Is there anyway of knowing what my payroll will be next year?
I'm in my second season with Barloworld. I'm doing well - was promoted to CTT after my first season. In the second season have won the Giro and the Dauphine with Augustyn, Gasparotto got me a fair few points in the Ardennes classics, and Soler is looking like top 5 in the Tour. Have met 3/4 of the sponsor goals for this season so far.
So now it's mid-July and I'm thinking of making a run at a premier free agent: Contador, Gerdemann or Boonen. I'll be freeing up £20k of my own by not renewing Cooke and Sabido - but will I be able to afford £80k for a star?
And if I agree a deal with a star, but then it turns out I don't have the payroll - what happens? Do I lose the game? Do I lose the star?
As fas as I know you get more money if you doing good. The limit is quit high. I had ~2M in my second season (also got promoted to CTT) and stayed in CTT. Now my budget is ~3M for then next season. I did not expected such an amount and therefore was not able to spend all the allowed money on riders after the 15th of october.
I managed to meet all sponsor goals (normally 5 maybe you made a typing error?) but I think the most important thing for getting more money is the "old" UCI-Ranking (the combined ranking where every riders is in it). The higher your team is in this ranking, the more money you get (I guess the reason is: Cyanide was to lazy to change the way the sponsors react. So they kept this ranking). In this ranking, mountain points also count, so you can improve the changes of getting more money (especially as a conti-team) if you win many mountain prizes.
Conclusion: Yes you can afford a star. And if you are unlucky and you went above the bugdet you can fix it with the editor from Hannes. And in the worst case, where you have to less money, you could either "cheat" by rising the money or drop some trainers later in the year. (If you kick a trainer, do not forget to remove him from your riders first, else you cannot engage him again in the future)
If you get a star and cant afford him come the start of the next season you are stuck with them. Leaves you 2 choices cheat or win as much as you can to get as much prize money as possible and trying to keep your team going.
Lachi.
I've achieved 3 of the 4 sponsor goals that I could have won so far, the 5th is a top 10 finish in TdF which hasn't finished yet.
Augustyn is a monster, but I have used Training Camps, and I am on 'Normal' level. He's even got 4 stars worth of TT potential to go (not much else though). Thinking of skipping on to 'Hard' level after the season finishes - or perhaps starting again?
About to attempt to post a screenshot...stand back...
