I think a barbell approach works well. You want a squad size of almost 30 riders for a pro tour team. 10 can be young and cheap domestiques and you only want to pay big bucks for two leaders. I tend to have three squads, a classics squad of cobble riders and two teams for the tours
Hey man, In my experience a classic sprint train on a mountain stage is not optimal. I had better results with a train starting with your best rider, following by your second best etc. etc. And your weakest rider protecting your best rider on the head of the train. When that domestique is done, replace him with your last man on the train to protect your leader. In my save game disaster has struck... 😞 8 riders with ending contracts. They all asked waaaaay to much money (like between 35-50K). So i lost my best overall rider, who is a puncher (82 hill) specialist. I also lost my two best Grand Tour riders (80 climbing). I lost my two best sprinters (80 sprint) . I lost my best cobble rider (77). All those riders managed to get big wins for me. I let go of two domestiques who developed badly. I only resigned one good domestique rider for the grand tours. I managed to sign one new grand tour rider who also has very good time trial, but for way too much money (30K +). Also i signed one new domestique for in the Grand Tours and two new talents. So my squad size dropped from 26 riders to 23 riders and the quality dropped massively. I have no idea how to handle the financials when trying to take the step up towards the bigger teams...? To end on a possitive note: This year i won the Giro and got 3rd in the Tour de France. I'm dominating the points Team Classification.
I suppose you just have to try and stagger it so they don't all leave in the one year and try sign a young replacement for a rider the year before they might be leaving but it can be very difficult
I agree that the game assigns the top riders to too many small races, but big stars do Tirreno-Adriatico every year. Jonas Vingegaard won T-A this season.
Big stars are always there, but not many. This year had Vingegaard but no other stars. Lots of second tier riders though, Ayuso, O'Conner, Pidcock, etc.
Really sad crash at the end there would be 30s up still with the extra domestique
I think a barbell approach works well. You want a squad size of almost 30 riders for a pro tour team. 10 can be young and cheap domestiques and you only want to pay big bucks for two leaders. I tend to have three squads, a classics squad of cobble riders and two teams for the tours
Hey man,
In my experience a classic sprint train on a mountain stage is not optimal. I had better results with a train starting with your best rider, following by your second best etc. etc. And your weakest rider protecting your best rider on the head of the train. When that domestique is done, replace him with your last man on the train to protect your leader.
In my save game disaster has struck... 😞
8 riders with ending contracts. They all asked waaaaay to much money (like between 35-50K). So i lost my best overall rider, who is a puncher (82 hill) specialist. I also lost my two best Grand Tour riders (80 climbing). I lost my two best sprinters (80 sprint) . I lost my best cobble rider (77). All those riders managed to get big wins for me. I let go of two domestiques who developed badly. I only resigned one good domestique rider for the grand tours.
I managed to sign one new grand tour rider who also has very good time trial, but for way too much money (30K +). Also i signed one new domestique for in the Grand Tours and two new talents.
So my squad size dropped from 26 riders to 23 riders and the quality dropped massively.
I have no idea how to handle the financials when trying to take the step up towards the bigger teams...?
To end on a possitive note: This year i won the Giro and got 3rd in the Tour de France. I'm dominating the points Team Classification.
I suppose you just have to try and stagger it so they don't all leave in the one year and try sign a young replacement for a rider the year before they might be leaving but it can be very difficult
I agree that the game assigns the top riders to too many small races, but big stars do Tirreno-Adriatico every year. Jonas Vingegaard won T-A this season.
Big stars are always there, but not many. This year had Vingegaard but no other stars. Lots of second tier riders though, Ayuso, O'Conner, Pidcock, etc.
Funniest startlist silliness I have seen is Pogacar riding the Tour of Oman but then not riding the UAE tour a week later.
Seabra is pronounced See-ah-bra