Races

There are two kinds of races: single races and tours.
You can take part in a race by adding your cyclists in your teams tactics for that race. You will find those team tactics in the calendar. For every participating cyclist you'll have to pay 1000$ participation fee.

Don't forget to set the tactics and the efforts of your cyclist right. You can also select some equipment, but that isn't obligatory. (More info about effort and equipment is provided in the 'calendar' section.)

Tactics.jpg

Race tactics help

Choosing the leader: the more Leadership skill, the more tactic points to your disposal.

Which tactics to use?

You have the ability to choose from one of these 4 individual cyclist orders:
1. "Save Fitness": The cyclist with this order won’t take any initiative during the entire race. This tactic is opportune when the cyclist does not really pursue a good overall ranking in a tour, but rather aims for that specific race victory later on.
He will only lose 1% of fitness.

2. "Attacker": The cyclist will attempt an attack on one or more predefined points during the race. When a cyclist attempts an attack, he will first perform a break-away ('demarrage') to create an initial gap. For this break-away the cyclist needs a sufficient Sprint skill. In the attack he will need sufficient Time Trial Skill.
Ofcourse the terrainskill is also important : attacking on a mountainpart with a cyclist with poor mountain skills is quite useless.

3. "Helper": This task is given to cyclists that you want to concentrate on helping your attacker(s) and/or final sprinter. When a cyclist has a flat tire or a fall and he has enough helpers in his group at that time, these helpers will guide the cyclist back to his group without any time penalty.

A helper will also help his team mate(s) to overcome a bad part of the race. When there is for instance a strip of hill and one of your cyclists only has poor hill skill, the helpers will surround him and try to keep him in the group. The more helpers in the group, the more effective their influence is and the better a lower skilled cyclist can hang on to them.

Helpers also actively tend to keep the peloton speed as high as possible. Together with other team mates having that same order, but also together with the helpers from the other teams he will form a line ('echelon') at the front of the peloton, boosting its speed.

When a teammate is in the attack, the helpers will not help in increasing the peloton speed.

4. "Final sprinter": An order you would use when you are aiming for a mass sprint at the end of the race. A cyclist with this order will stay in the peloton during the race, but will unleash his remaining powers during the final field sprint. His Sprint skill will be boosted when he approaches the finish to make a final kick or anticipate on another final sprinter’s jump.
Like in real life cycling, the helpers will form a line and try to bring their final sprinter in the best possible way to the final field sprint. The more helpers your final sprinter has, the better he will be positioned for the sprint.
Also the terrainskill on which the sprint is held, is importannt

General race aspects

Following is a list of different game aspects and cyclist's behaviour to expect:

• Every cyclist will start the race in the field (‘peloton’).
• The speed of this peloton will depend mainly on the combined skills of the helpers but every other cyclist in the peloton will have a smaller contribution to the group’s speed as well.
• A cyclist can only break away from the peloton by attacking. No matter how good his skills are, he will stay in the peloton when he does not attempt an attack.
• The speed of a group will mainly be determined by the combined terrain skill of all the members of the group for the terrain of the strip they are on. On top of that, and depending on the size of the group, the time trial skill is also of importance.

A single rider will have to face the wind and weather all the time, and therefore cannot hide behind another cyclist’s back. In those circumstances, he needs to be a sufficiently skilled time trialer to keep up a constant pace. However, in a more extended group, the cyclists can draft behind one another, forming an echelon, and as such the individual time trial skills will be of less importance for the pace of the entire group.
• Just like in real life cycling, when the race is nearing the end, the peloton will increase the pace and spin harder and harder to get the final sprinters in the best positions or because they think they still can successfully chase the last group of escapers ahead of them.
• Intermediate sprints are handled as in real life, i.e. you don’t have to elect point sprint or mountain sprint cyclists anymore before the race starts. The one that reaches an intermediate sprint first, will get the most points, and so on. If a group of cyclists has reached an intermediate sprint they will sprint for the points.
• Flats and falls will cause you to loose a fixed amount of time, which is independent of the terrain you were on when it occurred. Remember that helpers in the same group might overcome the disadvantages of a flat or fall.

A lot of combinations are possible but in general you would go for
In a rather flat stage:
• a final sprinter
• at least 2 or 3 helpers (for flat/falls)
• an attacker who tries to attack on 2 or 3 places, but only if the race profile fits his skills
• a cyclist who saves fitness for 1 of the next races, if you still have tactic points left
In a rather mountain stage:
• at least 2 or 3 helpers (for flat/falls)
• 1 or 2 attackers who try to attack on 2 or 3 places
• 1 or 2 save fitness cyclists if they really don't have any mountain skill

The race results are calculated at 13h00.

Other things that will impact the race performance

  • Experience : the higher the skill, the better your cyclist performs.
  • Weight / Height
  • Mood: the higher the mood of your cyclist, the better he will perform.
  • Fitness and effort: if you multiplicate these percentages for a given cyclist, you'll get the percentage of his possibilites he'll use during a race. E.g.:
  1. 1 Cyclist A has 100% fitness and races at 70% effort. He will use 100%*70%= 70% of his possibilities.
  2. 2 Cyclist B has 80% fitness and races at 85% effort. He will use 80%*85%= 69% of his possibilities.
  3. 3 Cyclist C has 60% fitness and races at 100% effort. He will use 60%*100%= 60 of his possibilities.
  • As for now, the weather has no influence on the game. This might change in the future.

In single races there's a maximum of 100.000$ victory bonus awarded (in first division). However, you won't always win the full amount because it is dependent on the number of participating teams.
If at least 70 cyclists participate, the full amount is awarded. For every cyclist less the victory bonus diminishes with 1%.
E.g.: if 55 cyclists participate, there are 15 cyclist short for a full victory bonus, which means only 85% will be divided.
In tour races the maximum victory bonus is 50.000$.

This table shows how many division points and how much money you can gain per position:

Position Points (division) Money (in percent)
1 100 100
2 60 75
3 40 50
4 30 35
5 20 20
6 15 10
7 10 9
8 9 8
9 8 7
10 7 6
11 6 5
12 5 4
13 4 3
14 3 2
15 2 1
16-20 1 0,5

Time trials are marked as ITT (Individual Time Trial) or TTT (Team Time Trial).
Time trials are calculated quite differently than normal races because they make use of the time trial skill of your cyclists.

Normally the speed of a cyclist on a terrain is mainly dependent on his skill for that terrain.
Take the following cyclists A and B for an example:
Cyclist A: Flat: 8, Time Trial: 3
Cyclist B: Flat 5, Time Trial: 7
Cyclist A will race a lot faster than cyclist B in a normal race on flat terrain, due to his good flat skill.
This is not necessarily true in time trials, because the time trial skill is counted double and than added to the appropriate terrain skill to calculate a cyclists speed.
For cyclist A, this means he'll race with a total skill on flat of 8+(2*3)= 8+6= 14.
Cyclist B will ride the time trial with a total skill of 5+(2*7)= 5+14=19.
That means cyclist B will be faster than cyclist A in a time trial, due to his Time Trial skill.

In team time trials, your team will be given the average time of your cyclists. So choose wisely, winning team time trials is a matter of selecting an overall well performing time trial team.

See also:

race
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