Online cycling and/or baseball manager type timewasters?

[Levin]

Oooh. 4 of us are in the tour.

[Sits]

But your riders might still be alive at the end.

[matt j]

I'd say we need an informal IoM table for this tour, but my lot won't be anywhere near the top.

[Levin]

I'm just in it for the flat stage. My riders might be a bit bushed though as I'm going all out to win Fuglebjerg - N?stved on Sunday. It suits me perfectly and there are currently only 7 other teams competing. I'm much more likely to pick up a result there than in the tour. Even stages 1 & 5 which are for sprinters have a bit more bump than I'd like.

[longeared]

I've sent a selection of climbery riders and Namgung for the sprint stages, he's about the fourth best sprinter in the race so might be able to nick some form of result somewhere. Normally when I pick a mix of different types of riders for a race we end up falling between both stools and not doing anything. Then Namgung will be on a combination of training block and race break before we target the pancake flat u23 race in Algeria on July 4th.

[Sits]

Bang. Best result in ages. It does mean we’re back up in D6, but three riders in the points and prize money is not to be sniffed at. Now they’re all on Race Break ahead of the Japanese/Spanish odyssey.

[matt j]

Nicely done! I haven't placed like that since the heady days of Division 11.

Kavanagh won his third race in four, another flat road race that he has been dominating lately (not quite in the top SP/FR/TQ riders in the game, but not too far off). I have my eyes on a two more Divi 6 flat road races (Annecy - Rumilly and Enzine Street Race) and then I have to see if I can max his TQ and FR. Then the question becomes whether I spread his training around to CL/DH/HL or focus on boosting cobble up to a more competitive level. I'm leaning towards the former since most of the CB races are going to be won by the CB specialists (CB 90+) rather than an all around flat-racer like Kavanagh.

I'm in a weird sponsorship position where next week I'll get 50k from one sponsor's end, and 100k from one sponsor's beginning. It will be a massive influx of cash.

[Sits]

Levin good result for your man in the first leg of the Japanese tour. My lads are on their way to Spain for their detour and hope to be back to join you in time for the second leg.

[Sits]

Aaaarrrggghhh we won a stage!!

[Levin]

Not only that. You're top of the GC! Good ride.

Not a bad day for Nuhiu Rules either I guess with Shubkin sitting high in the standings.

[Sits]

Thanks. One of our support riders (Pile) got injured and he’s CL 70 / DH 63 so that will hurt Hagen from now on.

[longeared]

Not a bad day for Nuhiu Rules either I guess with Shubkin sitting high in the standings.

Yeah, had a 12th on both stages so far which is a decent pair of results without any tangible return so far. This is where the game frustrates me a bit though as I don't know how Shubkin has finished where he did - he was a breakaway rider while Munroe was captain. So now I'm having to guess whether Shubkin was among the unnamed "five breakaway riders" and hung on or whether he was the stronger rider on the finish climb.

[delicatemoth]

Keen Manx patriots may be wondering why it's gone a bit quiet lately. The reason is that every time I try and enter a race I'm told our ranking isn't high enough. If it goes on for much longer I'll make a post about it and wait for that Lance Armstrong guy to tell me what's up.

No points scored in division 4 and Man 2 Man are back in div 5 now.

[Sits]

Is Lance Armstrong the one who puts biblical quotes on his forum posts? TBF they generally seem a decent, helpful crowd although there’s a lot of negative vibe from successful teams about the introduction of sponsorship. I made a post on the thread along the lines that perhaps it will mean new managers stay who might otherwise leave.

longeared I don’t really understand either. Hunzberger is top ten in the Sprint classification and has no sprinting ability whatsoever.

[delicatemoth]

That's the one! He was very apologetic when I corrected his assumption that I was a man, even though I thought it was an understandable assumption given my team name. Yeah, there's a group of very helpful posters there.

[matt j]

Pretty solid showing in the tour from the IoM teams (excluding myself). Very impressive.

delicatemoth You won't have to wait for Lance, since I know the reason why we can't get a Manx team into a race at the moment. All the races for the last few weeks are the "Cup of Nations" (or something like that) that is for the top 20 teams only.

You should be seeing an opportunity to sign up for one of these today (hopefully the first):

Odense - K?benhavn (WT)

1 1 3 7 8 0 6 0

35

43

G?teborg ITT (WT)

1 2 3 6 0 0 5 7

35

43

Vancouver Time Trial (WT)

1 1 1 6 2 0 5 8

35

43

[matt j]

I definitely find that the tours (and one-days, tbh) could use a little more information on how your tactics were playing out to explain a bit more of the results. It is frustrating to not have any idea. (I'm currently trying to monitor a few races to see if I have riders finishing higher than expected when on breakaway. It's become a bit of a reverse engineering project for me.)

Fox River took advantage of the Division 7 tour to finish 1st-2nd in Annecy - Rumilly. Didn't have a full sign-up and the heavy hitting sprinters were all over on the tour. Cuthbert's second place there (Kavanagh first) will likely be his last placing for some time, and is one that 'by the skills alone' he shouldn't have managed. Think he got a good boost from our lead-outs.

I'm also re-shuffling the team a bit this week. Picked up a potential team-mate from the free hire list (and immediately was told it was not worth training him), grabbed another youth just to give me numbers (and scouted him to find nothing of value - so will be released in about a month), and have one going out the door as he just doesn't match my current training plans.

The experienced managers all say it's not worth training certain riders as team-mates, but with the gamble of a really high potential rider maxing early, I'm not 100% sure I agree. In the forums there are a handful of whispers about some teams training 'only good' riders more, but not enough to give me confidence either way. More importantly, it seems really dull to just sit and wait for the one 'potential superstar' to fall into your lap from the talents or the free hire list without doing anything else with your team. Some managers have waited a year or more to find a 'trainable' rider, which seems a bit broken. (Especially since one of the sidebar 'tips' is that 'low potential riders' have a chance to be better overall than 'high potential'.)

Per standard OCM forum advice, Kavanagh would have been deemed too old to train. Though this may have been before the sponsorship money update. It's possible that before it really wouldn't have been possible to dump 100k in one season towards training a 26-year-old. Which gives me hope that maybe the meta-game has shifted a bit towards training-up rather than scouting-wide. I could be completely, utterly wrong, so time will tell.

The top teams also have far more money to scout ruthlessly, poaching just about everyone, or buying them straight out from poorer teams when they appear elsewhere. It's hugely weighted in their direction (as expected for an online game as old as this is), and I sent something in the survey pretty much identical to what Sits said in the forum about new managers disappearing. (Even here in the OTF group we've lost what 3 or 4 teams immediately?)

Edit: eh, a bit rambling this morning. At any rate, I'm up to Division 5 at the moment, with Kavanagh nearly running the table of low-division flat road races. I expect this is my peak table position, but I have a crack at one more Div 6 race, though this one (by my eyes) looks like a difficult one for Kavanagh to win. I can't crack division 4 even with a win, so need points in Division 5 races to go any higher.

[Sits]

Thanks Matt, good post. When I did a PR to say I’d bought Hunzberger (24 at the time) half of them were saying he was too old to train up, and how they only train really young prodigies. Sod that for a game of soldiers, I’m here for fun.

[matt j]

Word. (Ditto.)

[delicatemoth]

Oh, thanks for clearing that up matt.

Thanks Matt, good post. When I did a PR to say I’d bought Hunzberger (24 at the time) half of them were saying he was too old to train up, and how they only train really young prodigies. Sod that for a game of soldiers, I’m here for fun.

OK, I'm going to make a confession. When I initially sought an opinion on which rider to develop out of two, I was informed (correctly) that Abner Carder was the best bet. I was also informed that developing helpers was generally a waste of scarce resources for a newbie team. Consequently, I let the other rider go.

Look at him now, freshly capped by the Isle of Man - http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/team...inby_Louramore

Admittedly I'd have struggled to fund training him to anywhere near that level until sponsors came in (and neither me or my advisor were to know they would be introduced), but still. He'd be Carder's number one helper now if I'd kept him, as he is in the Manx team.

So yes, those old stagers are knowledgeable and helpful, but they're not always right!

[Sits]

And what a fantastic name too, Quimby Laramoure! I guess sponsors have changed this equation a bit but I fully intend (and have already begun) to train some of the support riders up just in their string suits, if it will help the team. Benjamin Pile had Good for CL and Average for DH, so that’s all I’m training him on. Unwin Treadwell has Very Good on CL so I’ve maxed him out there but nothing else yet although I’ll go back to his DH and HL (which are Small) when able.

I’m going to see if Hunzberger has any potential left on TQ and maybe SP before he maxes out completely, as I’ve been told that in a climbing team, only the Captain can make use of these skills. Team mates can only contribute CL, DH, HL, FR and CB. Unless you use Lead Outs which appears to be almost never a thing in climbing races.

[delicatemoth]

Yes, that's another area that would be helped by more detailed race feedback. If a climbing race has a SP factor of 3 or 4, does that indicate that it's likely a small group of the best climbers will approach the finish together and the one with the best SP attribute has an edge? I suspect the simulation isn't that detailed and it's more of an overall number crunch, but there's no way to know for sure.

[matt j]

OK, I'm going to make a confession. When I initially sought an opinion on which rider to develop out of two, I was informed (correctly) that Abner Carder was the best bet. I was also informed that developing helpers was generally a waste of scarce resources for a newbie team. Consequently, I let the other rider go.

Look at him now, freshly capped by the Isle of Man - http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/team...inby_Louramore

Ha, I occasionally look to see who of the Isle of Man 'influx' that were released and then got picked up by other teams. Besides Louramore, we also have:

Arthur Toole, sold by Lindfield at 125k, maxed by another team, then sold for 60k to a Division 2 team as a 77 HL: http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/?pag...ile&id=1162857

Sigmond Rhone, released by Fox River, picked up once, then released, now picked up again by a new team. I don't believe he's gotten any or much training (maybe I dropped 5 points into climbing initially): http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/?pag...ile&id=1162806

Emrick Cookson, picked up by a team and has had some training on TQ: http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/?pag...ile&id=1162847

and then a whole slew of my riders picked up and not apparently trained: Stalcup, Stanfield, Zahn, Hatfield, Wirt, Smallman, Loring, etc... I really don't think I dropped any money on any of those, but they all got signed by other teams.

[matt j]

Not to mention the AV28 rider Trent Krum, released by Veridian and sitting with a Division 2 teams as maybe a water carrier? http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/?pag...e&id=1164809#1

[matt j]

That TT stage in the tour of Sanreizan certainly brought our IoM teams back down to earth a bit. Albrecht from Fox River was briefly in the top 10 for young riders, but that stage has ended those hopes quite rudely.

Hunzberger still clinging to a top10 GC finish though.