Daily Challenge Chat

[guth]

Hi all. I think the Daily Challenge is a big part of what makes Mini Metro fun. But there's sadly no good way to communicate with other daily challengers, and it's more fun to play against people than just names on a scoreboard.

So, I (and at least one more daily challenger) think it would be a good idea to have a thread (this thread) where people could say something/anything about today's challenge. For example, I've seen people expressing their happiness about getting good placements, in the screenshots section. Maybe this thread could serve that purpose. But it could also be used for more ongoing discussions.

I'll start by congratulating rinsul, whoever you are, for a very good (winning?) run today!

[Tomad16]

637 first attempt, 705 second attempt... yeah, these short ones are definitely not my favourite

[Tomad16]

By the way, I watched Guth's recording... wow, that's more micromanagement than I can handle... but eye-opening in terms of what's possible in normal mode and how very high scores are generated. I appreciate extreme mode a bit more after seeing that.

[guth]

Indeed. I came up with that strategy one day when I was about to restructure my whole metro system in a game. But when I had deleted all lines, I had one station about to get overcrowded, so I wanted to empty it before drawing my new lines. And then I thought to myself: Hmm... why don't I just continue doing that. As long as I have a line that accepts all passengers I can empty everything to it. :)
On maps where you get many trains, or when the special stations are badly located, I use(d) two, or even three, permanent lines, sharing an interchange station.

I still don't know nelson's original strategy exactly (or his current one if he hasn't changed it after I revealed mine). At that time we were pretty much the only ones getting extreme scores, but I doubt we played the same way, because we got quite different scores. Would be fun to know, and how he came up wth it. But I fully understand if he doesn't want to reveal it, since he still plays normal mode.
Yes, I'm talking about you, nelson! :)

[nelson]

Well, I watched a few tutorials online, and saw that people recommended a "loop" line connecting every type of station, so that's what I based my first strategy on; one loop line and then a lot of temporary "ghost lines" connecting to that. And that worked almost as good as guth's strategy - in some maps even better; I remember that I used to beat guth in Cairo most of the times.

And that is how I usually play; in some maps I use a loop, in other maps even two loops, or one "straight" line, or maybe two "crossing" lines. It depends on how the map evolves, and in Normal maps I sometimes start with a loop line, but if I find out that it doesn't work well, I might switch to a "line" or "cross" pattern instead.
Some days I get it right and win with a big margin (unless guth is playing of course), but there are days when I play it bad.

[guth]

I assume your original strategy also didn't connect most stations to a permanent line? Did you see that in a tutorial, or how did you come up with it? Cause I think that's the main thing for getting high scores, and I've never seen that in a tutorial.

Btw, I deliberately avoided looking at tutorials and similar for the first few months. Partly because it was more fun to come up with strategies yourself, but also because I didn't want to get influenced by people saying "you should do like this", because they heard that from someone else, who heard it from someone else, etc. Everything people say isn't true. :)
Loops is one such thing, that people say is good. I'm not saying they are bad, but most of the time I think open lines are slightly better, for a number of reasons. But don't trust me. I wouldn't. :)

[nelson]

Well, consider a line with 10 stations. If that is an open line, with one train going back and forth, the end stations will be visited every 18th stop. If it is a loop line with 10 stations, every station will be visited every 10th stop.

[guth]

Dammit, now you forced me to come up with reasons why open lines are good. :)

Yes, true, a loop has advantages too. An open line performs worse towards the ends of the line, but arguably better in the middle, I'd say. And the middle stations usually spawn more than the outer stations. Also, if you have circle stations on both ends of an open line (which is pretty common for me anyway), connecting those to a loop would result in two cirlces in a row. So, open lines can, in a way, serve more circle stations.

But it's not only how often a station gets visited that's important, but also how long each passenger has to travel. Because they take up valuable space on the trains. On loops, passengers might have to go around in a full circle to get to their destinations. To avoid that you could put two trains in opposite directions on your loop. But then, you'll still only visit a couple of stations every 10th stop, which is the same as a perfectly synced open line with two trains. And on the loop, passengers might still travel in a half circle (or more).

I simply believe that loop lines generally force passengers to travel longer distances. Partly, simply because they are round. With open lines I think you can often get more direct paths to most destinations. Another part of this is also that an open line can reach much further than a loop of the same length.

Also, I feel that the game doesn't make as bad decisions about which passengers to pick up on open lines, which I've mentioned before. So, the passengers that shouldn't have to travel more than half a circle, often do that anyway.

Finally, open lines have a pretty obvious advantage in extreme mode.

However, I can't prove that the advantages for open lines outweigh the disadvantages most of the time. I can't even prove that all of these really are advantages. So, I could be wrong.


But... you didn't answer my first section in my previous post. You don't have to, but I'm curious for some reason. :)

[nelson]

No, neither my original nor my current strategy have tried to connect "most" stations. I rather try (and have always tried) to _alternate_ stations as much as possible. That doesn't mean that my loop (or straight) line contains only one station of each type. As you said, we don't want passenger to occupy the train for longer than necessary, so only having one circle and one triangle on the line is often a bad thing, in my experience.

[guth]

I agree, but all stations aren't circles and triangles. There's only one of each special station, and sometimes the square too.
Anyway, if I beat you a little more often than you beat me in normal mode, maybe that's an indication that open lines are slightly better. Or maybe not.
One way to find out would be to play normal mode daily challenges twice a few days, once with loops and once with open lines. I'm not *that* interested, though, and I doubt you are either. :)

But... you still didn't answer the question I was most interested in; how you came up with the idea not to connect most stations. For example, was it an aha moment, like for me, or did it evolve more gradually?
Yes, this is an interrogation! :)

[nelson]

You ARE right that since you beat me more often than the other way around, that should indicate that your "straight line" strategy is superior. On most maps at least.

To try to answer your question: as I recall it, I quickly found out that you could delete lines and create them again in a new place, meaning that I didn't have to have all stations connected all the time. But the real eye opener was when I realized that deleted lines still carried on with its passengers to the next station, but you could draw a new line directly - in effect having two lines for a brief period (if you had the trains to spare). That was _my_ "aha" moment.

[BlackSpy]

For my ha'pence worth, a mix is where it's at. Some loops are good but open lines are necessary particularly in the late game. By I only play normal mode without ghost lines etc.

In extreme mode I never make loops. I feel the loss of flexibility of giving up on those ends is never justified. But perhaps it's worth it. I just end up with long lines.

[guth]

Yes, sure, I've used loops too. I've even used loops in extreme mode lately, but very rarely. Actually, I used a loop when I finally got into all-time top 10 in Berlin extreme. But don't mention that to nelson! ;)

nelson, you do realize that we just *might* be the only ones who have come up with that idea, right? At least in the last year or so, based on the scores before I revealed my strategy. And when I came up with it (after almost 4 months) there was definitely some luck involved. I said above that I didn't want to get influenced by other players, but it's hard not to be influenced by your knowledge about how a metro system is supposed to work. Sure, if there had been real bus lines in the game, you might have easily figured out you can leave stations unconnected, but this is a pure metro game. And you just apparently thought outside the box without even trying. Thinking about it now, it seems like a rather obvious thing to try. But I'd say you're pretty unique. :)

But you suck at extreme mode. ;)

[nelson]

I suck at Normal mode now too! ;-P
Beaten by this "COUNTER" person again... Too bad that there are so few players discussing in this thread, it would be nice if the top players of the day could discuss differences in their strategies; what did they do right or wrong today, etc.
As for myself, today I took tunnels that turned out to not be needed, I should have picked an extra carriage or exchange instead.

[Tomad16]

First time hitting pole position in extreme mode today :D 2317 Stockholm. I recorded the whole thing too.

[guth]

Impressive! So, I guess you don't really need any hints anymore. :)