Devblog 2: AI Transfers - How Teams Build Their Future in Velo Victory
It’s transfer season again! If you follow pro cycling, you’ll know the pattern: some moves make perfect sense, while others make you raise an eyebrow.
Of course, Team Polti going into next season with two Maltese riders is easily explained by their new sponsor, VisitMalta, a clear sponsor-driven connection. But they’ve also brought in other riders who earned their step up through performances and a fitting nationality. Meanwhile, some top-level teams will line up next year with nearly twenty nationalities in their squad, focusing more heavily on rider quality, while most Continental teams stay loyal to local or regional talent.
In Velo Victory, our goal is to recreate exactly that mix of logic, identity, and surprise. The way real-world teams blend sporting priorities, sponsor pressure, and human context when shaping their squads.
🧠 What drives a transfer
Every team in Velo Victory has its own personality, a balance between sporting ambition, sponsor expectations, and cultural identity. Some squads build around local pride, others with global reach.
But it’s never just about where a rider comes from. Performance and opportunity matter too. A young climber on the rise can earn a transfer to a higher level; a promising sprinter might be targeted by other teams to fill the shoes of a departing experienced leader; or a loyal domestique could finally be given a shot at leadership. At the same time, teams love promoting from their own U19 or devo teams, you’ll often see those riders getting the first call. After all, these are riders they’ve trained, trusted, and invested in.
Then there are the subtler influences that make transfers feel human. Family ties can nudge a rider’s decision one way or another. Financial capabilities make teams shift their focus. And sometimes, a rider’s comfort zone is the deciding factor: some thrive far from home, which attracts attention from foreign teams. Others only shine when surrounded by familiar voices and roads.
In Velo Victory, all these little details come together. Teams don’t just look at results or stats, they think about fit. Nationality, finances, family ties, home-grown status, the need to replace departing leaders, or even how far a rider is from home can all make a difference.
🌍 Nationality and Identity
Cycling teams often have a strong national or regional identity. Sometimes by philosophy, sometimes by sponsor demand.
In Velo Victory, both of those forces coexist:
• Team-based preferences are stable over time, reflecting where a team is based, who manages it, and its history. Like Euskaltel-Euskadi will always primarily focus on Basque riders in the real world.
• Sponsor-based preferences change with contracts. If a sponsor from Brazil demands visibility at home, expect a wave of Brazilian signings.
AI teams understand what’s expected from them and build their squads accordingly without forgetting their sporting ambitions. A young Colombian climber might be snapped up by a ProTeam chasing the next Bernal, while a local sprinter could get his chance thanks to a regional sponsor’s push.
🎯 What it means for you as a manager
Next time you scroll through the transfer market, you might smile at a move that feels oddly familiar. Teams don’t just sign the strongest riders or the biggest prospects, they sign the ones who fit.
A strong rider might get ignored because he doesn’t match the team’s needs, culture, or sponsor wishes; a young local might suddenly become a hot target because the squad needs to hit a youth or nationality goal.
The result is a market that feels alive.
Some transfers will seem inevitable, others will surprise you, but nearly all of them will have a story behind them.
And when you make your own decisions as a manager, you’ll be playing by the same unspoken rules: balancing budgets, ambitions, chemistry, and identity.