Suggestions for 2012 season

I know you talked about a tour bonus for your riders you pick in the first stage according to their GC finishing place

What about the same kind of thing for an all round finish?

For example, If i picked Cobo on the first stage, Even if he lost and came 2nd to Froome, he's got more mountains and general points, so has the overall jersey just now in La Vuelta, How hard would it be to calculate that for the Giro and TdF?

Just the top guy i mean, so the guy who has the best GC, Points and Mountains combined

As for the limits on the number of riders from one team:

I'm all for letting us pick as many riders as we want from one team, except for the Team Time Trial Stage. Or maybe have up to 4 riders from the same team. The only advantage I see is the 5 points on offer if someone on the same team wins the stage. In my mind it might be fun if, forexample, I wanted to field the entire Sky team one day and could! I'd love it! On any given stage, other than the TTT, it really should be no big deal. And, If the pros can do it, why can't we?

If the pro's can do it?? yeah because they are under contract to their team

I dont think you should be able to pick more than 2, its a great rule, because if you went and picked a full team sky, like yesterday and sky went on to win, thats 40 extra just for picking them all, no no, everyone should be in the same position, 2 riders limit, else your going to have people saving transfers, using credits to get more and picking a different whole team every day, there is no skill in that

I don't think that there should be much change to the number from each section, or the team limit. This mimics a real team, they don't have teams full of sprinters only, they try to win in all disciplins even HTC !!
As for the size of the groups, I would say contrary to too big they are too small. particularily the climers section, but that depends on the runners in every race. I do like my wildcard selection idea.

I would also like to see how my original team would have fared if I had been purist. Maybe a shadow purist league running in the background.

I would also exclude team time trials altogether, as they bias everything.

Dave in m useless opinion there is not much wrong with this league and I have played them all, the right balance of simplicity against complexity.

Maybe one other thing is a big final weighting in the gts for having the winner of the jerseys. Because like many people, I will not change much in my team for the Vuelta, because like today breakaways are going to be let away, and i'm going to look for points gained from the jerseay classifications.

The only thing I'd really like to see changed is to reduce lantern rouge points from 10 to 5. 10 is quite hard to get for any rider. Used it a lot in TdF and not much in the Vuelta but have a spare transfer today and it's tempting to use it for Veelers but it's a bit boring.

Wouldn't change much about picking teams or transfers to be honest but I think maybe make the points for position in the stage a bit higher for the top positions. At the moment it's better as the tour goes on to stick to GC guys or people who are high in several competitions (or lantern rouge) rather than take a risk on a stage winner.

So 30 for 1st, 25 for 2nd, 20 for 3rd, 18 for 4th and then as normal. This makes it less easy to just play safe, (which is the best way to be near the top).

I agree with you GKam on the way the catagories are made up.every team should only have 1 team leader and should be represented in all disciplines. I thinks there was a situation similar to Radishack with Garmin if i remember correctly.

Little prizes, sponsors willing, for the regionals too would be nice. Maybe the company sponsoring that terrible ass advert could be one

I dont know how viable this would be, but following on from thefatcyclist about the regional's

Why not have a look at LBS's in those area's and see if you can get a goody bag or voucher, nothing huge, but to promote the use of your LBS rather than online shopping

my top wish: Purists' league for each competition (gts and world tour) so there's still a decent amount of selection skill but we can choose not to bother with these silly spod-rewarding transfers and still stand a chance of winning something.

More spot prizes would be good too.

Top Hat to ya Dave & yer crew - Don't change a thing (although January start is cool)

Congrats to dave and the team for running such a successful fantasy game.....Ive read all the comments above about changes,and I agree with some and disagree with others......I think its important though that the game is tweaked a little but equally important that wholesale changes are not made...."basically,if its not broke,then dont fix it"......
Its impossible to please everybody all of the time,but personally I think that Dave and the team do an excellent job of keeping most people happy for most of the time.....a time consuming,thankless task at times...
So `chapeau` guys and your efforts are appreciated....Even if I still havn`t received my TdF goodies...

First like to comment on the excellent game.

I have played the SBS fantasy comp (same as Halfords) for the last 3 years. This game (Evans road.cc) is far superior in communication (bit of a human face) and technical execution (interface, scoring accuracy and timeliness). Having said that I quite like both of the games and glad that they have their differences.

New ideas (so far as I can tell)
• Country flags nest to each contestant on the scoreboards
• Most recent stage score next to total score on scoreboard for each contestant, with rollover rider points
• Points listing is hidden away under stage listing, whereas should be incorporated as part of the rules. This could be achieved by creating standard types of stages of which I’m guessing there might be 5 or 10. The stage listing could simply refer to one of these standards
• Replace the consistency league with highest score on any individual stage – this could help maintain interest to the end for those who joined late
• Could there be a clarification of the number of teams that one person can have (in the rules)

Some of my more general thoughts/thought on what has already been discussed
• Need to look at purpose? Is it for as many as possible, or just for a limited number of suckers who devote hour(s) per day/week? Dare I suggest the sponsorship dollar is somewhat a consideration and therefore maximum site traffic.
• I had just got to thinking I could do the world tour next year (based on this years calendar) but then I saw it’s starting in January – that’ll go on for a long time. Not sure I’ll be able to maintain the enthusiasm and time for the whole season
• Not so sure about the rider values changing at all – who gains – those who do well get rewarded with points for the game and a bigger budget. Those who get behind don’t get the option to catch up. Having said that, consensus seems to be that points should change.
• If point change retained I think reset at start of grand tours is good. I’m guessing that there is a spike in interest for each grand tour (esp tdf) – you don’t want to be making it stacked against the newbies.
• Have to be careful of level of complexity. Already quite difficult for someone not used to fantasy cycling games.
• With this in mind need to consider changes as a whole – does this new combination of rules work?
• Flexibility in choice of when to use transfers (as opposed to set 2 every time) leaves the result a lot more open, and requires a lot more planning (also complexity)
• I like the idea of being able to have a purist team and a regular team from the 1 logon. The purist team to run on a setup that only allows transfers at the right time.
• Completely agree about being put off by not being able to see anything about the game before signing up. After seeing nikobec’s comments elsewhere I decided to give it a go
• I don’t see any problems with some of the data inconsistencies that are thrown up (eg Radioshack 3 on GC, only 5 sprinters available, set classification across year when their purpose in individual races might be different). It is all part of the game to exploit these things.

In the end the rules are the rules and you just have to use them to your best advantage
Cameron

Expand the regional tables so that you can see where you rank in your region (eg Aberdeen, Highlands and Islands), home country (eg Scotland), country (eg UK), continent (eg Europe).

Gameplay is currently good although I made a few points ages ago, I'll go back and try to dig them up.

It would be quite good to have a flag next to each rider's name, so you get some idea of who's going to attack when a big race goes through a rider's hometown...

I think that it would be fun to have more races crossing over, but with the ability to have two teams at the same time.

Maybe a 'subs bench,' for changing riders midway through a stage, but with a limited budget, like what's left over from your team, would introduce another level to the game, weighted towards those who don't go to work/school and spend all day streaming Eurosport...

Age related prizes could be good, like u16, 16-25, 25-40, 41-65, 65+.

WRT stage races overlapping, I think it's best to have a system similar to how Dauphine/TDS was done this year, BUT;

Instead of having 4-transfer days while we switch over, why not have two overnight unlimited windows; one at the start of the crossover and one at the end. That way you can bias your mixed team however you like, and it makes things better for the purists.

Just a small comment - I think at the start there should be an element of the choice where you pick a nationality from the UCI rankings and you CANNOT CHANGE at any point in the game.

Pick up points for nationalities of riders who win as well as the riders you have picked in the team... Drop points for any drop outs/disqualifiers...

Obviously some nationalities are going to be favourable for picking, but it would add an element of further variations in claiming points and open up the game a bit.

Quite enjoyed this years fantasy league, missed a few stages due to absent mindness but felt the element of trying to get a good team together on limited points certainly made me do plenty of research!

Next year, Tour of Britain and maybe one or two smaller races with more prizes.

Well done Team Road.cc

I think the purist league is a great idea but how about opening it up to include everyone.If you are only allowed one team and the prize for this league is minimal compared to with transfers it takes out any real incentive for me anyway.What about taking your first picks for tours etc on day one and using this for the purist league rankings whilst still allowing transfers and entry into the main competition.It would certainly add to the conundrum of picking your squad at the start instead of only for the first stages and for those who miss alot of transfer windows but do get a few mean they are in with a shout from the start at least in the purist league.