[arh68]

Wow. AMA, you say? When do you prefer loops, or lines? Additional lines, or carriages? How much do you tear down at once? if you don't mind me asking

I'm like median on Metro, ~60 hours over years (though perhaps just the one hour, 60x, &c). Never too late to learn some strategy, I guess. Never played Motorways.

[jstummbillig]

Loops vs lines: Loops only in a dense core where you can keep shapes alternating and include a square. Use lines for suburb<->core and river hops.

Lines or carriages: Early add lines, midgame add a loco, then carriages on the trunk that is actually redlining. Late add an interchange at the first overloaded transfer before more cars.

Tear-down: Hm... how much, not sure how to quantify. Definitely something you must do in every long running game but the extend is different. As a heuristic: Pause and rebuild when queues outrun a single weekly upgrade. Reorder shapes, make sure every line touches a square, split any mega-hub into two nearby transfers.

As you probably have guessed: There is no real silver bullet. Knowing the best move is basically impossible, the space is too complex. As a most useful general skill, it's important to recognize problems very early and optimize ruthlessly.

[stingraycharles]

How did you learn strategies? There are very few reliable sources of strategy for both games, compared to other, more common simulation games.

[jstummbillig]

Just by observation/feel, really. I don't think I have looked at any strategy guides. Figuring that out to me is the fun part.