PCM23 Lions – Ep 141 – Tour de France

Manage a team of professional cyclists: control the budget, recruit young talent, train riders and devise race strategies. Jostle for position to reach the top of the world rankings! Using the World Database 2023, we play a special challenge series to raise the low quality of rider found in the 25 African nations in game. To make the game more challenging, not only do we play on extreme difficulty, but we start with a weak team on a modest budget permitting myself to only African riders and sponsors in this playthrough.

hey cathon gamer welcome back to PCM 23 Lions episode 141 and we got a lot to talk about before we begin what’s going to be a very fast tour to FR I need to be very fast talking about these things so we can get into it because obviously we want things to continue moving along for the remainder of this series okay first henoke Saved our bacon in September of last season his level up bumped him into second on our rankings bumped him from a four and a half star guy to a five-star guy and his season has been no victories no major performances per he was our leader it was a simulation through all of it we did no racing he finished 12th at Paradise his best Stage was a seventh in the jro he was very much a support writer for that race but his best finish of the entire race was 14th on the final Mountain Stage then at the tour to Swiss just recently he never even finished in the top 25 once on a single stage not a top-notch performance and with having just leveled up in September I am shocked that he has leveled up again absolutely stunned by this the scary thing though is his contract is about to expire we’re going to have to spend a lot of money to resign him just a month from now the good news he has no popularity he has no career wins he is not a known quantity out there it’s going to make him more affordable but the bad news is he is going to be a lot more expensive the other good news he’s now our best Rider on paper I think Arab’s still the leader they have the same Mountain rating he’s got a weaker medium Mountain rating his Hills has improved but it’s also weaker what he does have is the best stamina on the team and this number hasn’t changed in a while looking back at prior Seasons he’s been with us for a long time now this is season number six for Johannes heno on the team and we’re looking to you know keep him around long term even if I don’t play another season I still want to make sure that he’s signed up he hit that 81 stamina by the end of year three the recovery has been the same since the end of season 4 the medium Mountain has been the same now going on three years but the mountain rating has seen a drastic upturn in the last couple of seasons and it’s what we have been training him in but that level up in September saw him go from a 74 to a 77 Mountain rating and you know looking at all the other attributes that was about it he gained one point in Hills but it was the mountain rating that saw that significant jump that saw him go from four and a half stars to our second best Rider at Five Stars nine months later he is leveled up again means he’s got to still have some levels left in him he is not done yet leveling up if if he has managed to do this in 9 months without claiming victories or anything there’s no bonuses his world ranking is 2 17th he has added two points in Mountain to now be a 79 overall which means he’s added five points in less than one year his Hills rating has gained a total of three points in that time it’s now 711 he is now or appears to be maxed out as a climber his time trial can improve slightly but it’s not he’s a 66 time trialist he is not a GC kind of guy but he is maybe a stage winner kind of guy on the right kind of day uh his Hills and Sprint are where he still has the most room so uh we’re going to focus on his punch training now but wow surprised uh is definitely the the word for it for me our team for the tour to France of course is not our GC focused team and I am not going to be spending a lot of time on this race maybe two episodes at most what we’re looking at for this is a lot of unsung heroes new guys like Schultz who’s a 75 Sprint and nothing else Russo a 74 Sprint and nothing else we do have a couple of sprinters here uh Musa decent puncher right kind of stage might be able to pull out a performance also of course the whole team I prepared them even though they’re not our best Riders they are prepared for this they are expected to do well we are already getting into a couple guys in Fitness Peaks all of them are carrying the objective the three that have low motivation will not have low motivation within a day or two as they’ll go oh I’m at a grand tour hooray I’m at The Grand Tour hooray their motivation will come up so we’ll be looking at plus twos to plus fives for the entirety of the team it’ll help their performance right we’ve paired them what are they actually capable of makabe has that ha0 Sprint but he has no acceleration no flat rating can’t climb no stamina it’s it’s so one-dimensional that it still makes him rather useless even on paper will he even crack any top 10 in in this but we have the kind of guys who can maybe lead him out Kareem has that 80 flat ratings so we can definitely do well enough to get ourselves at the front of a pelaton josh other puncher is 78 Daniels is the other one who’s like makabe give either of them a plus five maybe just maybe neither one of them are there now it’s going to be towards the later stages before they’re ready to go and then Oliver clo third Punchy guys we got three Punchy guys we got one flat lead out guy and the rest are a Sprint team so that’s the two type of profiles that we’re going to be going for by the second day that motivation is resolved for those three guys and so everyone has a plus two at minimum and we have our first Sprint stage early profile stage three is another opportunity but again I think the right race day condition bonuses as in those two best Sprint options a plus two is not going to be enough for them Dunkirk to Cay yeah yeah stage four is a possibility stage five is absolutely not our kind of stage though that’s not a coule rated group so we would be bypassing that one but stage six that’s my kind of profile that we could do something on stage eight likewise stage 14 maybe that’s a little bit harder but stage 13 and Stage 15 are definite regular Sprint stages another on 19 we got a lot of Sprint stages for this race I can’t believe how few Mountain stages there are there are five stages that finish a top of mountain and there are two additional Mountain stages but wow I there’s only two medium Mountain St this this is one of the flattest tour to Frances I have seen in a long time mentioned I had a few things to talk about so there’s two more on the list uh we we’ll just play this in the background as I speed things along towards the end of the stage stage number two here uh two Rider break with five minute Advantage should make this a very very easy day setting up for uh for the spring our sprinters today Daniels makabe both have just plus ones Schultz gets a plus five and looks really strong and may be a contender especially with much better acceleration we might want to use him uh potentially as a guy today and then Kareem as their lead out Rider the fourth Sprinter uh Russo has a minus two today so he is definitely relegated to uh domestic duties as the only negative uh State condition in fact that’s at minimum that’s a minus four draw for him and we’re at 120k to go okay the two things uh one I’m coming up on the end of the cycle for this game and I’m running short on time both to continue on both on what’s coming next and both on what’s left to do for this series because we’ve added points to African nations we have developed African nations and we’ve found some decent Riders we’ve got five and a half star guys but we’ve not found a a benam gai we have not found the guy the guy already existed we found guys that are definitely not at his caliber at his level but you know Samuels we got him ranked pretty high and we definitely got Sammy Arab ranked pretty high so we have found some successes but we have not found the next benyam gai or something even bigger better stronger and we’ve never even been able to afford to get gai onto our team and he’s had no interest to join us even now CU he’s available in this coming season but there’s only so much we can do and it’s going to take many many many more seasons many more years before we have any chance of finding a GMI or equivalent or better or similar whatever you know this season’s going to be it uh the other piece of news is that I have already been promised an advanced copy so I will get a look here at procycling manager 24 uh on the channel ahead of time and it’ll be actually the first available content for pcm2 24 as I’m going to be on uh the steam page with the first actual live action of PCM 24 so uh that is all coming as we head over the bridge here into the windy area and this is one of those areas where you could absolutely get dropped with a big acceleration and as we go over the top of the bridge uh we’re going to want to get our Sprint chain set and keep things moving along I would love to see a split here and we are seeing a couple splits off the back here in the Crosswinds more bridge to cover but climbing is done done and we’re sitting here looking at now 14k and a pelaton of 65 and we’re not going to let those others get back in they had to be in position already they had to be prepared for this already uh Musa is going to go first just because he’s already used up the Red Bar compared to anybody else and I know I had a couple of guys that are nons sprinters at the front and then Russo and then we’ll get into Kareem now I’ve got to make my decision on the three of them is it manuals 81 Sprint but a 72 acceleration we don’t have to like it’s all flat from here he’s got a good flat rating his stamina at 74 is pretty decent he’s a real Contender with that 82 for makab definitely has the top speed but he lacks the acceleration and the stamina uh his flat rating is not great either 75 acceleration could really help but it’s only a 78 Sprint and even with a huge plus 10 to stamina it’s still only a 77 the top speed’s not there the acceleration is better I think Schultz Schultz still has to be the lead out guy so do we want an 8269 with low stamina or an 8172 8172 does sound a little bit better so we’ll ride for Daniels it’s a little more well balanced and definitely a bit ahead couple what three points ahead of Schultz with makab just one point further ahead but then the acceleration is definitely a lot more balanced so on a Musa no red bar but time to get that full push and on our way 13k to go Musa getting us out there getting us up into a position 12K to go let’s go ahead and get on to dilar here we got set up we got behind Musa and he can help break toe on anybody else dilers can bring us out front let’s get the next two gelled up and we’re inside 10 km now there’s been lots of comments throughout this series about why I don’t follow other sprinters it should be obvious but doesn’t seem to be obvious to everyone vent for that matter 8079 is all he has but real reality right the difficulty level that’s actually an 84 so he’s an 8483 Sprinter plus whatever his race St condition is he probably isn’t even in the top eight to 10 sprinters at this race we don’t know who all is here we’ll find out soon enough our best is nowhere near that right we you follow that you might be beat others he might provide you a a lead out but then we’re never going to be able to overtake him he goes to early doesn’t matter when he goes and we follow our acceleration our Sprint speed we’ll never match his he’ll pull away from us which means trying to keep his wheel will drain the Red Bar really fast so we will never be able to follow him and then be able to overtake it the only way for us to win a Sprint is from the front of the field and that’s why I just don’t follow the others so here’s others you know providing their lead out giving their push getting their guys in a position and we have seven and a half K to go we’re coming out uh as soon as we get to the end of the bridge here coming out of this 6.4k and we’ll be on to Kareem it’s a little earlier than I wanted to be onto but of course he’s got a much better flat rating so he can keep it pushing at 5.3 go ahead and get those last three gels so we’ve got our three guys they have their Red Bar other than Schultz is a little bit feeling it right now trying to keep up with Kareem 2.7k he’s obviously not actually sprinting especially without the Red Bar 2.1 Schultz off we go Vander hul goes really early Phillipson goes really early and we’re coming up on 1.2k there’s Schultz done on on to M Schultz Dro makabe because makabe doesn’t have acceleration there’s that piece right that’s the thing about Schultz doesn’t have the top speed but he’s got better acceleration he opened up a couple bike links on makabe uh we’re coming up on 1K these guys are almost bigger threats these guys I mean they’re just now coming up on 1K and they they started their Sprint a long time ago and they’re going for it I don’t think they’re going to hang on but you know philipson has 8381 so maybe just baby Daniels is still perfectly set up but makabe if he was on Schultz’s wheel right now and coming off his wheel I’d be a little more confident in our chances but makabe see how slow his acceleration was philipson getting overtaken as predicted 700 meters Daniels will definitely overtake his two teammates but all we can do is get maybe sixth or seventh oh philipson held on holy cow philipson did hang on he had three guys within millimeters of him that’s just that top speed Daniels gets seventh honestly that’s going to be one of the best results we’re going to be able to get in this race certainly until we can get the fitness Peak for those two key Riders there isn’t much more that our team’s capable of which is why we haven’t won Sprints in such a long time we just cannot come up with an African Sprinter who is capable of doing doing it all and with a a whole team full of sprinters on paper this is what we look like we can’t even crack the top 20 we can’t even crack the top 30 makabe stage three gets 32nd Place seven is really good compared to what our team is actually capable of and that’s that’s the problem with his field Del wasn’t even present in that Sprint that we just ran he’s an 8282 Deli Had a Bad Day on on stage 2 he was nowhere near the Sprint that’s okay there’s 20 other guys who can pick up the mandle and still beat us uh seventh was good and I don’t know if that that in these conditions they can do much better at 91.2 this first phase this first week we’re not going to be competitive so let’s go ahead and bypass the first week of Sprints we’ll give it another shot in the later stages and hopefully with the uh plus fives maybe just maybe they can be uh competitive and we we’ll have a shot at a stage on to stage number six we’ve got a good draw today though it is aided partially because a couple of writers have now triggered their Fitness Peaks so there there’s more guys that are in that mood that are ready to go ready to race if you follow the channel closely you may have noticed that in the last about three weeks I’ve added four new series for four new releases but I’ve only retired a single series to make room for it so I’m plus three on Series right now and it’s very busy having a hard time keeping up with things as I already discussed in a previous episode life is happening uh thank you for the support comments by the way uh and as we get into the final 18 kmers here I will need to focus in on this here very soon that’s a big reason why uh I need to make some some room in my schedule uh that that I am planning on just letting this be the last season because uh at this point we’re not finding that six-star Rider in in the group and these five and a half star Riders we’re not finding those right now either there’s been nothing nothing better than four and a half Stars entering the database in the last couple of years 13.9k let let’s get started Sprints are really easy especially on the hard or normal difficulty compared to the expert but if you don’t have a dominant Rider clearly as we’ve seen they’re very hard we’ve hardly want to Sprint and they’ve never been normal Sprints they’ve always been there was some twists and turns there was one little Hill and we take advantage and we gain separation we push and catch the field off guard never a normal Sprint but the other easier to win categor is without a doubt Hills these Punchy stages these are the ones where we tend to get results in fact we won a couple tour front stages in a similar type profile to this one so at 13.7k I feel we can be really aggressive and here’s the thing too about this race we’re not in a GC hunt we can go all in we’re not hunting points we’re not hunting King of the mountains points none of that none of that matters it’s the state nothing more we got three hills to get up and over we’ve got some sprinters who really won’t last terribly long but we can really put this field under some pressure uh potentially and see the field split and get ourselves into a prime position uh as we go over the top of the first one we’ve got two more to go and this point we’re still only down one Rider keeping these guys further down the line will allow them to recover slightly but at the moment I’m a little surprised by just how hurt we were able to make a couple of these guys but there’s that recovery piece oh and I’ve for gotten to Jael up for these take control a little bit longer 5K on to kareim let’s take that descent on nobody’s able to follow us like this couple gels we got four guys leading leading out 3.4 4K Kareem is going very fast here but he’s not Punchy enough we’re down to 45 in the pelaton we’ve already split off a number of riders and we are soft sprinting now with Kareem one and a half K now cloat proper sprinting now Musa leading out and devilers and we have separation and devilers continues on but we are out of the energy here comes the others but can we hang on we got an early go on this one and we are going to get the win the vilers got it today with plus five who’s A Little Bit Stronger climber in fact we get a onew as Musa hangs on a second as pater and Del and petravic come flying in too late with a good strong lead out and an early Advantage we were able to hang on for a stage win at the tour to France really happy with that one that’s a big hard push these are the ones where others right they got one lead out right or they are just going for it themselves and so a good early push on those Rolling Hills ahead of time can and sometimes will set you set yourselves up we didn’t have enough Red Bar to finish that thing off but we had opened an advantage we got separation and we had plenty to still have Pace just not the same Pace you would have if you had the red bar but we opened up enough of an advantage that we pretty easily took that one I mean Musa was was not so easy there in second but the Villar was very easy uh in first place One Missed opportunity there and something I will look at for coming stages now that we have a wind under our belt South Africa’s already got the popularity Musa tanisia they could use a popularity boost uh if given the opportunity I’ll ride for Musa on another stage his problem is he lacks the medium Mountain where devilers is a little more balanced and that’s why he was able to take it but uh yeah I I’ll look to see if I can get Musa a win not that it’s going to matter going forward into future Seasons if this is our final season but I’d like to get those points for the nation and not necessarily just for the team points which we’ve now gotten here with a stage Victory here at the tour front so already a successful race a weekend coming up on the end of stage number eight this is our next opportunity it’s another Punchy one uh we will ride for Musa but unfortunately today unlike stage six where we had a decent draw we we did have a plus a little bit I I didn’t count but it’s maybe a plus four uh compared to everybody else but the expectations were definitely better than that first week because like I said multiple guys are on Fitness Peaks now uh two more Riders are one day maybe two away from um being being back at that status being back at uh or being at that Fitness Peak status two guys one more day of racing and they’ll have it Musa is one of those two so his expectation was a plus two he has a plus one Josh vilers is one of those guys on that Fitness Peak with that expectation of plus five he is the stronger he is the favorite but I’m going to give Musa a chance we will both ride for of Villers and Musa Musa will be the last guy in the line will’ll give him a chance but I assume at the Finish Line he just won’t be there and the Villers is going to be the one we end up trying to ride for on this stage as we’re now down to 13 and a 12 kilm and the Breakaway is finally reeled in here with just 13k left let’s get things going there has been some challenges with this stage as we certainly had some climbing and the real trick to this stage was this climb right here this cat 3 uh The Climb itself wasn’t too bad wasn’t too hard pelaton was keeping the the Breakaway Riders the three Breakaway Riders giving them enough of a leash they were not chasing them down at all yet but the moment we hit the top huge acceleration and the fatigue of the climb which was moderate tempo for all the sprinters and you know none of our guys are mountain guys they were all feeling it a bit and then that sudden acceleration meant Zero recovery so then this other little cat 4 climb really started to split the field up we got some recovery on The Descent but not a lot and we’re looking now at the guys who’ve got nasty draws I mean minus four for makabe minus four for Schultz uh we have a minus two for Kareem today and yeah I just uh big mess really all right so makab is going to get us started here with 13k left get us out front uh start putting the field Under Pressure he will not last long and Schultz is actually still just getting into position but he’ll get in position early enough it’s okay we don’t have to change the order uh and he is done as well on to Russo and it’s 10K so we don’t need to be going full gas we just need to get out front and he’s got that set up for us this is one of those things where a lot of the field does not anticipate this sudden acceleration that we’re putting on and it makes it a lot more possible for us to do something but at 8K we’re not too far from that climb now we still have Daniels we still have Kareem and it’s very technical through here giving us a good advantage on position Russo’s job is done and we’re out front and we’re at the base of the climb 5.4k let’s get clo ready Daniels will not last long and then we’ll get on to Kareem and with this early Tempo it’s going to catch out a lot of punchers who are not in position and on their own it’s not the greatest tempo right we’re we’re only seeing so much damage Kareem a little stronger as a puncher so a 97 for him and we’re at 3.8k gel up for the last two guys and we’re on to cloat 3.4k we’re coming over a flat section here in just a moment I told him to go he didn’t go I missed the misclick there uh right has come out a little early but we’ve got him covered off 2.2k cloak here we go onto the final climb on to devilers who’s going to lead out Musa and again this is our early go for it situation devilers follow Musa come on Musa come on Musa we’re we’re giving you a shot at it here Here Comes clo behind and Musa will get there Musa is going to get there he’s going to win the stage tunisha is going to win a stage of the tour to frauds dilar take second cloak can we make it a one two three yes we can ahead of Magnus Sheffield oh we really caught them out with that early push this time even more so than stage number six backto back Punchy stage victories here at the CH fronts has made this an incredibly successful race and now villagers could have been much further up the road as he was looking so much stronger but getting that win for a minor nation is very high percentage odds we’ve done it before and did not get the bonus big test now is do we have a bonus for the nation funny thing if you didn’t notice was devilers was actually wearing The Young Riders Jersey it’s still early in the race it’s only stage eight and the mountain stages haven’t come yet but that puts dilers in sixth overall Palace leading curly ahead of Almeida and pater points is Del ahead of philipson mountain is Almeida it’s just 10 points there Young Riders is the vilers by a minute plus cloat is fourth at a minute 39 Lu and Daniels are in there and as a team even with quick simming things we are in the top 10 inside 3 minutes compared to everybody else considering we are not a climbing team that’s surprising as we have gone through the early stages of this one no B bonus again again we claim the win and do not get the bonus winning a stage at the tour to fronts gets you a chance and under the hood the roll of the dice part there is no known there’s nothing uh out there that that lets you know exactly what the percentage is what the odds are but there is odds that dice roll the popularity boost would be to a s Tunisia is a 33 Nation it’s a 33 Nation our Scout is Tunisian Musa who just won that stage is Tunisian and this is not the first time that we have won a big stage and not gotten that boost there it’s been many times in this series where we’ve not gotten the Boost tenisia should have a seven for popularity right now which would drastically change things especially with a a training structure of three right erra is a 75 Bina Faso is a 51 Morocco which we got a boost this last year is a 54 South Africa is a 76 Rwanda is a 73 that would really really change things for a nation such as Tunisia where we’ve found a couple decent Riders even with just a 33 a 73 would have so many more writers coming through to pick from but backto back stage victories will result in a lot of points T of France acquires a lot of points and having a decent GC finish at a race like the T of France only acquires so much points those victories those stage victories obviously the overall Victory is a ton of points but those stage victories actually add up to a lot compared to what what that overall looks like here is that scale 1,300 points for the GC by time you drop to even just sixth place down to 520 by eth is 360 you know by 10th you’re down to just 230 points the km’s 200 points classification is 200 but winning a stage is 200 so you barely get 200 for finishing 10th overall barely more than this so we’re we’re getting good healthy boosts for this obviously first place overall that Podium is Big Time points that top five is Big Time points but it just drops off so drastically that fighting stage after stage after stage just to squeeze out a top 10 isn’t worth a lot stage hunting succeeding at it multiple times is worth more and we’ve done that so this this is turning into a pretty good race for us because at the moment we’re only seventh in the points this season because that even removing the difficulty bonus which the quick Sim does it does not account for what difficulty level you’re on it’s just straight on paper how do the writers compare to each other and it calculates from there so even without that penalty that we get racing the 3D races on paper our writers just aren’t good period they they aren’t as good as everybody else and we are seventh all right folks well we are definitely seeing some progress here and back-to-back stage victories was fantastic the dice roll has has gone against us we went all in for anisia and came out the short end but suddenly Musa is going to be climbing the rankings here pretty quick the points for uh the tour fronts are going to help him out immensely uh he’s he’s going to move up a lot he’s at this point looking like he’s going to potentially double his points and there’s uh Josh dilers isn’t even on the first page he’s he’s on the second page of writers it’s really help about too they are both going to double or more than double their points through this race and simply because we did well on a couple Punchy stages that’s going to do it for this episode though I’m the kathon gamer like comment subscribe and I’ll see you next time have a good one be safe out there bye for now