issoisso wrote:
yup, I don't use them simply because the AI never does. to me it's exactly the same as upping your riders' stats in the DB
This is not quite true .. i have notice, in 2011, riders like Bettini, there is 36 there, and suppose to be almost end of his carrier, but when i drove the Giro his specilisation was change to climber, and in the classics example Milan - San Remo and Amstel Gold, he had only 69 in Climbing, and had status as Puncheur, but in the Giro, his status was climber and his stats was suddenly 76 in climbing, so the AI are actually sending there riders on training camps, and i really cant see it is cheating, because real riders from example CSC are also practing in mountains up to a tour start, so the riders are ready for climbing, they was the first team to start a so called "Time Trial - Practice" in the Wind tunnels in US, and as i recall , was it one of the main factors that the CSC team , was winning team time trial in Tour de france last year, or the year before, and they have won the Eindhoven Time Trial , and some of the riders on the CSC team wasnt good at TT before they come to CSC, and riders like Cancellera, would be bad at climbing even the small ones if he havent got mountain practice ... so its i cheat, and it doesnt really matter if you put them in training camps, if the rider isnt fit , then its useless to boost him.
Interesting observation, it does appear to show that the AI is using the training camps.
I do notice that riders who normally have inferior stats sometimes beat my CSC guys on normal difficulty, e.g. guys with 72 TT beating Cancellara 82 TT on a flat TT, I thought maybe they were using camps but still showing their original stats. even with differences in form (good day/bad day) that is a strange result.
If you have found the stats jumping significantly, then it looks like the AI does use camps but shows the new stats.
For me camps are the most realistic way to play. In the real tours, GC contenders decide to try and put more time on their rivals in the mountains than they lose in the TTs, just hang on in the Alps and make up time in the TTs, or try to balance them. Armstrong was a natural Time trialer, but every year he spent more time than anyone else in the Alps, riding almost every climb on the route for the next tour.
That is the option the camps give you in the game. It ads a whole strategic element, which I think is what the developers intended.
