Metropolis Achievement Tips/Tricks?

[Eve]

Hey everyone. I've been spending the week trying to get the Metropolis achievement and was curious if I'm making things harder on myself than they need to be. Here's what I've been doing:

Start year 2000 easy, small map very high towns and industries, default map settings. I typically start by picking out a bigger city and focus on bus, train to another city, and the closest supply. Once loan is paid and money is less of an issue I fix up any traffic issues, get the second supply done, and upgrade vehicles. Around this time I start expanding my connections to other cities and I work on their bus and supply along the way. Each time I check in with my original city, it's around 900 and seems to just stop growing. Only issue I can see is emissions being mediocre or poor but I'm not sure how to fix that besides having the train station away from residential since trains seem to have it the worst.

Am I missing something? Do small maps only allow for short town growth? Does having more towns help at all? Is it possible to have good emissions in bigger towns? Would an earlier start year make things easier? Any help would be appreciated.

[Vimpster]

A small map is definitely going to limit your success. There is no top limit (to my knowledge) to the bonus multiplier that comes from destinations. But there is a limit on how many destinations you can get for one town, and that is based on the number of towns, and the size of those towns, on the map.

It is also important to have towns with a high initial population right from the start. The initial population of a town is very much a limiting factor to the potential size the town can get to. Towns with an initial population of over 200 (that is before adding the growth modifiers), will have the best potential for reaching the biggest size. I think the biggest I have seen is around 234. So if there are no towns that size right from the start of the game than I would recommend re-rolling the map generation till you get at least one town that size, and ideally many towns that size.

Edit* Just adding a bit of a correction to what I said. If starting in 1850 the biggest initial town pop you can get is 200 in theory. If you start in 1900 then you could get towns with an initial pop of 234 like I was referencing. If you start in the year 2000 you could have towns as high as 300.

[Eve]

I really appreciate this feedback. I didn't note that more destinations raised the bonus, so this is very helpful. I also didn't consider that my target population was simply too low for me to achieve this. Going to try again on a new map with better towns and see how it goes. Thanks!

[Witcher]

Just unlocked it. I created a map using the editor just to get this achievement. Given the time it took I wouldn't call it cheating though!

[Nappula [SPU-V]]

What are the population % modifiers in the 900 city? That is all that matters. I have a city in 1938 now with 1000 population and 310% total modifier from 244 starting city. More destinations for citizens to travel to amounts to the first modifier which I have at 140% for this city because of high speed connections and airlines. If I manage to somehow supply more tools for this city it could probably reach 1500 in due time.

https://i.imgur.com/ED0Jw4R.jpg

[spieter]

Try to get public transport going to other nearby cities. Since you seem to be on an island you would need bridges. Check the passenger destination view.

https://i.imgur.com/djZnzMq.jpg