The Cyclist: Tactics FAQ

[Killrob]

This FAQ is a Work In Progress! Ask your questions below for important things you don’t see covered. The Cyclist: Tactics is abbreviated as TCT in the following.

Current Contents:
1. What is the peloton?
2. More simulation aspects?
3. Random events?
4. Deeper management aspects?
5. What types of features would we consider adding?
6. Other Platforms / Operating Systems?
... More to come!

1. What is the peloton?

In TCT the peloton is heavily abstracted and probably one of the most misunderstood mechanics.

The peloton is the big bunch of riders that forms in any larger bike race due to the efficiency benefits riding in a big group offers. Inside a bunch with around 100 riders, almost no energy is expended on fighting air resistance. Without the peloton, you would never get anything resembling the tactics and strategies you see in real life bike racing.

For the game we decided to use a much reduced rider count compared to real life racing, to make it easier to follow and less clumsy in this board-game-like setting, while retaining the tactical aspects. That means there needs to be a peloton, while the so called “tracked riders”, i.e. the ones that you see as individuals in the game, would not be numerous enough on their own to form a proper peloton.

Think of the peloton in the game as a blob of between 80 and 120 faceless riders that are in various team support roles. They exist whether there are any tracked riders among them or not. That means a P+0 is not “empty”, it means the peloton at that point contains all the faceless riders, but currently no tracked riders that you as the player see. This is why you can’t just move past an “empty” peloton, there are still 100 riders in a big blob on that road!

The peloton has four subsections in TCT, numbered P0 to P3:

• P0 - The peloton relay is called P0 and decides where the peloton moves, if P0 is present. P0 is also special in that it is the only place from where a rider can choose to follow an attack move that originated from behind his wheel if that move came from a rider who also was in P0. Slipstream in P0 is poor, but as speeds pick up even the rider pulling at the front of P0 does get a slight drafting bonus!
  
• P1 - The general front of the peloton is called P1. From here riders can move out of the peloton and leave it behind in an attack by moving farther than the P0 riders and spending at least 1 attack point doing so.
  
• P2 - The middle of the peloton. Here riders are a little stuck and can only move as far as the peloton, but have good slipstream. Efficient riding with a small opportunity cost.
  
• P3 - The back of the peloton. Excellent slipstream, but it takes two turns to get to the front, P1, from where a rider can get away. Very efficient riding with a considerable opportunity cost.

When your leader is in P2 or P3 to save resources, make sure a helper is in P0 to be able to quickly respond to unforeseen moves.

Riders in groups behind the peloton cannot move past the peloton, they can only catch up to it and will find themselves in P3 at that point.

2. More simulation aspects?

Like weather, wind, heat/cold, nutrition, accurate slipstream, elevation effects... you name it.

All those things are really fascinating, but would be a poor fit for the game because of the core design of the game. Consider the following statement:

Environmental effects are continuous, i.e. the effects could be described by a smooth curve, but TCT is quantized and is all about not being continuous.

That doesn't mean such mechanics were not considered in pre-production. I do have a weather system somewhat fleshed out that would work reasonably well, but it wouldn't feel right in the context of the game and would add too much complexity for too little gameplay benefit.

I think a proper hardcore real-time cycling simulation would be the perfect place for mechanics such as the above mentioned. Maybe we should make one? They certainly have no place in TCT though.

3. Random events?

Like crashes, punctures, missing the line in corners, riders getting sick / injured, doping / getting caught...

Random events are both realistic, sometimes fun, and often frustrating. TCT’s core design philosophy is that there should be no randomness that the player can’t adapt to with meaningful choices. You can adapt your team to the random race profiles generated at the start of the season. You can adapt to the AI’s positioning before they make their moves. However, you cannot adapt to a crash, a puncture, or someone getting sick - it is always just bad when it randomly happens to you.

Hence, such mechanics will not become part of TCT.

4. Deeper management aspects?

More races per month, more detailed rider fitness / tiredness over the season, a deeper transfer system, youth development, rider and team morale, training camps, more teams, more leagues...

While we would consider building on what manager aspects are there already and improve them in terms of balance, UI feedback, and general usability, there are no plans to expand the manager part of the game. TCT is deliberately light on the manager parts, as we're trying to condense down real life cycling into something that is way more digestible but yet intriguing and enjoyable in terms of management.

We need to address the elephant in the room here though: hello PCM! We do not think that "making TCT more like PCM" would be a good or even viable thing for the game. It would be both a bad business decision and would not fit with the core design philosophies of TCT. If someone wants to play something (more) like PCM - and I sure do, love the franchise - then there is that already, but it is a different game entirely.

To address a few of the items: longer seasons with more races would not achieve the design goal of making every race important, quite the opposite. We don't want players to sit through throw-away or build-up races or have to plan for them in pre-season. That is something that works pretty well in PCM, because it is built around the premise from the ground up and is striving for overall accuracy in how you manage a cycling team. It lives out that fantasy well, and if you don’t want to race, you just simulate it.

An extended transfer system is not needed, because the current one achieves a lot with how simple it is, it works really well - apart from some smaller tweaks that might be balancing it better, of course. The good thing about it is how straightforward it is and many of the other management mechanics are. Departing from that is not the goal of TCT’s design.

More leagues, teams? How would that make the game better and not just more complex?

TCT is designed around a “less is more” approach to keep the management experience focused and… manageable without making it feel like work!

5. What types of features would we consider adding?

The above three points do add up to a lot of just saying “No”. While it is for very good reasons, it sure makes you wonder what features would we consider adding and what is already planned to be added?

Anything that would be considered to be added to the game at this point would be any game mechanic / feature which significantly improves core gameplay, integrates well / hooks into existing mechanics (i.e. is not something new and separate), and is easy enough to implement. If you have anything in mind that fits these criteria, shoot! :)

What features are we planning to add to the game in the coming months? Check the latest announcements in the news section to see what will be in the next milestone.

6. Other Platforms / Operating Systems?

MacOS - A MacOS build is planned to come for the game soon. We had the game running on MacOS during development, but there are a few issues to sort out and we want the game to be in an overall good state before sorting those issues out and making a “less readily patchable” MacOS version of it.
Linux - From what we’ve heard, the game runs fine on Proton already, but we’re going to do some testing in the near future to confirm that. As Proton nowadays is the primary way Linux players play their games, we’re not going to make a dedicated Linux build but make sure the game stays Proton compatible.
iOS - While an early prototype of the game was running on iOS, a proper iOS version would require a significant UI redesign. At this time we deem it rather unlikely that a iOS version of TCT will see the light of day unless the game becomes very successful. If the game came to iOS, it would be for tablets only.
Android - The same case as for iOS, an Android version would require a significant UI redesign and is not in the plans for now.

Approximate Development Timeline, Planned Features

Automation Development?

Game Guides?

Prototype Board Games?

Modding Support?

Custom / Real Names & Teams coming with V1.1!

[Val Solo]

Thanks for the FAQ Killrob !
I really appreciate the effort & Your communication.

Like earlier mentioned I'm looking forward to more "in-race" tactics views. To easily recall the current leaderboard for the different shirts, access virtual leaderboards & also to be able to see where the opponents are withing P2-P3

[Killrob]

Originally posted by Val Solo:

Thanks for the FAQ Killrob !
I really appreciate the effort & Your communication.

Like earlier mentioned I'm looking forward to more "in-race" tactics views. To easily recall the current leaderboard for the different shirts, access virtual leaderboards & also to be able to see where the opponents are withing P2-P3

Thanks! That is a good example of things that very much are worth adding (and planned already as I told you :) Cheers!

[Hendricus]

I like your TCT game a lot, and your focus to keep it simple. You did not talk about graphics to spice up the landscape, perhaps to make technical and cobble sections stand out even more.

A suggestion, the peloton should always have an AI rider in P0. To tackle a known issue.

Hoorah for the developer, your work is appreciated man.

For the honour of Archana ( the developers you tube battlecry during replays )

[Fogey Gamer]

"Proper hardcore real-time cycling simulation" = DLC?? :)

[Killrob]

Originally posted by Fogey Gamer:

"Proper hardcore real-time cycling simulation" = DLC?? :)

:D No, that would be too far a departure from how the game works at the moment, but I would consider that as another title in the franchise. With the lack of sales so far that is unlikely however. ;( Maybe need to make that in my free time somehow.

[Quizzor]

Few questions I thought of sorry if they worry already answered:
Does registering riders for a race every month tire the rider as the season goes on? Does the rider get exp for being in races even it they don't get a good result?

[Killrob]

Originally posted by Quizzor:

Few questions I thought of sorry if they worry already answered:
Does registering riders for a race every month tire the rider as the season goes on? Does the rider get exp for being in races even it they don't get a good result?

It does not tire out the riders to race 9/9 months. The exhaustion is only in the fitness training, your red months.
Yes, they do get XP for finishing races regardless of how well they did! :)

[tmt]

Hey @killrob, have you got a Mac Beta programme? Really excited to play the game. Watched a few YouTube's and it looks like exactly my sort of thing, but stopped using Windows for anything but work a few years ago. Would love to have a go even if it was a bit buggy? Work with software in my day job so understand how hard it can be to cope with the different platforms.

[Killrob]

Originally posted by Tagg90:

Hey @killrob, have you got a Mac Beta programme? Really excited to play the game. Watched a few YouTube's and it looks like exactly my sort of thing, but stopped using Windows for anything but work a few years ago. Would love to have a go even if it was a bit buggy? Work with software in my day job so understand how hard it can be to cope with the different platforms.

Hey! We did develop the game with MacOS and even iOS in mind. As we started releasing the game and things got too tight on time, we decided to skip the MacOS version in favor of making the core game for Windows better. Now that things have settled in I think we should revisit that. I remember one of the core problems was the database functionality implementation, but now that we're using the actual SQLite instead of some hacky solution, that might have become easier. I'll ask our programmer what the status is on that. :)
Cheers!

[tmt]

Originally posted by Killrob:

Originally posted by Tagg90:

Hey @killrob, have you got a Mac Beta programme? Really excited to play the game. Watched a few YouTube's and it looks like exactly my sort of thing, but stopped using Windows for anything but work a few years ago. Would love to have a go even if it was a bit buggy? Work with software in my day job so understand how hard it can be to cope with the different platforms.

Hey! We did develop the game with MacOS and even iOS in mind. As we started releasing the game and things got too tight on time, we decided to skip the MacOS version in favor of making the core game for Windows better. Now that things have settled in I think we should revisit that. I remember one of the core problems was the database functionality implementation, but now that we're using the actual SQLite instead of some hacky solution, that might have become easier. I'll ask our programmer what the status is on that. :)
Cheers!

Thanks mate. Sounds good.

[Quizzor]

I just played a race had 2 of my riders attack. I was caught by the peloton but was caught and passed. My attacking riders did not get a chance to put more effort to stay with peloton why is that?

[Killrob]

Originally posted by Quizzor:

I just played a race had 2 of my riders attack. I was caught by the peloton but was caught and passed. My attacking riders did not get a chance to put more effort to stay with peloton why is that?

That happens when the resources required to match the final location of the peloton are higher than what you can spend this turn. You're paying the difference in nodes by spending energy and attack points, but cannot exceed your turn limits. Maybe you were just outside of that! Otherwise you always get the option to follow the peloton and if you do, you're dropped into P0 or P1.