World Championships

STEVESPRO 79 wrote:

This budget is ridiculous to work with...

I'm with you, Steve...

.
I just applied the 'Enrique Test for the Integrity of a Roaddc Fantasy Cycling Game Budget'* (*otherwise known as the ETIRCCFCGB) and the results are terrible...

I know a lot of you can follow the basic premise of this test... Follow along, Gkam... Basically the game should allow the laziest of players, ergo, me, to choose the 4 highest valued riders in the competition and surround them with 5 3.0 riders and be able to compete with that team...

For this competition, the 4HVRT ('4 Highest Valued Riders Team') would consist of the following riders:

40.0 Tony Martin
40.0 Peter Sagan
39.5 Michal Kwiatkowski
37.6 Bradley Wiggins    
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0

Total Budget: 172.1
'Actual' Budget: 150
ETIRCCFCGB Margin: -22.1

Obviously, this budget needs to be reworked as it fails the test miserably with an ETIRCCFCB margin of -22.1. Ergo, the budget should have been raised to 172.1 or close to that figure...

The basic idea is that for unimportant competitions in which one does not want to burn too much energy thinking about the different options, but still wants to field a competitive team, one can simply choose the 4 highest valued riders and sit back and see if someone in the game can diligently sort through all the other combinations or possibilities and come up with a team that can beat the 4HVRT team consisting of the 4 highest valued riders in the competition.

This approach works on different levels. In the case that the game engine valued the highest valued riders properly and the 4 highest valued riders do come in No. 1through No. 4, the (lazy) player who put together a 4HVRT team, will feel compelled to admit that the value for their riders was justified and at the same time be rewarded for their laziness with a decent score of at least 145 points. At the same time, players who are on the lookout to better their standing and score higher than the 4HVRT team have enough budget to go chase some riders they feel are more valuable than their current value reflects. In short, 'lazy' players walk away undefeated, unfettered and satisfied, and risk takers may or may not get rewarded for their diligent hard work. I, of course, believe in the mediocrity and anonymity of just getting along.

Looking through my records, I can attest to the fact that, for the most part, there are probably more than 100 teams fielded by Roadcc players on any given stage or race that will beat the 4HVRT 'ideal' 4 man team, consisting of the 4 highest valued riders and a supporting cast of 5 3.0 riders.

However, I can also attest to the fact that this not always the case in the game...

Curiously enough, for Stage 6 of the 2014 Vuelta, there were at least 17,099, and probably closer to 77,320 possible 9 rider combinations, or teams, that would have scored higher than a team consisting of:

40.0 Alejandro Valverde
30.8 Christopher Froome
31.3 Nairo Alexander Quintana
31.4 Alberto Contador
3.0 Lluis Guillermo Mas
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0

Total Budget: 150.7
'Actual' Budget: 160
ETIRCCFCGB Margin: +9.3

which was the 4HVRT ('4 Highest Valued Riders Team') for the 2014 Vuelta along with 3.0 rider Lluis Guillermo Mas, an obvious choice to any player as a 3.0 rider, because by that time of the competition, he was already wearing the KM jersey. By the way, notice the nice positive ETIRCCFCGB Margin of +9.3. That (!) was a nice, respectable ETIRCCFCGB Margin. For other nice ETIRCCFCGB Margins please see http://road.cc/content/forum/121431-fantasy-tour-de-france and http://road.cc/content/forum/117698-giro-2014.

However, on that particular day, according to my admittedly limited and potentially flawed records, only 1 Roadcc player was able to create a team, for that stage, that scored higher than the 4HVRT for the 2014 Vuelta + Lluis Guillermo Mas.

I seem to remember having tested that strategy on that particular day. I don't exactly know why else that day is particularly memorable to me, but I'll figure it out...

I will, of course, time permitting, obviously compare the score of the 4HVRT ('4 Highest Valued Riders Team') with the 'actual' highest scoring team, in order to assess the ingenuity of the owners of the highest scoring team for the Elite Men's Time Trial and the Elite Men's Road Race... But stop your moaning, Steve... That's for me to do...

STEVESPRO 79 wrote:

This budget is ridiculous to work with... but its the same for everybody I suppose....

Now the rider list has been updated for the ITT, I withdraw the above comment...The budget is workable....

STEVESPRO 79 wrote:

... I withdraw the above comment...The budget is workable...

You just have to go and ruin everything, don't you?... Just when we were getting along...

STEVESPRO 79 wrote:

... the rider list has been updated for the ITT...

Dammit That means I have to update my 4HVRT and ETIRCCFCGB calculations...

Here we go then:

40.0 Tony Martin
37.6 Bradley Wiggins
34.5 Tom Dumoulin
31.2 Tejay Van Garderen
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0

Total Budget: 158.3
'Actual' Budget: 150
ETIRCCFCGB Margin: -8.3

I guess you're right, Steve...

There definitely have been very much worse ETIRCCFCGB Margins...

I guess we're not that far from each other, hmmm...
You're starting to make a little sense to me...
Could this be the beginning of a beautful friendship?...

Joelsim wrote:

Fabu isn't racing I don't think.

I've already decided on my strategy but as there are a few riders not on the startlist yet I can't do my team.

Oh right ta, the generality of the point still stands, but hey.

Same for me, hoping one of them that gets added is cheap

Joelsim wrote:

With the exception of Big Tone, I'm not so sure that OPQS are one of the top 5 teams in this TTT. There are some very good teams in there who I think will finish above them.

My motto for TTTs is: never bet against OPQ. They have a time trialing magical wand, I think. They won a TTT earlier in the year with a team of sprinters, and it wasn't pan flat either... In one of the Giro ITTs, they had three men in the top six or seven, and these men were the previously notorious time trialing flops Uran, Brambilla and Poels... They keep praising the work they do with Specialized, but, in reality, I think Tony Martin is some sort of disguise artist and he actually does all the rides of the team... In TTTs, he probably rides solo, the teammates are just holograms...

Twybaydos wrote:

0.1 out for the TTT. I'm going to have to pick riders from the team which will finish 6th.

If only Vermote hadn't won that ToB stage, we'd all be laughing

I know exactly who is in your team. Just had the same outcome.

stevemarks wrote:

I bet my five teams are the same and there are going to be a lot of teams with the same riders in.....

Probably, although it didn't quite fit for either, so gone for two from the teams I think will be top 3, then 1 from each of the 3 teams I think will finish 4,5,6 in my standard, and in purist gone for 2 from the team i expect to come either 4 or 5th and 1 from the team I think will come 6th.
Could all change once one of the teams is confirmed