroyed) on a climb.
Finished 4th. Made a break with Cancellara late, but foolishly didn't work with him and let some sprinters rejoin. Lost to Kittel / Sagan / Degenkolb.
Ronde von Vlanderen: Finished 9th, Etix's Bouman forced an elite selection early with 50km to go! Catching and keeping him allowed the sprinters to draft Vanmarke and Cancellara. Degenkolb won the day.
Not much hope for Paris Roubaix. Vanmarke isn't strong enough to stay away alone and isn't fast enough to beat Sagan et al. I need some stronger teammates.
Took my strongest Lotto NL-Jumbo team to Paris Roubaix. Slightly overcooked my team breaking the peloton down to around 40 riders. With 70 km to go, Vanmarcke was alone. However, everyone else was also gassed. Kristoff / Cancellara made an elite selection of six with 30ish km to go, but were unable to stay away when Vanmarcke and four other riders (Sagan, etc.) caught up with 10 km to go.
I was unable to get ahead of that group, and we headed into the Velodrome together. The sprinters were obviously hanging on and gassed, and everyone was making fake attacks to get other people to work. Kristoff and Cancellara wheel sucked me to a first and second...but Vanmarcke beat Sagan for third.
If I hadn't cooked all my friends so early, it could have been better.
1) You play with quick-step and use the cobble stone dream team. Paris-Roubaix and RVV you should put your three worst cobble riders in the front at a pace of 85-90 at the beginning of the first cobble stones. Boonen and Terpstra have to be defended by the 4th and 5th worst cobble stone riders ( this is going to be VandenBerg and Lampaert if I'm correct. Stybar has to be there somewhere aswell. Your worst three cobble stone riders have to keep that the 85-90 mark untill they are completely destroyed. Usually tight now you will be in a group of max 30 riders. All the favourites will be there.
After this you put pressure on the favourites. You try to break away a couple of times with Vandenbergh and Lampaert. The top riders ( Cancellara, Sagan, Degencolb, Kristoff, Vanmarcke,... ) will counterattack. When VandenBergh and Lampaert are dead, you do exactly the same with Stybar. From here on it will be max only 40km anymore to go to the finishing line. Sometimes Stybar will win.
If Stybar can't escape, prepare Terpstra to get away max 20km from the finishing line, let Boonen follow Sagan, Kristoff or Degencolb. Sometimes Terpstra will win from here on.
Keep Boonen for the finishing touch. If he is still very fit, react with him on an attack from one of the other favourites, after that, go for an attack yourself on the other side of the road.
With this strategy you have 80-90% chance of winning these races ( It has never failed for me in Paris-Roubaix. RVV is more tricky. ) As you can see you have three riders who are capable of winning these monuments.
2) with another team, try to keep your rider in the background. Never counterattack, just follow someone who does the counterattacks. Stay in front ( somewhere near Boonen, Sagan, Cancellare,... ) when the cobbles are coming.
When playing with Sagan, Degencolb or Kristoff, stay in one of the other sprinters their wheel and do a sprint as usual, you will win easily if you have never closed a gap yourself.
If you ride with the other riderz, try the same tactik as Terpstra or Boonen, don't start from too far away, it's very rare that you will survive this.
Speaking of cobblestone classics I gave my rider (Sagan) some wrong season targets in the beginning of january, then I tried to change his condition in the curve section. So I set him to do maximum in end march - start april in order to do well.
When I reach the "new" targets (E3-GW-Ronde-PR) his freshnes are ridiciously low. This means when I load a stage the bars on Sagan are almost half!
And this leads to bad performance of course. Not even top 10..
What am I doing wrong?
“When it’s hurting you, that’s when you can make a difference”
Did you play Be a Pro yet? There you can see that before every race you enter, your rider takes a day off right before to regain freshness.
In normal career mode, the game only lets a rider rest the day before a race if it is one of his target races.
In a career, the game obviously doesn't know who to give rest days to before a race since it doesn't know the lineup you'll select.
Now look at the fitness curve in Be a Pro and imagine what it would look like if there were no rest days, and you can see the effect.
The only real workaround would be to never use level 5 training since that's where freshness takes the biggest hit, but personally I just accepted it.
