This has been a subject for many version and after some time I'm banking folks could inform me correctly on this. I haven't bought pcm18 yet but need to know a very important thing.
On pcm17 I found out that in my tests on several GT and smaller stage-races the AI in some 80% of the stages ended up with a 7-man breaaway. This was so obvious I started to count each and every breakaway. The results was stunning. Very very few 2-3 cyclist and some +7. The majority by far was 7 men. Then if they got caught or not was a more realistic matter.
I now ask very clearly. How is the breakaways in pcm18. Has it still got 7-man as almost 75% or higher, or do we get more of the smaller -5 groups.
Perhaps even some +10 man groups now and then ?
To be really sure I have used 3 different DB, so it's not anything with the stats.
In pcm17 it looked kind of crazy sometimes. 2-4 man got off and then a little later it was almost as the AI figured out. Hey I still have riders to make up that 7-man group and off went the remaining cyclists.
After months of testing I have given up. Something is broken and is it still in pcm18 ??????
In pcm18, i've had breakaways as big as 44 men in Tour de France, i've tried that 1-2 times in maybe 10 tour runs, but it was pretty fun, to see some teams with 3-4 riders.
Breakaways are one of the vast AI improvements in 2018.
Like said before, the breakaway itself is more realistic (more cyclists of the same team, more chance of bigger breakaways in some TDF stages, more chances of the breakaway fighting for victory in some stages, and less chances of the breakaway winning flat stages... which was an annoying bug in 17)
I've had a 59 rider breakaway in the giro. But they started splitting up, due to not working together, just like you see in real life.
It's also quite the test, cause when +25 strong people go to the break, it's really hard sometimes to figure out what to do, cause if you spend 4-5 riders keeping them in range or chasing them back almost, then you have very few riders to protect your leders(s) in the later part of the race. So sometimes you can't afford to be greedy and chase a MO stage down for a stage win, so you just have to let em go and keep taps on the best placed in GC, just to make sure he doesn't win the whole race from a breakaway
What you been telling me isounds like much more erratic of breakaways as in real life. The bigger breakaways are also a nice touch. Thinking on TDF in the last few stages groups like that could be on a breaks with no GC riders involved. The AI need to figure out how breakways are formed and what riders are in it. Perhaps not the easiest of programming. In early breakaways you could easily see the KOM leader but not always the riders that could easily challenge for the KOM. Looked like just pure chances.
Many teams should be going for stages or KOM jerseys when their best rider hasn't got too big shot in the ovrall GC.
That's what I look for too in the AI handling.
Thanks for you ccomments. I have fait to maybe buy pcm18 after all.
Too many version don't really present much new seeable things until some months players tested it out proper.
____________________________________________
