Ultimate Victory - got it after 240 hours

[Damsteri]

Ultimate Victor is the achievement wit a trigger: "Win the WMC’s ‘Driver’ and ‘Team’ Championship in the same year with a customly created new team". Note: Description doesn't note on which tier you must start.

I started my first ever Motorsport manager career with a custom team from ERS and finally got the Ultimate Victory. So statisfying, but it took 11 seasons and 240 hours.

• 2016 - ERS - Team 9th - Drivers: 16th & 18th - No wins or podiums
  
• 2017 - ERS - Team 6th - Drivers: 10th & 15th - Wins 2, Podiums 3/10
  
• 2018 - ERS - Team 1st - Drivers: 1st & 3rd - Wins 7, Podiums 10/10
  
• 2019 - APS - Team 7th - Drivers: 11st & 16th - No wins, Podiums 4/12
  
• 2020 - APS - Team 1st - Drivers: 3rd & 4th - Wins 3, Podiums 6/12
  
• 2021 - APS - Team 1st - Drivers: 1st & 2nd - Wins 8, Podiums 13/13
  
• 2022 - WMC - Team 6th - Drivers: 8th & 16th - no wins (one points finish)
  
• 2023 - WMC - Team 4th - Drivers: 7th & 8th - no wins
  
• 2024 - WMC - Team 4th - Drivers: 6th & 8th - no wins, Podiums 1/16
  
• 2025 - WMC - Team 3rd - Drivers: 5th & 8th - no wins, Podiums 3/16
  
• 2026 - WMC - Team 1st - Drivers: 1st & 5th - Wins 7, Podiums 13/16

11 seasons resulted 4 constructor titles and 3 driver titles with total of 27 victories. Hardest season was first season on APS and it also required some patiance to drive in WMC for four seasons without wins or even a real change for podiums. Only one podium of those 2024-2025 podiums was really a driven podium (at rain), other three came from penalties.

[Bramborough]

Wow, nice job. Lol, you certainly beat my pace. Just started fourth ERS season with Predator...still looking for a podium, let alone a win. I've read the guides, developed HQ & staff, built parts, hired drivers pretty smart (I think), and have stayed in the green financially. All the indicators rising, showing a good organization coming together....except one. The car remains dead last on the grid. It's improving a lot in an absolute sense, but apparently not gaining any ground on the competition.

I'd be interested to hear any comments you have on how you ramped up your cars, especially in ERS.

[kingarthur772]

I was in the APS Series, but never with the original Game. I play with Mods (real everything the Modders can do) like in Formula 4 / 3 (ERS), Formula 2 / Super Formula (APS) and Formula 1 / Formula E (WMC). There I were in the APS-Series and that´s amazing.

I´m asking me how you can win this Game in the normal Game. The Challences are doable with that normal Gamefeatures, but I never won the ERS in a normal Game after 6 or 7 Seasons there.

[MrPalo75]

240 hours for 11 seasons?
Did you play in long race mode?

BTW, 11 seasons is a very good result for a CYOT team.
I needed 14 for the Predator challenge (that more or less is like doing CYOT from ERS) and 11 with Archer, that is a mid-pack team.

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by MrPalo75:

240 hours for 11 seasons?
Did you play in long race mode?

Yep, you quessed right. I had the longest race length from game settings and also had or voted the longest race length from GMA rules. Games were long and I micromanaged my drivers furiously. I used pause mode to jump between drivers and changing settings sometimes multiple times per lap (more power for straights, less on corners) to overcome some situations when I had much faster car begind me. I estimated that one race weekend took around 1 hour to complete on average. There were 147 races in those 11 seasons, so I probably used around 150 hours for races and maybe 50 hours off-season and between races. I forgot the game on the back ground few times (had happened with thf football manager too) and let's say that the game were running 40h and me not playing it.

Originally posted by Bramborough:

I'd be interested to hear any comments you have on how you ramped up your cars, especially in ERS.

Originally posted by kingarthur772:

I´m asking me how you can win this Game in the normal Game. The Challences are doable with that normal Gamefeatures, but I never won the ERS in a normal Game after 6 or 7 Seasons there.

I read some information about the game before I started playing it and my goal was always WMC double championship, so everything had to lead to it. I had a plan, and the plan had few key things that made rapid climbing on tiers possible. Those key things were:

1. I used politico backstory to use rules for my benefit (some say it's OP, I might agree now)
   
2. I built improvements for the next year, not for the current year
   
3. In addition to the previous, I built risky parts and never race with them
   
4. I focused on marketability, because those improvements are expensive

Politico backstory

I wanted to use spec parts for my benefit on ERS and APS. APS has spec engines, so my first goal was to get spec engines for ERS, because I would otherwise lose any engine development when I enter APS. That was piece of a cake as politico. I was able use my money to improve gearbox, brakes and suspension, because I knew that I will get spec engine on the second season. I didn't vote more spec parts though.

I got lucky on APS and they had already set gearbox as spec part in addition to the engine. Two spec parts helped a lot. I set a vote (and won it of course) for banning weight stripping which was active when I wen to the series, because really hated that mechanism. I know that it can be very effective, but I just didn't like it.

I made a choice and didn't want any spec parts in WMC. I didn't have much use for politico anymore, but I had enough reserve votes to do what ever I liked. WMC had two nice rules when I went there, they had 80% refueling and equal price money (50M on the first year in WMC).

Improvements for the next year

I focused on improving my cars on first two seasons on ERS and APS. I started with Roxanne Barnard as designer and her component which allows to switch a good part to a great part was very good at ERS/APS, when great parts were best I could get. I was able to make avg-great-great 3 component parts (third part, after: avg and avg-good). That benefit was diminished when I started to unlock epic parts.

I expected to get promoted to WMC from APS on third season at earliest, but got surprised when I won the APS on my second season (more on this later). I was not ready and had spent huge amounts of money to parts designed for the next year. I knew that the next year's car would be very fast. So, I chose to stay on APS for money and not build too many new parts. Same as in ERS, most of the money went for parts on first two seasons and upgrading HQ on the third season.

I used same tactic for improvements in WMC, but the gap between three best teams and the rest was huge. I used to be the solitary fourth team for many seasons, not being able to beat three best teams, but always faster then the rest. I was third or fourth in all parts, but I was unable to beat Kitano (third/fourth too). I was well behind others in engine and that hurt a lot, engine is the most common crucial part in WMC. I could have made engine spec and won WMC earlier, but I didn't want any spec parts in WMC. It was limiting my way to the top. I had to buy a very expensive engine for chassis to get that gap smaller.

I did improve my HQ, but I didn't focus on it. I still had level 3 factory and level 3 design centre at the end when I won WMC. I did a lot of HQ improvements on my 3rd season on APS, because I knew I wouldn't need that many improvements for car and I don't need risky parts for next year if I'm going to get the promotion (I was sure that I will get it).

Risky parts

My tactic was to open all component slots (3 or 4 at first) I could and then make a part that had best stats even with risky components. I read from the discussions that the base value of best parts is used for next year's parts while the risk was removed. I think that is almost like an exploit, but I still used it. I had money and time to make lots of unusable risky parts in ERS/APS due my good marketability. I had all non-spec parts maxed out in my ERS/APS development years.

I hired Jenny Whitehouse to be my designer in WMC and she helped me to speed up the research (avg part with -2 days) by getting avg, good and great parts done quickly and allowed me to build my first legendary components (random legendary component). I was able to build very powerful risky five component parts with her and eventually closed the gap. Those risky parts had even +200 stats when compared to parts I was using.

Marketability

I focused on marketability and got over 90% team marketability on ERS and started to get 5 star sponsors (with a help of helipad), making more money than half of the teams in WMC (this game has some serious balance issues). I chose drivers based on their marketability, not by their speed alone. I had hard time to retain 5 star rating and dropped to 4 stars maybe half of the playtime.

First season in APS was hard, because I wasn't able to win and my 5 star marketability was against me, giving only sponsors that give money for wins/podiums. I ended up +12M on red. 4/5 star marketability was hard on WMC too, because on most races I didn't get the race bonuses or got just meaningless sums of money.

[Damsteri]

Team Tactics

I got lucky with the pit crew and got a really good pit crew already at my first season. I was able to get 19-20 to all spots and I had number 1 pit crew for all my 6 seasons for ERS/APS and my pit crew was still 2nd-4th in WMC too. I got a dilemma in WMC (first year I think) that gave +2 to all pit crew stats. I though that it would be great until I switch to new men... but that is not per person bonus, it's team bonus and every new pit crew would get that +2 to all stats too. So, it's incredibly good. I got another +1 dilemma in my fifth season in WMC, so now all new pit crew would get +3 to all their stats when I hire them, making me able to yield full 20 pit crew all the time. That dilemma is strange, it must be broken because that +2 or +3 now can't be seen anywhere on team stats. I woulds say it's either OP, broken or both.

My car was only 5th best by the end of the 3rd season in ERS (gearbox 4th, brakes 5th, suspension 8th, other spec), but my team was clearly the best one (394 points against the second's 301). Three 1-2's on a row in the middle of the season were decisive. Cars were not very fast, but AI in ERS was bad at tactics and three spec parts made close fights. I really benefited a lot from super fast and reliable pit crew (which I managed manually). I managed to get tactical wins on dry and was unbeatable on wet. I found out that I might be able to win the ERS on the third season after first three races, when my race results were 2&12, 1&6 and 1&2. I immediately chose not to build any new parts and started to use all money on HQ buildings.

[Damsteri]

I got what I wanted from that game and now I don't find any motivation to continue it. I tried few races on 12th season, but no... Not fun anymore. I might start it all over again, with Predator. :D

[Bramborough]

Wow, very detailed and informative feedback. Thank you.

Right around the time I posted above, my parts development started to yield results and the car has visibly improved over past couple seasons. Lol a good player could probably win with it now, but I still goon up the in-race strategy. Somehow I usually wind up with either too much or too little fuel toward the end of a stint. Getting better on tire wear, though.

I don't really think the "risk removal next season" is an exploit or an unintended mechanic. I just see it as putting the design team on prototype development for next year's car. And then they left the possibility open to use it in current season for situations like a really close point spread, especiallly for double-point season-ending races (say, if player is on the edge of getting fired). If anything is "off" about that mechanic, it's the AI's propensity to routinely use "next-year's prototypes" in this year's car (and often lose their investment when caught...assuming of course that the AI's budget & parts development etc all work the same for them as for the player. Not really clear that it actually works that way).

Nice bit on the spec engine in ERS. That thing is a huge money sump, lol. I've easily spent enough on engines to have upgraded to level 3 factory by now, and probably close to lvl 3 design center as well.

I gotta hunt down that designer. "Substitute great for good" sounds fantastic.

I infer from your discussion that it's safe to cut way back on parts development once the car is good enough for a season or two. I don't quite have this problem yet, just looking ahead. I've worried that if I switch into building HQ for a 1-2 seasons, then my car would lose too much ground and risk losing the window to move up to next series.

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by Bramborough:

Nice bit on the spec engine in ERS. That thing is a huge money sump, lol. I've easily spent enough on engines to have upgraded to level 3 factory by now, and probably close to lvl 3 design center as well.

I didn't find that trick by myself, it was from here discussions. Spec engines save lot of money, one expensive and slow to develop part not needed and also you won't need a test track, which is also expensive.

Originally posted by Bramborough:

I gotta hunt down that designer. "Substitute great for good" sounds fantastic.

I didn't remember the name of the component while I was writing that, the actual feature in the component is Unlocks an additonal "great" component slot. Quite many designers have that. It uses a good component slot, but adds an extra great component slot, effectively changing a good to great. You need multiple good good components to get max out of it and it helps if your designer also has their own great component.

Originally posted by Bramborough:

I infer from your discussion that it's safe to cut way back on parts development once the car is good enough for a season or two.

I didn't stop car development, but I didn't do much of it. I think it's good to build average parts very fast, especially when using risky parts. Using risky parts leads you to start a new season with two very different level parts. Not a problem if you have clear number 1 driver, but you might end up with two slow cars that are hard to tune, if you have to split those good and bad parts between two cars.