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So first off - very interesting that iOS was that different. Clearly that's a thing I guess. Something to watch for. Also interesting you got the normal iOS no square start which we never see on Android. As for the droplet it first shows up at 4:10, I don't connect until 5:43 so quite a lot of game time has elapsed. I don't over extend though I was tempted, and do add a train to the filling triangle. I do get that by connecting it a little further to the + station I pickup droplet passengers on both sides and that could help. Except there are just 7 droplet southern passengers waiting at this moment and just 5 more north. I realize I waited a while and 12 is a decent amount but I figured with the balance I was seeing I could clear them. I was planning for one more line to go across the river, a new line and never got there. Having just one southern triangle was really the pain point that hurt this map for me.

​@@DaveKaufmanI watched a bit closer now, what you say makes sense. Curious about 4:41, you extend Light Blue not Orange, expecting more southern triangles soon? Or is this more from wanting to keep your steps short or something like that.

@@woxiong Not 100% sure, but in retrospect, orange was approaching with a carriage and that could have easily handled that. I was thinking that southwest often sees mid-game stations show up including a triangle in that area. So with orange and green handling cross river work, figured light blue could stay on the south side and do the work. Probably no good answer there.

@@DaveKaufman It's a peculiar situation with the triangle shortage down south, where it gets really busy, typically. Even in hindsight no obvious solutions.

8:38 was me breaking all my rules. It was very hard.

​@@DaveKaufmanGlad to see you willing to make offensive moves when it's late-ish in the attempt! I failed in this DC via a lone triangle station overcrowding with circle passengers, unusual.

@@woxiong I like you saying my move at 8:38 was late-ish implying it wasn't yet late game for your liking. In normal Stockholm that northern island is always the near last to get stations so that is pushing late. The eastern islands were a bit unusual here as normally more stations earlier. But clearly my issue was the + station access from west and by that I mean having a route that came from the west, north of the water would have allowed plus passengers to move in multiple directions. That is something I failed to plan for.

​​​@@DaveKaufman 8:38 I'd consider this the end of mid-game actually, considering you've got trains "in the bank" still, for instance. In hindsight, could spending your new line directly from NE island to the lone triangle be good? Allowing more resources to Red? Idk. Now that you mention it, 2:15 you could be more patient (surprise! :p) with extending Light Blue. Red to cross instead would be preferable IMO, since it's shorter. And a carriage there would deliver rhombus people in the other end. I could be wrong.

It's been a while for me to finish first in an Extreme Daily Challenge. I almost had a PB. Most surprising was I had never had a recorded daily challenge of this map in extreme.

​@@DaveKaufmanOh I hadn't even noticed, congrats! I was mid- top 100 somewhere. Maybe you haven't played this map a lot? Would be a natural explanation - it's kind of annoying, in the sense that you're "perpetually in trouble".

@@woxiong I feel like I have played it a lot since my PB was set in 2020 and I know it should be better. I think it doesn't come up in DC very often. I think this specific DC was actually a bit easier than normal for me as the center circle island wasn't overkill. Even late game just three circles. That was huge. My personal rule break was doing the double bridge use on the small island early and then later using another bridge to add capacity to the island.

@@DaveKaufman I agree the middle island was super easy here. The far south developed poorly though, and the early specials clustered near square seemed unusual, though I haven't played this city in a while. All in all pretty good seed probably. For a PB I guess you need good upgrades timing luck, because of all the geographical constraints. I always break rules in Guangzhou :)

1444 is very impressive. Nice job. It was not an easy map but oddly seemed like it was. I feel I had a better score in me.

@@DaveKaufman Did traffic grow much faster than normally, or was I just confused by not getting more lines? (In order words: what exactly was weird about this DC, I'm not sure, but it was something). Thanks! Congrats to you too, I forgot to say.

@@woxiong Looking late game I think it was capacity scaled way slower than population. Also at 6:14 my mistake was having such an off-shifted city center. The lower portion has no help, single line only. That's a fail.

​@@DaveKaufmanYeah that's my sense too (high demand). Did you mean 5:14 extending Teal? If so: it's not good tunnel usage, viewed in isolation, but we're short on lines and you want I assume some kind of balance.

@@woxiong I see your point at 5:14, but I was actually just going to the near end and seeing what's wrong at this point, and so 6:14 is when I see, how few stations in the mainland south are dual served. All four of them and of course the one that ends it.

I was pretty disappointed. I felt it was a good run and got into a bad situation with single station.

@@DaveKaufmanCould see this layout lasting a few hundred more. I failed at the same place btw. Not great stations placements on this DC of course.

@@woxiong I appreciate you failing there too. To me this is what make the DC exciting, that you don't know what to expect. I also feel that I could and should have been able to withstand that station's issues.

@@DaveKaufman From what I can tell, any solution to that area sacrifices something large in the long term though, unless it's something like a two-station tunnel line, which you either do early or not typically. Plus, as you know, my typical advice is more patience EG but less in LG - & in a daily challenge it's often hard to know what phase you're in :D

@@woxiong I think that's why the DC are so great...the choices you make and when you make them isn't so easy to know. I think in that area, my issue was at 5:09 I make the jump and figure that's that. There is a double circle that I'm helping out with, that's enough. But had I continued north "at some later point" to the northern triangle I would have been a bit better off.

Love it! That's awesome. This is a unique map. How did you accomplish it? Anything special, lots of bridges? Also love you commenting on this video. Thanks! Do you find them helpful?

@@DaveKaufman Your videos are just ghost line gameplay, not really too helpful I just did a lot of moving around locomotives and it worked out, #20 in the world!

@@lukeguo3966 I don't disagree. They are ghostline. I also haven't regularly played normal in a long time, due to the debate of train jumping vs. ghost lines. Basically very similar, but I know there's a lot of debate. I celebrate all types of play and love that you reached #20 in the world. That's awesome congrats. Do you play much Extreme?

@@DaveKaufman I do not like extreme because it requires actual strategy and planning. In normal mode you can just move train move train ghost line ghost line and reach top 10

@@lukeguo3966 I love your reply. I love that people play Mini Metro for all sorts of reasons, and strategy, planning, loops, ghost lines, moving trains and more all fall into this same bucket. What a great game. Looking forward to hearing what you do next. Please share!

Always appreciate your having a look. Impressed that there wasn't a comment until 1/3rd of the way through! Win! 5:05 I was thinking Blue heads east, but north of the river. That was my thought. I always think about tunnels and limiting my use of them. I have gotten, much, much better. In this case that was my planning, which is why I kept alternating. Plus with Green across the river, I could got north to the triangle and then bend south to address. (I reply not recalling if I actually did that, let's find out together as I reply to you. LOL) 5:50 And strike that comment above from the record! LOL Wow. Literally 45 sec later. As for all the circles. I have found that 2-3 circles in a row can survive with a triangle on the end. For a time at least. 7:10 Based on recent comments you have made on other videos, that purple train was NOT good timing. I could have waited a while longer. I think my thought was there's one on the other end, if I wait hoping it makes it back, I'll stack up two trains on the same line near each other. Best to space them out when you can. 7:22 Lots of options and no rush...do I burn myself twice in these comments? Let's find out together. I am looking like I'm patient though. 8:10 I like the tough love. I can take it. But in this case, my options sucked. I had the far southern circle and most of the south/east with no triangles. So the blue line could have gone to that circle filling up, but then the southern circle would "hope" a helper triangle shows up. I was worried. I figured, ugly is a strategy and it wasn't that bad, just a long path from a triangle that really only had the other triangle and square as outlets, though we know north of the river we might see some stations later. It's a toss up. 9:20 Always nice to hear the good stuff. Thanks! 10:12 I like how you see this so far out. I'm not saying no at all, just like your brain. Obviously with four lines then there would you expect it be a drop off point? 10:57 Again two comments in a row you are thinking so far ahead. This time I see it a bit more. 11:00 Yep, can't have too many here. 11:25 Wow. So generous of you. I guess I just see the path that will help many and needed to get north. This was a way to do it. Note that this long yellow move was ONLY available because I had an extra train to add to deal with the triangle. So I did think this one through. And again, maybe it is the balance thing. 12:25 Can't disagree on the interchange. There wasn't a place that was going to help. Maybe some better planning would have been a better option. 13:11 It's getting late in the game....I was starting to break my own rules and thoughts and I had three tunnels. This seemed like a luxury move but one that was kind of perfect. Will admit more patience though as there was a second engine following close enough behind we could have waited a bit there. Appreciate the notice. I was probably excited to break my own rules! 13:27 Red wasn't really struggling but then I went at 13:48 way to early to deal with Purple and Red in ways that could have waited. Then it kind of felt struggling. But also the red with two circles and NOT a triangle at the end of those two was a worry as well. 13:56 I really think that heavy concentration out west offset ones you might have gotten in the south and southeast. Triangles only in one area was a challenge there. But it helped the normally very hard west, so I'll take it. 14:40 This was of course the comment I needed...during the game. It is a perfect late game thought and idea and you saw it after the fact and I didn't see it in real time. Hence...why we play. Watching how fast that station filled up 14:53, not even sure the partial clearing when you noticed with a farther north triangle would have helped, but of course you have to do it and squeak out every extra one. You always leave so much of value. Thank you.

@@DaveKaufman 7:10 I think this is good timing. For the reason you've given, plus now you're sort of free to extend either end a little, if the need for that appears. 8:10 Given how long Green is plus its 4 semi-consecutive circles in the west, my first choice would be Purple line here. If not that then Yellow or Blue. 10:12 My only thought here was both Purple and Blue and Green have additional special shapes. But looking again now, it's maybe way too early to care about this. 12:25 It's conceivable that keeping Green shorter would have avoided this, but if you by planning mean using the interchange earlier somewhere, I don't see any obvious candidate junctions. 13:27 When I say half-struggling I just meant "starting to show signs of distress"/"more resources needed in the future". 13:48 I think I get what you mean but I'm not seeing any real mistakes here. 14:40 Yeah, Red east to some triangle is a forced move at this point, once you notice it, which isn't always easy in real time. Maybe the best way is north to Blue's triangle via pentagon. As for the western Blue circle in trouble that's a much harder decision. Yellow via Purple square, Blue-Green square, something with a triangle, seems an option. Albeit one that wastes a tunnel long-term. Well that's good to hear! On the other hand I think maybe by now you've heard a lot of what I'm saying before, maybe I'll figure out a way to be more succinct in my feedback here :).

@@woxiong I am just needing to keep practicing and hearing it. Keep getting better.

​@@DaveKaufmanWhile what you're saying is true, for anyone, you're so good by now that all remaining progress will be fairly subtle adjustments. Let's not forget you already appear in the various top ten lists.

@@woxiong You are always so kind with your approach. I appreciate that. I also know I can be better.

That's not annoying at all. I know you have this map down cold and really do well with it. I am impressed with your approach as that's seriously impressive. I will say at 12:05 I'm looking pretty good. And then boom. One station.

​@@DaveKaufmanYou were indeed doing really well here! Nice junctions between Blue/Yellow/Purple. 12:05 Use Orange instead? Or is the island too busy maybe. Or are you aiming for 3k - in that case I certainly get why Purple is tempting.

@@woxiong Yes really thought about our idea of moving the center of the city north of the starting stations. 12:05 So...I did a "frame by frame" and at 12:01 you can see the Yellow line pulls into the station and could be diverted. But...the Green station of issue doesn't even have a timer going, so not really a problem. (Of course it is a circle station late game that is solo, which is a problem, in the center city.) At 12:02 Yellow is filling up and there are circles there that would clear nicely if directed south, but the Green station is not really on my radar in real-time playing yet. Then at 12:05 still safe, and another train and carriage is pulling around Yellow which could be useful, but Green....no worries. Right? 12:06 is when the worry should be begin. And of course Yellow would be the right call then. Yellow has three train plus carriages running and could extend nicely to the south opening up some future growth. At 12:13 it was clearly the right and better call as purple is now basically trapped and yellow would have the closer capacity and not be trapped. Sigh...it was right there for me.

​@@DaveKaufman Moving the center point (in one's mind at first) up north a little solves so much on this map, it's incredible! Hmm... Yeah you're right I think. On that note, 12:08 was probably the exact point from which I was suggesting Yellow.

@@woxiong I just need to be better....clearly.

I assume you mean your delay in replying? You replying at all is always appreciated, days, weeks, months or even years. Lots to look at in the world. I'm honored you are helping me. 0:30 I would somewhat, yes I had probably not seen one this early though, second shape. But I'll take it. 1:37 I maybe could have delayed this a bit longer...in the hopes that something closer would appear, but likely would have been another circle, right? 2:05 Same as above, wait and hope? And three brown circles in a row seemed a recipe for disaster. Even if I go with the carriage to help, it was just not easy with that western circle town. 3:30 I agree in one aspect, I am not sure why I made the call to draw this now. My only thinking was that maybe it was just to many stations that needed help and I got a bit paranoid. But nothing in trouble and waiting would have been the move. In the triple circle approach my thought was brown already double circle, let's help that out and need to get that far east circle too. You mention would go left to right, where would you have started the drawing? And I would not want to over commit Brown at this point. 6:00 Thank you! That's nice to hear. 7:30 Thanks again. I do think the effort worked very well. 9:48 Interesting thoughts and vision you have here. Looking at what I did in retrospect I would say I did this all to early. No reason/rush to get this done. It was kind of silly actually. As for why I did it, I think the idea of having two of the shapes covered by another line meant only two naked red circles and then the triangle. Which I liked better aiming back toward center as late game southeast often gets some more shapes. I realize no line ending pointing west though. I like that your first viewing looked good. Since I only get one viewing late game too. I appreciate your second viewing though. 10:30 I didn't see a blue loop needed. Especially as I would have gone through 5 circles then to make that happen. All but one would have been double served. The Northeast circle station south of the river was already giving issue. That's the thing I needed help with. 11:25 Maybe had I done it at 11:10 when the train was at the last red circle station, that might have made sense. But I would have likely wanted to go through all the stations east that it wasn't touching and then of course does it make it? That's when late game sacrifices you make work, you break the rules and just do what has to be done.

@@DaveKaufman Precisely. Glad to hear it! 1:37 Even if it's another circle, I'll take that over these long steps because in my mind you can just add overlap to everything. At least south of the river. Doesn't always work well of course. 2:05 Indeed pretty much the same moral as above. But in both cases I get your reasoning & you might be right to do it like this. However I still think you're acting five seconds early. 3:30 Let's see: Actually, I'd probably have initially just drawn from the lone square, through Brown and Red to triangle. Possibly through pentagon, but that's more thinking than I'm willing to do rn :D. In any case I'd then probably wait a little before stretching farther east. 7:30 Just pure pleasure to watch this. 9:48 Cool to read your thinking here. It all makes sense. I haven't much to add I guess, except maybe this: I think my focus on C/T alternation is due to my thinking that late-game is approaching - and then triangle passengers become an even bigger deal. Late-game: I like your 11:10 suggestion. I say only include (on Red) Blue triangle and possibly/not not a Yellow circle. Red is seriously long and if you want more overlap SE use Brown instead, to my eye.

@@woxiong 1:37 Same comment, different day. Patience young grasshopper. Patience. I am still learning. 2:05 Patience again, where have I heard that before? Hmmm. 3:30 There's clearly a theme here for both of us. 7:30 That mesh approach harkens to my master's ability to teach and me to learn. So it so, I can be taught...some things at least. Thank you for the compliment. 9:48 No question alternation is a thing, but I also think knowing where stations tend to appear and when is something to always think about. In fact you have also taught that having lines with various directional options is very important as opposed to all in a single vertical/horizontal direction. It's a balance. 11:10 That's of course a much better idea. Always nice to see the options. Thank you.

@@DaveKaufman You're occasionally a little impatient, as am I. 7:30 I see it like this: You'veb actually absorbed most of the techniques I've shared very quickly, exploring more overlap, fewer & heavier lines on some maps, some line-type discrimination & more probably. And vice versa, I've implemented a version of balance in my play, I've refined my use of the interchange upgrade, and I've learned some of your way of thinking ahead regarding resources planning at least. If ever you really crack the code of my late game transition, and I the way you create flow, we'll essentially be the same person, where this game is concerned :D. 9:48 In light of the principles you've presented, your decision looks sensible. 11:10 You're quite welcome.

@@woxiong LOL. Occasionally. That seems like it is a minor problem in my development and clearly if I could slow down, things would be much, much better. It is bubbling just ready to explode. 7:30 Interesting...so then we'll need some of those others we encourage to teach us new things. 9:48 Another compliment. I'll take it.

Pretty close but again you are just a bit better. I really felt I could have/should have done better on this DC. It didn't go like I planned. 7:15 100% I actually saw that one in real time. Again notice the lack of a real pause and thinking. I still need to give it a bit more time and relax and see some more options before reacting.

@@DaveKaufman I've really figured out Istanbul I think. Yeah, seems you're steadily progressing though.

@@woxiong I think you have really figured all the maps. LOL. I mean seriously. I love the DC Extreme for the pressure it puts you under. It's great.

@@DaveKaufman I'm still not top ten in London Extreme.

@@woxiong That's seriously an amazing impressive feat as it means you are top 10 in ALL other maps! Wow. And that's insane.

LOL "I'll start complaining now!" Too funny. 0:40 - agree on the spawns 0:55 - thanks on the starting, that part as we all know is pretty easy. 3:55 - glad you like that choice, bridges here matter and I had already used two. 5:20 My thought with Green was I could always use the Blue line or if on the east side bend green from the northern island with a bridge south. 6:08 Pink to the square was an easy choice, thanks to the way I handled it earlier. 8:05 Great eye on the specials on Red vs. Pink I didn't even see that. Or think about it, obviously. When you say an immediate route as the crow flies to pink squares, do you mean if go and create a loop? I was thinking my method would allow Red to cross back over, possibly in the future. I liked how nothing was really in trouble at this point. Of course I was only at 900. 9:00 That was a great thought there, having green or blue to jewel/cross as options. I am not sure my brain was thinking the same at that moment. Let's be honest it wasn't at all. 10:18 This one was rather easy to explain. It would be nice to take from that far east blue circle and head north to the pink/red triangle as it would also possibly help with Jewel and Cross. That's probably the smart move. In my head I am thinking this is late game and need to think about saving stations, not planning for a longer future. I get so lucky and excited that a triangle appeared after the three pink circles, all not currently helped with a second line, that seeing the train approaching the blue circle (and we have talked about "line timing" where you draw a line when it will help most) I think this is the perfect time. The real issue was of course the circle drop off point for cross passengers. And the triangle that killed the game too. ;-) I think having a cross with some help would have been nice. Probably should have had green come south and help Jewel/Cross from another direction.

0:55 :D 5:20 Green back across is a little scary before late-game, since more northern stations may appear. But if you get more western stations later you can still bend Green's western end south still, meaning it's not really locked for mid-game either. 8:05 I was just thinking to cross water again with Pink western end. Didn't have looping in mind really. Red back to square seems like a reasonable alternative, although if so maybe you should make that move right away? Crossing and connecting to square I mean. 9:00 is a related issue in a sense. I'm not sure what's the best solution. Again, I feel like I always get punished when Green line (northern island line) gets any longer than is strictly necessary. 10:18 Well your reasoning makes sense to me, if not the move :). I didn't think as far as you suggest for this timestamp - Blue to jewel/cross - but that would probably be better in hindsight, I agree. I was thinking more of how keeping Blue short keeps Red from clogging up with square ppl. Real issues: We've established Red ending up with cross and being a little long was an issue. But regarding those transfer junctions I can't tell whether it's mostly from the rhythms of Red/Pink/Blue or from passengers making bad decisions. You're probably right about doubling on specials. The urgency didn't really reveal itself clearly until maybe 10:15 or even later though, so it's very understandable that you didn't make this move.

@@woxiong 5:20 Yes it would be late game with Green (and as you saw, I should have, admitted it.) And you are right, more stations might have appeared, but picking up some slack on the specials would have been even better. True on the western side as well. 8:05 Yeah sometimes I wait a bit too long. That's an issue. At this point with only one bridge and it being Friday figured safe to wait. 9:00 Hence waiting and hoping for one more set of bridges. That is the real help needed here. I think the idea that 3 northern islands is enough is probably right. And then having a second line get in there and help really likely would be best. 10:18 I wish hindsight was a thing we could harness, but in Extreme mode...we are stuck with the choice we make for all time. Until the next game at least. No question red was an issue and I didn't even notice, which is another issue. I wish it was more clear when and how passenger behavior worked. Always tricky. 10:15 When it did with a bridge and an engine I had the chance to handle it. I didn't. Fail.

@@DaveKaufman The dangers you didn't notice here wrt specials congestion were pretty well hidden IMO. I think it's possible to notice at some points here that jewel ppl in particular are plentiful, but only if you're really looking - which you can't be doing all the time. Mid/late to late errors you make here are smaller than in your modern NY attempt, as far as I can tell. "Fail" seems a comically harsh word in such a good attempt :D. Then again, most words sound more aggressive in writing. Hence smileys.

@@woxiong You noticed. ;-) I didn't. Yep that tracks. I appreciate you noticing and sharing. It is the only way I will learn. Yeah...I'm being comically harsh. I get that. :) Smiley.

Thanks for the compliments. No question having 5 specials in the south was rough. And the RNG was a challenge to start. I think my mistake was not doubling up the lines on the center island. It put to much pressure on red. I'm impressed with your warm up! Wow. That's insane.

@@DaveKaufman Much better RNG for my warmup. Plus I did a big brain fart in the DC, but wouldn't have broken 1500 either way I think.

@@woxiong RNG really does matter. I do like the idea of DC where everyone is getting exactly the same RNG though. That's fun. We all do have mistakes and trust me I often am so embarrassed about them.

Thanks for watching. Greatly appreciate it. Do you play Extreme mode? As for my style and my approach....if you take a look at many videos including this one, you'll see long back and forth discussions with time stamps that talk and discuss small details about why a decision was made, could it have been better, how, and more. Read the comments and you will learn a ton. And then I encourage you to ask anything. Here's an example for you at 4:25 (you can click on that to jump to that point) You'll see I have a spare line and quite an array of engines and carriages, but my thought was to extend and overlap green and purple to reach the three stations in the east. I also opted to go with two circles in a row instead of alternating as I already had a train and carriage on this line. I didn't extend red here or purple as they weren't the best fit. I maybe could have used the yellow line, but didn't want to yet introduce the fourth line. Is that helpful?

@@DaveKaufman I just started playing this game. I just play normal mode for now.. When you play normal mode, do you prefer looping lines Or just open ended??

@@saurabh4721 Welcome to the game! I think in Normal mode a combination of a central loop(s) and some lines works the best. I have other videos some time ago on Normal mode for most cities. Happy to answer any other questions though.

4:25 Second square! I don't really know...so let's look how rare it is....My previous PB no second - ruclips.net/video/igf7bXsRHTg/видео.htmlsi=jsefHzKqRx5Xr90X&t=251 and then the back to back PB showed off - ruclips.net/video/igf7bXsRHTg/видео.htmlsi=C-wx8DpokP5HVsJ-&t=365 there wase a second square! So while I could dig in more, it seems sometimes is a good answer. Having this one show up at just 300 passengers in was a good fortune. Nice noticing on your part. 8:45 I'm sure you were being funny and smart. I am sorry, I don't know what you were referring too. As for the big leap on this map I felt pretty good about the attempt. It worked out for me.

​​​@@DaveKaufman Second square: Sounds like it's the same as for iOS then. I got one on my PB, they're rarer than not sure Extreme Mode score ranges I feel like. At 5:45 for example, looks to me like very good use of tunnels with Red & Green covering the southern nightmare. From here I'd want to keep Red at its current length, at all cost. 8:45 (plus a few seconds) You add a carriage to a train that doesn't brake for a station. Looks funny. Sensible choices near the end here as far as I can see.

@@woxiong It was an eagle eye of yours that even caught that 2nd square. So I guess we'll have to watch further. 5:45 I pretty much do keep Red at that length until 8:06 but I welcome your thoughts at that moment. Maybe I was a bit early and some patience would pay off but I was worried too. 8:45 I hate when you add a train or a carriage to a line and it does nothing. That seems to be happening a bit more than I care to see as of late. Pretty annoyed. Glad you liked my end game though.

​​@@DaveKaufman I typically plan for a square to MAYBE appear somewhere east, which is a weird thing to do and a little taxing :). Do you have any thoughts on carriages vs lines here? I never figured out a fixed plan for that. One thing I've noticed, for most maps I expect at least roughly half my normal mode score. Maybe arbitrary but feels like a trend. Here there's just no chance. 5:45 You did indeed keep Red short for a long while. Extending at 8:06 seems legit. Only way of keeping it still for much longer would be, I think, to get a new line, or to make Orange much longer & squigglier in order to divide those NW circles among more triangles. And I have no idea whether that would be better or worse tbh. Yeah your end game was solid.

@@woxiong And planning for something that is rare is also a bit of a conundrum, since it often never comes. Carriages vs. lines - I would say I haven't played enough, but I have thought about the fact that with two engines per week, it is possible if you kept the lines to a minimum you would max out the engines per line. (a personal goal I would love to reach). My final four line approach worked, and I think the yellow line could have been extended with a bit more planning/thought. Meaning, it's likely more carriages/tunnels is better than lines as per usual. I think that you have a very unique approach and that 1/2 your normal score is likely better than 99% of others. If that works for you, that's a good place to be, of course. The typical comments we both see, are "I would love that Extreme score on just Normal." Extending orange is probably the right move and I maybe should have done it sooner and I didn't. I did think a bunch about that. I didn't think much about another line.

Talk about the city that never sleeps...this reply was intense. Thank you for the insane detail. This is your most timestamps break down ever. Wow. Impressive. 2:13 Are you referring to the circle on red on the mainland? I followed the idea of using triangles as junction points early on. And by not burning a bridge for green that might had to give somewhere. 3:05 Love the compliment and I had two carriages and as you noted initially NYC = bridges needed. Glad you liked it. 4:00 I wanted to eventually get the at least two engines on that line as we have discussed. So if I was going to do that, and you identified already that the lone red circle needed some help this seemed to do that. As for not using the carriage....I am trying to add more engines. 4:32 Another compliment. Thanks! It was a bit tougher choice as you see me pause a little longer. I just felt there was going to be need and third carriage at this moment wasn't glaring. 5:05 Wasn't expecting it. But well positioned to deal and it was early enough. 5:35 Green is getting long but felt this was the right move to extend it slightly. And yes, trying to hold off using that fourth line to early. Patience. Right? 6:45 a third compliment! I am doing something right. Hello. I agree it was the only move though you might have said wait a little longer to let the engine get closer to see what develops on the northern island. 7:32 I had been planning and expecting the 8:04 move so while I did think about purple to the circle....this move for Blue made it for me make more future sense. Was really thinking this run. 7:45 Another MAJOR compliment. I agree with everything you said. I was hoping for another interchange to use next to this one as you explained. Never got it. 8:49 Calculated gamble here. Hoping that with all islands mostly covered can go with capacity over connectivity. Do I need more tunnels? I think for now it was a good gamble. Got past middle game on this map. 9:52 Another compliment...this is insane! Wow. Thank you. I'll just appreciate this review. I was focused on trying to stick to four lines if I could. Really focused on it. 10:15 Do you mean the one south (solo) red circle? I did think about that. 10:55 I just don't always see late-late-late game moves far enough ahead. I am working on it. I agree need to be willing to destroy thing at the end. Not always my way. Had I listened to you and extended blue to that naked red circle, things might have been different. Need to be willing. Thank you for the amazing compliment here and throughout. So nice.

@@DaveKaufman You're welcome, guess I noticed more situations than usual. No pressure to respond to every detail I throw at you of course :) 2:13 Yeah that's the one. I would've had it on Purple probably instead, just that circle I mean, so that Green would collect directly to square - I think only because I find that sorta layout easier to read. 4:00 All sensible what you say here. I have a habitual way of thinking about resources here in early-game: I'd want to give a carriage to Purple since 1) I already feel pretty certain that it's gonna be useful there throughout this attempt. 2) Adding a carriage now potentially let's me keep one more engine on hand, which in turn could allow me to deploy a new two-car line already next week, just as an example. I say all this just to share my thought process, not to persuade you to adopt this habit which might not fit your style. 4:32 IMO no doubt, right choice. 5:35 Now that I know you're sticking to 4 lines, it's a reasonable move. There are a quite a few stops between outermost circle and square though, which I consider a relevant metric of "scariness" :). And yeah - it's a patience-move in one sense, since you're keeping your fourth line. 6:45 Wouldn't want Red to north island regardless, so for me it's perfect timing. 7:32 You chose wisely! I think you're just better at seeing two/three weeks ahead than am I. This isn't the first time I notice that. 8:49 I'm probably leaning slightly more towards tunnels, but who knows which is better here. 9:52 There were just lots of things to compliment here, plain and simple. You did the few-lines thing really well! As you know, I think it's the right way for some specific maps. 10:15 I was thinking Blue to either that S/SE solo Red circle (if so, immediately further to Red triangle for a better transfer junction than this circle), OR Blue east to Red/Green circle. End-game: Yeah I think at the latest, 10:46 you definitely should extend Blue to Red lone troubled circle. Maybe even much earlier would be reasonable, say 10:06, but that's much harder to judge here from outside. Anyway, all other aspects of your approach here were just brilliant to my eyes. And you're welcome! I'm just remembering to mention both good and bad occurrences really.

@@woxiong 5:35 I actually realize now...after talking with you that this is where I could have done something very different that again in live play and even talking it takes me a while to "break this rule" which is to have multiple tunnels on the same line. I could have had the purple line go east and work on some the stations. And now that I say this...the goal should really be to try and get about 50% of stations on either side of EVERY square. And since in this map square stations spawn only in the center land mass, it would make sense that with more tunnels this is an option. That would allow me to cut back on green being so far from square and how ineffective the "one" circle station is on the other side of the square. 7:32 It's funny you say that because I noted that I need to get better at that. I think we each see that skill in the other person. You clearly are very good at planning long term. Maybe you don't see just a weeks ahead, but you see the whole game ahead. It is a difference of course, but hey both useful. 8:49 I would like to know why a bit more. I do think you often opt tunnels first. Curious as to why? 10:15 This is interesting as clearly as I noted above...this again would begin to build an equal weight network on both sides of the square. It's so important and in NYC I clearly did well but not in this specific manner. 10:46 As I paused the video here I immediately saw what you were saying. Damn. That's the perfect moment and well shared. Thank you. I need to be able to see that in the game. It was the clear move to make. I don't see the 10:06 move even after you wrote it. At all. I see blue trains to far away to matter at this moment, they might have helped at 10:32 had I made this move though. Plus then I maybe save the engine I burn right there. Damn again. Great review by you. So appreciative of the time, and conversation.

@@DaveKaufman 5:35 If you're thinking Purple down SE across river, around this timestamp, you'd need more mainland triangles to appear first, I think. Plus, Purple is doing very heavy lifting across the western river, and you reduce its flux contribution there when you extend the other end. So I think I disagree, if I've understood correctly. ... But as a more general principle I think you're totally right that one line can cross several rivers and that's fine as long as you do it with purpose. ... Just to be clear for you and others reading: If you actually achieved roughly 50% balanced circles, that would be way too optimized for that aspect alone. You'd be sacrificing other important things, the most obvious being good tunnels. That's not really what you're suggesting though, I assume, more likely you're painting a hypothetical ideal that neatly summarises the same principle I described with my "scariness metric" thing :). Hope I've understood at least some of what you said. 7:32 Totally agree, I think. A little elaboration on what I mean: Your ability to plan for medium timescales let's say, seem to manifest in you having beautiful mid-game layouts that work amazingly smoothly throughout mid-game in a way I can't replicate, but from which I've learned a lot still. 8:49 Tricky question... One general thing is that having a spare tunnel gives freedom for maneuvering in late-game (can you understand me if I abbreviate LaG., MiG., EaG., henceforth? :)). 10:15 Yeah growing like that with Blue seems reasonable, as long as you don't rush it (since only two trains on Blue plus more mainland stations could appear later on). Again, I think I understand the principle you're describing, & again I hope you don't make it a very strict aim :) 10:06 I still think this is another plausible time for extending Blue. But 10:32 is probably a better time, totally agree. You're very welcome, no big bother, I learn from this too.

@@woxiong 5:35 There were a few points going on here. So the overarching premise of Mini Metro, Extreme or Normal is balance. Having square stations in the city center that have approximately equal alternating circle/triangle stations on either side of the square is the goal. Now, if in doing that you have cross rivers, is it possible to do that with still efficient tunnel usage AND smart overlap/intersection/help points. That's the keys to success. As for the Purple crossing east, I think I could make a case for it. Would be interesting for me to consider it a bit more, multiple tunnels on a single line. Be that across all three land masses or something you often do, start on a land mass, visit an adjacent land mass and then go back to the first land mass. 7:32 Yes, mid-game flow is smooth and with your help I have gotten better at intersection points, helping, city center overlap and line count minimization. But all of that hasn't really translated, yet, into that big bump on many maps. Still grinding. Hoping I hit some window of flow where I get it late game. 8:49 - I think we can easily just use "Late, Early, Mid" and we both know what that means. Your abbreviations also work. As for having a spare tunnel for freedom, that's how I always treated the extra line. But you did point out that by not taking the extra line, you concentrate more on the multi trains per line and that makes things run better, PLUS it forces station overlap a bit more which also helps. One thing this particular exchange and map has reminded me, "naked" stations, especially circles will eventually be the end of many maps. Need to be able to plan for 2 or more lines in city centers for all stations. 10:15 Think of it as a late game "think to check in on" if you notice late game an imbalance and some stations that are single on a line, maybe you work to cover those. It has to be a late game thinking, as you stated, balance and current train count may not allow it easily. 10:32 Great lesson to really try to figure when is late game and really pause a lot more to review carefully things.

Thank you for the congrats. And the beat down. LOL. Considering this was my personal best you really stuck it to me with your score. Nicely done. Purple worked, until it didn't. And if red just got there....was closer to another all time personal best.

​@@DaveKaufman You are welcome. Felt extra good sharing that since you beat me last time xD Woops: I was looking at Purple at 12:30 when I made that comment. For some reason I was thinking Indigo was the one you used to cross water down south, my bad. That short line setup is what I meant I think is a good rule of thumb or whatever. Not that crossing water is bad either, at a late stage like here when chances of additional stations there diminish, I just had to clarify.

@@woxiong The fact that we are competitive in your mind is great. You beat me 99 out of 100x so if that last time stuck with you....I'll take the win. I guess I just need to improve a bit. As for the 12:30...had I chosen to have indigo go across the river in the south maybe the double circle that killed the game would have been better dealt with. Looking at 13:00 in retrospect I can see that it going to the triangle in the south and then across was probably a better move. Thoughts?

@@DaveKaufman That's gotta be an exaggeration :) I haven't really paid attention across time though, but it certainly feels like you're serious competition when I do Android dailies. 12:30 & 13:00 I like your suggestion! My immediate impression is that would be a better line.

@@woxiong Maybe some exaggeration...but not much! Of course we agree, after the fact. I need to be able to see that in real time.

Clearly I lost in the SW...so you are right. But had I paused more at 9:25 I could have saved that circle station and hooked it to the SW triangle. Now the green line in the northeast was still in peril so not sure I could deal with both.

​@@DaveKaufmanI think 9:25 (even if you had paused perfectly) the triangle popped too late. Maybe not. Either way the timing of SW shapes was hard to deal with in general. I forgot to do a warmup run on this btw, how bout you?

@@woxiong Still not doing a warm up either. In my description I was so distracted when I started playing I thought this was Tashkent rules. LOL. I was really out of it, which made the 2nd place finish pretty great. And I think the pause would have worked, but like you often describe for 9:25 it would have to had been pauses along the way to notice it. Which is much more your style.

@@DaveKaufman I think warm-ups are great if you're feeling competitive on a day. Even if you just quit after 500, you get a feel for tempo and such. Maybe. Pausing helps, with diminishing returns of course. I normally can't muster same amount of patience for dailies. 2nd place is always cool! Btw I'm now top 50 all maps in Normal Mode too, after having climbed from 3.8k I think to 4.3k in London. Dunno if I'm gonna try for top ten in this mode. Much more fond of Extreme these days.

@@woxiong I don't think I have ever quit a map nor done a warm up. Good thoughts indeed. Both of them. 2nd place is cool, but first place.....lol. I jest. I'm pretty happy. Congrats on the Top 50 in Normal on all maps...that's a massive effort and an amazing score in London and jump. You are truly mastering all aspects of the game.

So clearly you play a lot....that's great advice. I think some iOS friends have shared that happens. I have never seen it on Android. Which platform do you use? I agree saving that bridge would be great. I recently got another new personal best here: ruclips.net/video/K1WAeVf4_Dg/видео.html What do you think of that approach? Do you play Extreme a lot?

Well...first off all we had a long discussion about Singapore in the recent PB I had. One of your goals for me was raise the city center a bit north. And by that you meant don't have every line (especially the first 3 all go through the southern most square). As you can see that is what I tried. Only the first two lines go through the southern square. So thank you there! As for sharing circles, I feel your matrix approach has them often shared from various angles and directions. Towards the end six of the circles that are shared all have parallel lines/tracks and that's not exactly what you had in mind from your own matrix approach. Right? One more line - I tried and tried and tried to not take it. I need to just think a bit more about the value of say another tunnel helping a circle station, and how that might be better. Which is your philosophy. The hospital being critical in your view made me double up later to help.

​​@@DaveKaufman True! Had forgotten that. You're very welcome, that's just a strategy gem I stumbled upon. Hmm... I haven't thought about this, and thus don't know if it's a goal in itself or just a neutral attribute of my networks. If I look at a random mid/late timestamp from your attempt here, 8:41 exactly, then the only local line direction I don't care for is the SE end of Purple turning back west. However even that is necessary sometimes and especially in Singapore actually since mid-game is busy. Long story short, if I'm understanding what you're describing correctly, I wouldn't worry about that. Because the main goal is high pick up frequency, for circle stations primarily. Seems you're doing that bit well with your lines here. I think in Singapore & Barcelona you could do well with one line less, but not a big thing and as I said it might be bad advice since your style is more balance based. Seems like a good idea. Hospital on an island is a weird situation in this game, hard to analyze.

@@woxiong You are so full of strategy gems, even you can't remember them all. I totally get that. 8:41 I didn't like it either and knew you wouldn't for sure with purple, but my thought was because I raised the city center I had four more stations I could connect purple to late game if needed in the south OR I could have gone back to the north-east on an ugly angle. As for circle overlap here it actually looks better, as nearly all parallel lines veer away 1 to 2 stations later, except for the the red/green three station in the south. Yes I would like to keep trying to reduce line usage and increase other resources. I see the value in being less reliant on lines than other methods. I have been working on it. Yeah I don't recall if the hospital is normally there...but needed to deal this time. And did.

Did you cross the water with that U shape?

@@DaveKaufman That's right (the small river in the west half of course). It always feels like that is kind of almost worth a tunnel. But, in PB attempts I just force a better starting square and triangle, for that very reason. On the other hand I quite often cross the big river from the SW, which maybe amounts to the same thing by late-game.

@@woxiong Wow. I really want to hear more. I would NEVER waste a tunnel over that small area, even late game. Crossing the main river from the SW to the east isn't at all the same thing, in fact it limits your ability to do that if you use a tunnel on the short river. But....I want to learn why I need to rethink that. Please share why you think so.

1:48 - Thank you. Appreciate you noticing. Of course...early. Heh. 2:00 You are certainly the expert. But yes...I might have given myself a bit more flexibility with a slightly slower build out. 2:28 Yep. Still not being patient enough. 100%. Keep calling me out. I really do appreciate it. 3:30 Thank you! That's me seeing the loop shape completed by doing that. I think it really was one of the keys to this successful run. 4:15 This is not something I have noticed. I have tried serving each special with 2 lines when I can as a general thought. Not always. But do tell me about the idea of "+" cross being the most popular special passenger. I'm, I guess, unaware. Kind of surprised I am. 5:40 Had the line and the tunnel and the engine. Just made sense, and figured eventually will have another line across that river. 6:10 Easy, blue was shorter and I think could handle the double circle better at this time. But maybe you see a future and different choice. Clearly. 6:50 Love your analysis and thought process. Thank you! This was a very helpful comment and helped me to think I'm moving in a good direction long term (in other maps.) 7:35 Again love your thought process. Mine was again, another loop. I have found the pseudo loop works very well as like having lines extend on both sides of a square station, the loop allows a nice balance of passengers and when it is a pseudo loop it actually might even work better to balance things. That's my thinking anyway. 9:30 Great point. I didn't really see this until you said so. I had a nice balance at this moment in line lengths and that was what was being considered. You also see 6 specials in the center to southwest. It's a lot. 11:08 While circle island is causing me fits...I did pull a page from your book and have pink looping out burning two tunnels but something I normally would never do. It's working really well! Still a really a balanced set of line lengths despite your seeing red and purple needing help and a tough future there with the resources needed to help them. 11:18 You really are a genius. You come up with multiple solutions to things I wasn't even thinking were problems as that moment. Masterful eye. I am so thankful you watch and comment with such excellent ideas. Thank you. 11:50 Not so much patience here but situational awareness more. Where are the trains you want at the moment and where will they be in the future and how to best maximize all of that? 12:05 Yeah it was a crap shoot and I probably should think about less lines more often. That seems to work so well for you and your style. I bet it would have been the better choice here. 12:57 I was thinking if I had moved blue to that ending circle maybe that train and carriage make it there in time. But not sure what else I do? What else on the NE island of ALL circles would you have done? It's just a mess. I'll take the 8 with a 20th place finish and just a slight improvement. Makes sense.

​​​@@DaveKaufman 2:00 Your basis of design is different from mine, since you deal more in balance. This feels like an example of that to me. Therefore not a bad thing to my thinking. Will do. Nice! Cross: I think this is the most popular special in most cities (Paris, bunch of others), and typically by a big margin, not sure about Barcelona though. I just treat it as important by default/ out of habit. 6:10 My thinking: We're expecting more circles to spawn north of there (preferably on Blue or a new line), and your move here closes off Yellow on the island. 6:50 You're welcome. This was a joy to watch. Suddenly out of nowhere (for me watching) this perfection appeared. 7:35 Pseudo loop is reasonable long-term. In my style I'd want to delay this though, because you haven't trains in abundance, but that might cause problems elsewhere. 11:08 I like that move on Pink, even if it makes it uncomfortably long. Ahem. 11:18 This particular stage of the game is where I earn the big bucks so to speak, but I'm probably not a genius. Though perhaps I wouldn't know if I were. Again you're welcome. I've laid out some principles in my late-game thinking, figured some examples might be good as well. 11:50 I'd want the big train back NE fast, while the W/SW bit looks like it can cope better for a be short while. You'd also make Blue delivering diamond passengers happen faster. And I would think rhythm/spacing would be fine either way. 12:05 Tough call here. I thought you were reasonable with getting lines, up until Orange. Granted, I did my PB (1st place) with only 5 lines, but the city offers freedom to choose different approaches I think, plus we have different styles. 12:57 Too late even for Blue, right? NE island circles: In addition to what I mentioned at 6:10 and the tiny extension mistake of Pink late-game, I think I'd want to keep generally Blue and Pink shorter for longer and thereby end up with slightly better shapes alteration or pick-up frequency up there, all in all. However that might've made other parts of the map suffer.

@@woxiongCross: I'll have to pay more attention. Clearly I don't/didn't. Thank you. 6:10 I disagree. I was thinking that one future move was yellow helping blue's furthest east circle if/when needed. That never happened but was in my head. And from there it could have gone further if needed. 6:50 I am aware that lines that thwart the "same" often are very helpful. In cities were lines are often all horizontal having a vertical or mostly vertical line can really cut through and do a lot of work. This map is very horizontal, stacks of lines with few vertical lines. This was a chance. 7:35 I also recall us talking about being decisive sometimes and I think the pseudo loop is one of those opportunities. Not always but often. 11:08 I don't see Pink that much longer than any other line. Seem about the same. The fact is has four circles in a row is a little unnerving but three of them are assisted by another line. 11:18 Your ideas here are masterful. I welcome future thoughts like these. 11:50 Yes all of that. I fully agree. When you see it so well it makes me facepalm a bit. 12:05 I think we both know that somehow the extra line is a carrot dangling to be eaten or a piece of cheese in the mousetrap and my thought of balance means grabbing that cheese as the easy answer. But the truth is doing it with less lines means you are really being more flexible, because you are taking tunnels or carriages each time and that means the spare engine goes to serve an existing line not a single train on a new line. That was your point in our other discussion. 12:57 That was my question? Was it too late? Hard to say. Yes maybe less balance some of that "short line magic" that you like to employ. That NE island was a true nightmare and I think it actually went really well. Thanks for this awesome lesson.

​​@@DaveKaufman 6:10 Still doesn't quite make sense to me, that choice I mean, but I think I get what you're saying. 7:35 True. And in any case this may have been a very good move, I'm just thinking that mid-game is coming and with it, often, a high demand for trains. (So I'd want to delay in order to be able to give trains to lines serving the middle/specials). 11:08 To clarify: I meant Pink is long for having just one train, at a point in time where you can't easily give it more. 11:18 Thanks! I'll try to do this occasionally. 11:15 BTW the habit I was referring to nagging you about is specifically "always consider letting approaching trains return before extending lines, at least if that doesn't mess with queuing". It's one that I've been working on in the past half year or so. I suspect you thought I considered this timestamp just another patience issue. 12:05 Couldn't have put it better myself! 12:57 Too late, I'm pretty sure. NE: Maybe. Again, I saw no real mistakes there but the sum of all your decisions on and near that island wasn't as brilliant as in the rest of the map, in my view. You're very welcome, now and always with these things.

@@woxiong11:08 This is why you are genius. You see the board as it will be. The future. I certainly agree with you now, after the fact. But in the moment I saw Pink as taken care of and not having issue, despite having those circles. Though....I should have known too. 11:50 I appreciate your clarity on the issue. I did understand. You have pointed out a few times to me that I don't always let a train approach the place it needs to be before taking action. I still file this under patience as I should wait a bit longer and then see what I should do. You make a good point...if you can give it more time you might make a different choice and certainly when the train is going to help you, why not? Yup. Well said, all around a very useful discussion. Thank you.

Thank you! Do you play? Any thoughts on what you do vs. what you see here?

Yes, I love playing MiniMetro! I learned from your video that I need to wait even longer before connecting newly spawned stations. 😄 I always do the dailys and I have completed all achievements. Now I'm trying to get high scores in extreme mode.

@@aleXXblume Awesome! Thanks for watching. Yes waiting and patience is a key to allowing you to see more of the map. I am still needing to work on this more myself. Nice job on the dailies and playing regularly and completing all the achievements. That's hard. Any maps you are working on in Extreme mode specifically? Happy to talk about them.

@@DaveKaufman There's a fine line between waiting too short and waiting too long... 🙈😬😆

@@aleXXblume I agree, but....I think I often act to quickly and impatiently and there are a lot of moments where I look back and know I could have waited. As for waiting longer...I recently realized via @woxiong that on Saturday if a station timer starts to go, you can usually wait through Sunday for it to be dealt with and that allows you to see what new resources you have.

0:48 Interesting idea. I didn't love the seeded start here. Your thought is more junction action further north. I find that interesting. I normally target the starting square as the city center and the traffic is heaviest there as the game progresses. 1:27 So I see that square...I suppose knowing that your idea is target that second square which we both know shows up there, that might change my thought to "last until that second square" the new city center. Probably doable actually. A long time, probably the longest ever of you having very little to comment...that's impressive for me. Thank you, for the compliment of nothing said. 6:06 Great eye and a huge mistake. No question. You nailed it. Need to be better here. 7:54 Yep extended, and all you said, but then at 8:10 that extension does nothing as another train needs be added to purple to deal with the station that's filling up. I still feel extending purple and adding the train was the right move, but maybe doing both at 8:10 is just showing the patience it needs. 8:50 - 9:24 Agreed. Smooth and steady this map looks easy...mid-game at least. 10:45 So I had a lot of carriages and adding 1 or 2 to purple was an option but extending orange means train engines which I have less of going to orange eventually. So that's a good observation. Subtle but good. Looking at this point, does the city center shift to that second square matter here? I do have four lines going through that station, more than any other station. I kind of see my city center matching your idea. I just didn't do it with the first line. Thoughts? 12:37 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is the late game sacrifice I should have made. 100%. Bring that blue line south to the circle with a train and carriage capable of taking 12. THAT was a major mistake late game and exactly what I need to be willing to do. I agree this can be better, as clearly I have room to improve. Did you say "fewer junctions"? That seems odd to me. Your idea is more junctions I thought. I have 17 stations with two more more lines, 19 with one line and those are mostly all away from the city center. Now fewer lines is possible. That seems to be a bit of an expert hack I have noticed. What do you mean short map timewise? It didn't seem much different.

@DaveKaufman Mentally moving the city center north seems good to me, maybe mostly since it makes adding a fourth or fifth line easier, just because of how the map grows outward normally. I started doing it at some point and improved my typical Singapore scores in both modes. Worth a try at least. You're very welcome! 10:45 Your question about hypothetically shifting Red north (initially)... Hard to say, it's possible that would've affected your earlier mid-game somehow, maybe in turn pulling Green east or Purple south slightly, or something like that, but I can't tell really. I'd prefer one fewer line here. Was thinking fewer junctions in early- to mid-game would be a way to do six lines while keeping the layout open for late-game manipulation, however the reasoning is a bit convoluted and perhaps not worth going in to. I haven't counted weeks or anything, but it feels like traffic grows pretty fast here compared to other maps with similar scores.

@@woxiong "Worth a try at least." Yes it is. Yes, it is. One fewer lines means longer lines then? I can see that from your playing style. It seems you always reduce line count and it works out very well for you.

@@DaveKaufman I think with one line less you get maybe/not longer track length, almost certainly worse shape alternation, certainly longer individual lines.

@@woxiong Right longer individual lines. So that's my mystery, how you manage to handle the insanely long late game lines? My brain just wants to use a new line, but you find other ways.

Yeah I was super psyched on this map's outcome. It was a great feeling! I like you predicting what you might see based on the initial seed. That was fun. 1:08 No question...this map requires it. Tunnel crazy! 3:07 I like you analyzing the choices made on Sunday. Fun new twist. In this case Blue and Yellow were in a good place, and brown going over the top of the river's end gave me the confidence to not go tunnels there. 3:55 Yep this was one my early unique ideas. After countless attempts at serving Square Island with a single line I realized, I need to get help. I opted to burn two tunnels but this also gave the city center a true backbone of support too. I really think this move was a key. But it did alter the idea of the interchange placement. 4:20 I actually think if I had adjusted the line into the triangle to be "straight in" as opposed to curving in, I could have done an acute angle back to the circle. I think. Really annoyed by this though. Nice noticing. 5:14 Yep. Zero patience shown. Bad me. 7:40 LOL. The mistake I thought you would notice was it was Sunday. I could have waited and seen what the week's end brought me. No patience, again. The theme is real. 7:50 The opt for the hub here...vs. the triangle (which ultimately ended the game) was a tough call. I think at one point I thought maybe I would get two of them and use the triangle as the other one. But yeah the hub was needed there. 9:40 That is such an astute eye. I didn't even see that. 9:55 Why at this time did you think that loop would be best? I didn't see the idea you had. Did you mean to attempt to get red going in both directions? That must be your thought. I can fully agree at 9:55 that the tunnel use was extensive. As for wasteful, that I'm not sure I agree with. What you will notice is that the lack of any real triangle yet in the west was causing some really tough choices. That also affected the triangle in the SE which I had already seen not easily reachable from the far east triangle. It might seem smooth due to some of these choices I think. 11:30 It hurt to end with a tunnel AND on a Sunday, but with two stations in major peril it would have been tough to save both. Maybe. I find my top ten finish and massive jump only worth an 8, pretty fun. I am guessing the 9 is for top 5. And maybe a few errors here and there could have pushed it higher.

@@DaveKaufman No wonder, again this attempt was brilliant! Yup & yup. 3:55 I've played Lagos a lot and still I've no idea how to best solve square passengers transfer junctions. I think what feels right varies between attempts to some extent. On the other hand, I can tell you I'd definitely have extended Yellow via the northern Red/Brown triangle (obviously then solving the eastern island differently), expecting to upgrade either or both of those triangle(s). But that's coming from hatred of circles as much as rational thinking :) 4:20 I think the triangle is too high either way, but maybe, I see what you're thinking. 7:40 Oh yeah good point. And you had been so good wrt patience in recent videos! Gotta regain that. 7:50 Yellow also delivers lots of people here going west, so your choice seems solid. 9:40 Probably easier to see when you're just watching instead of simultaneously making a bunch of decisions :) Tunnel economy: In addition to 5:14 which I mentioned, I think 3:40 you should maybe have delayed Yellow to triangle. That's mostly it, the rest of your tunnels I have no issue with. Hope that makes sense, I didn't quite grasp what you are saying about the SE triangle here. 11:30 I can't tell whether you could save all three here. There are a couple of brown trains coming to the central triangle, which will delay the clock a little. Same for the western circle (blue, yellow, brown trains). That's why I mentioned NE pink as an option. Either option is no big mistake I think. You could've been more patient obviously, and you could've had much more luck with island shapes types and timing. The end result of Yellow is kinda ridiculous, and most of that is not your fault. So I see too much potential to grade this higher. It's a high 6 though.

@@woxiong 3:55 I can see that logic of extending one more station. But the worry I had was you can always do that and there is always one more to extend too. My goal here was to alleviate pressure and create a short line as we have talked about. 4:20 This didn't ruin the map but I sure thought it was a bad break. Felt good to beat it. 7:40 I have the patience to type this: P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E. Let this be a reminder to me. 9:40 I just avoid loops in Extreme. Pretty much rule 1 for me. Maybe I should reconsider. 9:55 Tunnels. I had to burn at least one more tunnel via Yellow SE Triangle OR blue to SE Circle. Either way I was going to have use an extra tunnel there. I wasn't thrilled about that. I think use of so many other tunnels allowed me in most cases to balance lines and especially line ends. That worked really well actually. Something for me to think more about. 11:30 You bring up a good point...that pause. I get a split second pause if I wait for a engines to leave the station and then add the new one. But either way this was the end. I just can't save everything here. Sigh. One more hub...would have been nice. A high 6. LOL. I love it.

​ @DaveKaufman 7:40 Get one of those kids' temporary tattoos on your arm :p I think you should consider occasionally looping, if it's near the end of mid-game, or later. However it does invariably cause lots of unpredictable problems. Tunnels: I just noticed that the SE island triangle wouldn't begin countdown until around 4:20. But hmm.... Yeah you might've ended up using the same number of tunnels regardless. 11:30 Actually I wasn't making that point, but nice catch :D! I hadn't thought of that. I was just considering whether the current trains would be enough to delay overcrowding of the wannabe-hub. But probably not, dwell-time is pretty short in Lagos if I remember right.

@@woxiong Temporary Tattoo or sharpie! I think if I pause my game more often then I could consider things like looping in an extreme game. Again...slow things down. 4:20 Wait....are you saying I was just not showing any patience again and maybe had I waited....yep. I hear you. Again. 11:30 Yes I think this was the end for this run and it would have taken reaching Sunday to matter. Next time?

Sorry that the daily leaderboard is messed up on iOS. I think it might be back on Android. I still don't get why it is so hard...for the all time leaderboards clearly it is a hack and for the daily I really don't understand. I hope they figure it out. We were close, nice job. My end-end game just didn't have enough capacity to handle the massive influx of passengers. Yellow and brown at 8:58 had 5 intersections, three of which were triangles and one was an interchange. And many, many stations were served by 2 or more lines. 16 stations with only one line. And did you see the "other" Lagos video ;-) Same day!

@@DaveKaufman I always do Lagos very differently in DC and PB attempts, much more offensively wrt tunnels in the latter. All I can see here is (1) a bad map seed for any sort of high scores & (2) reasonable choices by you. I had noticed another video! (Before or after your DC attempt?) I'm saving it for after today's normal mode attempt. I'm trying Paris 1937 normal now, a couple of times a week. Each attempt takes forever. Longer than my 10k Chongqing one I think, for much lower scores currently. And what's really annoying is basically nothing happens before 4.5k (and then boom really fast).

@@woxiong I always find it so interesting how you differ for Daily vs. regular play. I play it the same. Maybe that's my weakness. As for the seed, at 0:40 I am pretty happy with the seed. I don't have an issue. As for reasonable choices it went pretty well. Yes the long, long time commitment on Normal is pretty much why I stopped playing it. I agree that it just takes too long. LOL.

@@DaveKaufman At least for a Lagos I differentiate heavily. You need to be given lots of tunnels at just the right time in order to get super far, I think. Too many islands get populated here, and too many corners get consecutive circles. IMO.

@@woxiong Yes I agree that you need tunnels due to the waterways and lack of island diversity (square island, circle, islands, etc). But how does that change for Daily vs. Regular play, don't you still hope for the tunnels?

First I logged in today to see my score and saw you at #3 (#1 really) and you crushed it. Nice work. I was #1, but didn't give myself that credit in the video, it is really annoying how the leaderboards never really work. I saw those 1 & 2 people and then looked at the high score in the Google Play Store crown link and saw they weren't listed, which made me know they weren't real. Frustrating. As for your effort and edging me out, 11:20 my guess is blue should have been late game brought to help pink circle stations that were solo. I let pink get way, way, to long. Yellow and blue were just 8 stations each. Green was only 9. That to me was my fail. Unbalanced lines to a degree to great to compensate.

Thank you! It was pretty great! 1:05 Yup...you are correct...should have stopped at the triangle. 3:18 I actually think at this moment Eastern side even is well handled. That new far east circle station won't be a problem. At that moment. 3:38 I am not a fan of this idea. Here's why the pseudo loop isn't in real trouble. I think keeping red short is important since it lifting the green line's eastern passengers, which I expect to get heavy. I know balance on both sides of the square is in your thoughts, but right then I want to save red for later. I did think you would be proud of the 4:10 purple on a Sunday and not helping that northern station. 5:00 Extending orange was easy, because it isn't doing the heavy lifting of red in my mind. So that worked. 3:45 I prioritized station alternation and mesh over acute angles. I think it might not look great but it worked really well. 6:00 which is really 6:12 Nice prediction by you! So is your reason for the droplet move like the London droplet conversation? Because at 6:21 there are no droplet passengers and it doesn't seem a problem. Right? 7:00 Agreed got some decent stations and it worked. The last Cyan circle was early, and was thinking about the train and carriage serving them. Could have waited until the train was closer though. Agreed. 8:30 really 8:35 - I knew you would see this! I was so angry. I mean furious and upset at this. YELLING! So annoyed that I had this handled and it allowed it to go the opposite way. It was on orange displaying facing square and then upon showing blue expected it was the same and it flipped on me as I placed it. Obviously not expected. Then at 8:57 I have to burn another engine and carriage. Which makes blue a line with three of them. A bit excessive. Yes on the late game...it was masterful giving up on everything. I also got lucky too. And finally hundreds of videos in I earn my first 10/10. That's...motivation. Thank you. I truly appreciate all you have done to make me a better player. You earned this 10/10 as much as I did. Thank you. I'm going to work on more.

@@DaveKaufman 3:18 Oh yeah I agree. 3:38 & 5:00 Helping Purple would be a bonus of my suggestion, the main part though is bringing specials passengers closer to cross & diamond. I actually wasn't thinking balance in this instance. Meanwhile, keeping Red short might be worth it, as you say. 4:10 I didn't make a note of it, but now for sure I'm proud of you :) 6:00 Great minds think alike! Droplet on Pink: I was thinking having an alternative and shorter route there might be worth it, come late-game. And yes, in part to alleviate Purple (similarly to in London), but also just for junctions in general. However I'm much less certain here than in London, not least because it's very risky spending a tunnel in this case. It may also be way to early at this timestamp - as you say these guys aren't a problem currently. 8:30 Etc. Haha, I still do this regularly, especially on a small screen. It really is annoying. I agree this forced unnecessary resources to Cyan, otherwise well spent in the east probably (in fact I almost mentioned this initially). But that just means there's room to get even further! And all in all this is just brilliant. You've earned the 10/10 for sure.

@@woxiong 3:38 We have this difference in thought, and I am sure I am wrong. This is you thinking about specials and ones that are "solo" can they be helped. I have that feeling that I don't want to help to much as I want the passengers to not build up at a choke point. You like this idea though. 4:10 That's all your coaching! 6:00 I think I might have convinced you! But I won't be sure of that...lol. 8:30 I basically NEVER do this. Never. It was a first for me. The small screen isn't the issue I think. I think it was not slowing down. This isn't arcade game. It's a slow and steady game. They give you the pause button for a reason. This is all me being angry at myself. Yes there is room to improve no question. I do appreciate my first 10/10 though. I will strive for more.

@@DaveKaufman 3:38 Don't you get a choke point either way in this case? And wouldn't you rather it be closer to the destination? 4:10 Nice. Good to be able to spread my niche skills :) 6:00 Could be! Has happened before. My initial response wasn't super-thoroughly thought out either. 8:30 Oh I do it in maybe 5% of my attempts. Less on big screen I guess. Glad to hear you'll keep tryharding. Me too! Imperfections are to be cherished in life I think. (I mean you try to minimise mistakes, but you aim for few not none is my philosophy or whatever.) And you only had the one obvious error here, it looks like.

@@woxiong 3:38 A chokepoint closer to you is better because it means what? I keep thinking about your idea that junctions should be for stations that don't generate as many new passengers (triangles and specials mostly). Thanks again for all the great feedback, as always.

2:08 I am curious on this, because I often opt to get what I don't have, and I have a spare line but I don't have any carriages which I know in this map are important. Please share your thinking. 2:30 I have to be careful. If I add the blue now on the east side it will help, but was debating do I "suck it up" with two circles in a row and the triangle to relieve some pressure or do I use a new line? 3:33 Doesn't this shorter line to a square from the southwest do that? WOWOWOWOW - 1629! I knew my attempt was not very good. That's an amazing run on the DC. Very nice.

​​​@@DaveKaufman 2:08 I somehow totally brainfarted here, and misread what you had in storage. Looking again, either choice seems fine to me, with carriage maybe being the better option. 2:30 Red already includes star on its way west to square and is fairly long. You'll want to maintain high carriage-flux across the river for square ppl. Extending to the southernmost circle is fair, but continuing north makes Red too long to function through mid-game I think. How about instead: deploy Blue line in the NW, wait for another line to help in the east. Later on you'll cross water with line 4 or 5 if you get that many. 3:33 You're right Blue at this time does what I wanted. After roughly 4:42 this changes though, wasn't a fan of your extending on a Sunday. Of course you weren't offered a new line that weekend. Perhaps not earlier either (I didn't pay attention to that)? If so, you didn't have much choice in the matter. Thanks! Istanbul is one of a handful of maps I just know by now. 2nd place was 1.1k I think, so your attempt is still good?

@@woxiong 2:30 Your point is made even simpler...address the circle station in need and stop. Be patient. With three tunnels I could have done blue in the up north area and gone across the river. But again, waiting until needed. 4:42 I wasn't offered new lines for a long time in this map and kept hoping I would be, but again you are right, "Sunday and chill" and I am not following that thought nearly enough. Wow did you crush that map/place. My attempt was just so-so, for me I know it wasn't very good.

@@DaveKaufman 2:30 Well that I agree with. Struggling myself with patience lately. 4:42 Upgrade timing luck is the one unfair thing in the dailies. Sunday or even Saturday means, I'd say, consider not doing whatever you're about to do :) I did crush. I think I've got a decent mental map of the different phases in Istanbul, like what to expect at 800, 1100 etc. It's a fast moving map and is at least in some ways predictable. Similar maybe to San Francisco. The opposite would be somewhere like Washington, London, Nanjing.

@@woxiong I was patient in replying....does that count? 4:42 I have been paying a lot more attention to the day of the week and listening to you there. No PB yet, but I am thinking. As for upgrade timing in dailies, do you mean because this varies among players? Sure...but also do to previous choices. So there's that. I do know you have talked about Istanbul a lot so I see that. I agree it is predictable and the water division is similar to San Francisco. Good thoughts.

2:18 I love your compliment! 4:25 Another compliment. Agree with all the inventory not a lot of worry yet. 5:40 I actually liked the move of being patient and waiting to see what would be best for blue later. 8:11 Another compliment. I can get used to this kind of treatment. 8:46 I am aware it's a rough choice. Your idea of crossing the water twice is one I avoid so often that I really need to consider it more frequently as I had a tunnel here if that was the right move. I actually was thinking about it. 10:20 This was a totally "not me" move but I thought let's do something that isn't me. And the six circles northeast made it almost a must. 12:03 Yellow not picking up the slew of passengers at the end of a line was a shock to me. I know it wouldn't have mattered as another circle station ended it. I should have used the tunnels sooner. No question. Thanks for watching.

@@DaveKaufman I'll try to remember pointing out the good stuff too :) 5:40 Your patience with specials paid off here. I don't quite understand how, but it works. Purple line is just exactly perfect throughout the attempt, nice. 8:46 etc., regarding river double-crossing: In late-game you have to make dumb tunnels and extensions more generally. I've looked through the late stages again now quickly, and I think at around 12:30 is when (at the latest) you have to decide to either cross back with Yellow to jewel, or crossing with Blue just to deliver triangles. Yellow seems safer but much worse (long-term). Better option would be doing something a little earlier. In any case this kind of late-game sacrifice is the only thing missing here for a top ten? Hoping I haven't undersold how good I think your network looks generally. 12:03 Not sure what you're referring to.

@@woxiong Good stuff always appreciated. Sure! That actually does help I think as it focuses in on good ideas. 5:40 Patience always pays off. That's it. Let's agree to agree. :) I'll take the purple line compliment but looking at it, it's a short line that does just enough. But looking at it late game 12:44 with some decent time to review, I should have extended it across the water in the northeast. That would have been a huge help. 8:46 I think my comment above about 12:44 and purple is actually the move I would have liked to make. With six circles and no other shapes another line would be a very good call. I do see your point though of some relief/balance/alternation too. I do agree. I failed there. 12:03 I meant, 12:37 look at what yellow does there. Totally unexpected and not what had been happening up that point. I get that the next yellow train could have cleared it, and again that's not the circle that ended it, but still.

@@DaveKaufman Good stuff is much harder to pinpoint though, but I'll try to not be so lazy. Purple line could be extended in the final stages, but not before IMO. Which I think is what you're suggesting anyway, just wanted to be clear. 8:46 etc. First and foremost, from my point of view, you should transition mental modes abruptly here after... 2k maybe? You're aiming no higher I assume than 2500-2750 at most (1st iOS is 2622), so I see no need to delay the "demolition" longer than that. I could be wrong. 12:37 Hmm... Yeah I wouldn't expect Yellow to pick up jewel ppl, but it ignores circle passengers for some reason. Hadn't noticed that bug here. As you say, you still should've done more in that region (ideally, in hindsight).

@@woxiong I appreciate all you do and suggest and watch and re-watch. You are by far not lazy, not even a little bit. If you changed nothing I would appreciate it. If you change and add more good stuff, sure...that's nice. I learn from it all. Thank you. Yes on purple line extension, at the end, to save the northeast mess. 8:46 Not delaying the demolition as you call it. I mean all games comes to an end in these modes. I get that. I could start thinking about my target score. Normally it is my previous high score. 12:37 It was shocking in the moment but as I said...I have more fuel for next time now.

I do too. I have noticed we get them about 1-2x a week. Is that what you see? This Lagos run wasn't my best...I can do better. Did you get back in the top 10?

@@DaveKaufman Ya that’s what I see. I did get back to 6. I’m now on to trying to iOS top 5 all extremes. I got London, Lagos, and Auckland. Really tough…

@@cjee246 That's unreal and amazing. Wow. Congrats on the effort of Top 5 all Extremes. So hard. You are clearly an excellent player. I would love any tips or ideas you see that I can improve. Break down my film...I know I can be better. Don't hold back. (also you can use the time code to have me go to a certain point like 1:44 for example.)

What does iOS do for spawning in this city? I normally feel there are even more circles in the northeast which is always hard. Lucky to have that triangle. London is for sure the most played and a tough leaderboard. I also appreciate you having my view, any small win, is just that, a win! Personal bests should always be celebrated.

@@DaveKaufman on iOS, there’s typically a lot of circles south and northeast. I find it’s usually an overloaded circle cluster that gets me south of the river. Ya even if I beat my own score but don’t move at all, I think that’s a winner. And the more one plays, the less likely that is to happen so gotta cherish the little things 🙂

@@cjee246 I think there are lot of spawns normally in the places you describe as well on Android, though maybe not this time as much. I love we both cherish the little things...what else is there?

I wasn't thrilled with this effort and you did MUCH better. Nice job. Once again that recent experience is so helpful. Nice job. Did we have similar approaches?

I felt I followed your thoughts pretty well and had a triangle hub (not an interchange) to a square early on and that was a good move. But not good enough. 5:10 What's not to like at this early stage? LOL. 7:06 I think this was never an issue. In fact my fail was getting another set of tunnels and never really needing to deploy them when something else might have been more valuable. The droplet wasn't really the issue though. 8:10 I could have used my tunnel here and brought dark blue south of the Thames at that point. And I could have used red to the triangle north of the river. I see the double back as an issue, but having the two tunnels gave me freedom...which I didn't really use. 10:08 Fully agree. This was probably a big mistake as another line, a shorter one there might have alleviated what happens a bit later. 10:28 I was afraid of what would happen at 10:58 more eastern circles and felt the yellow line was best to handle them. I"m impressed I got an 8/10 I think that maybe you feel this map is the reason. Maybe?

​​​@@DaveKaufman 7:06 Are you sure droplet passengers weren't an issue? I haven't looked at passengers here through time, but Sky Blue line's southern half is pretty long. Even if not directly visible as crowds, these folks steal seats from basic shaped people. That said you could be right, again: I didn't examine this here. 8:10 etc. I was thinking Green back up north to square a little later btw. This relates to the situation at 10:08 too, I suppose. To your other point about resources: Maybe you should've used more tunnels in hindsight? Hard to tell, but the case could be argued. I'd say getting them was pretty reasonable either way. However... Hmm... Brown line wasn't used either but that was offered vs even more tunnels, just bad luck there all in all. Which means there's clearly room to improve just from upgrades-timing-luck alone. 10:28 etc. That's reasonable. As for 8/10 I think by your standards this layout was a little inefficient, and you can get better luck with resources for instance. I think you can also improve specials routes and junctions slightly. But you managed the attempt well through time, it's already a good score, northern half was handled nicely, and Red and Yellow lines I like a lot.

@@woxiong 7:06 I count 8 spread out far and wide droplet passengers. There is no more than 1 per station. Seems pretty harmless at this point. Maybe later...but as the game progresses all shapes become tougher. 8:10 I like you thinking I have room to improve. I KNOW that I do. Thanks for sharing the 8/10 score thoughts. I agree with you. I can be better.

@@DaveKaufman 7:06 Clarification: I meant to ask you whether droplet passengers did not BECOME an issue (later on), but I get my tenses mixed up in translation. I think the timestamp was just when I'd be starting to consider making a shorter route. The detour looks long and significant to me, but I agree there's nothing on urgent about it. This was in the high end of 8/10.

@@woxiong I think droplet passengers were not an issue the entire map. Now I do concede that serving that station with two lines and using a tunnel to cross from the other direction might have benefitted some flow. I often found a pseudo loop helpful. Then I thought let's take one more look, 12:35 with pink and blue coming into that circle station, I thought there was enough capacity to handle the droplet and cross passengers. At 12:41 the station is cleared partially. With three droplets left, to your point. And then that pesky green engine drops off a lot more. Meaning that circle was really an interchange candidate. Of course the circle right next was also filling up too. High end of 8 is pretty impressive. Thank you.

The triangle at 9:09 in the west ruined you? That seems interesting because there was such void in that space I expected again and again for station to spawn there. As for the west considering that 10:43 you can see I end the game with a west station that was just nearly attended to but wasn't I was kind of bummed about that. I feel I was closer to a higher score. And the fact you got nearly the identical score is also interesting. That's pretty crazy!

​​@@DaveKaufman9:09 precisely: yeah that's the one. I too was expecting something there, just not right then I guess. I had painted myself into a corner wrt tunnels and line shapes. Similarly, I was expecting several specials SW but not four of them! Seems unusual. 10:43 Indeed this looked like it could go further. Meanwhile I think it's typical for Mumbai to get very localised problems. Your east side looks a bit unstable though for the long run. Super close with the scores, and not for the first time! But our layouts differed a lot actually.

@@woxiong 9:09 that's unlike you...you normally don't find yourself painted into a corner. I mean me....it happens all the time. LOL. Yes the RNG on specials for that area was one of the fun things about this DC. It clearly was a big part of it. 10:43 I agree I kept thinking the east was going to end this game and yet it didn't, which honestly is why the west ending it was disappointing. I just didn't realize that issue until it was too late. Sadly. We have had a lot of DC close scores as of late. Of course I don't share the ones where I don't do very well. Who wants to watch that hot mess?

@@DaveKaufman 9:09 Tbh it happens to me quite often too. Remember I'm probably even more selective than your with what I share - almost exclusively PBs. 10:43 I think the seed wasn't meant for personal bests on this one. I don't really like your Lavender line here. But I should disclose, having checked now: my network looks much worse near the end. Especially the eastern part. Fun indeed. Some variation is nice.

@@woxiong I couldn't believe the lavender line worked at all. I mean it was just me throwing a ton of resources at a horrible line. And yet...that worked. I would not suggest it though. I agree some DC seeds are really targets for great scores and it is clear, this was a hard one. I like the hard ones though. It makes it unique as the RNG can really be a lot different than the map normally.

Thanks for the congrats....always appreciate you and your thoughts. 4:00 I agree, I was aggressive here. Normally I would scold myself, but in this case, what I noticed playing Cairo is that the stations fill up with 7 passengers but the train only carries four. So in many cases you can't clear a filling station without adding a carriage which at the 4:00 mark I wasn't doing. I suppose I could have waited and then deployed the carriage and train together. 4:20 It was a consideration but I opted to go with the line with fewer stations, hoping a triangle would show up nearby a bit later. Sometimes they do. 6:05 This one I can more easily explain. The reason was simple, I had no more tunnels and red was one of the two lines spanning the river. If I stressed red more than later west of the river would be in more trouble. Using the Yellow line as a help allowed me to avoid extending red east of the river more. 8:06 Total fail, I also was less patient with yellow right before the green resource deployment all on a Sunday. No question you are correct, waiting a bit longer is still my biggest area of improving. As for the island...my only choice was to deploy another train/carriage or even line with a tunnel there. All resources I didn't have. So I just left it. And it burned me. The red center circle station wasn't doing me any favors. Mesh is a good place to be. As for "brilliant" I'll take it from you. Thank you. Really. Nothing you could improve, wow. Still "only" a 9 of 10. Which to be honest I agree with. Room to improve.

​@@DaveKaufman You are welcome, no bother. This attempt was really fun to watch actually for some reason. 4:00 Then we agree :) 4:20 Here too I'm with you now. 6:05 My thinking: Red would be more stressed but would also get another locomotive. Although I guess the dynamics of three single cars crossing the water with specials- & squares-people can be pretty unpredictable or just bad in this map. Again I haven't played it in a while. 8:06 Yeah this seemed quite rushed, but elsewhere here you showed the right amount of patience I think. Now that you mention it, the Red circle could've maybe been addressed in an ideal world. Maybe. Indeed brilliant, especially perhaps your sense of time here. When to extend or add resources etc., I mean, across large sections of time. Not much at least, to fix that I see, outside what I commented initially, most of which wasn't really mistakes anyway. Yet some room for improvement remains probably, yeah, I'm guessing - in part based on how clean your network looks near the end.

@@woxiong 6:05 Then to use your words, "we agree." I didn't think another locomotive to serve what always ends up more specials on that side made sense. Keeping it very reduced on the east side allowed red a bit more flexibility later. I would hope. 8:06 I'm still reminding myself...be more patient. It clearly sometimes works and other times is ignored. The rest circle is something to think about in my way of playing...which is consider an earlier double line serving "center" stations as I will thank myself later. I would almost call it the reverse patience. Normally I'm so patient to double up that later on I'm rushing to put out fires. But maybe I could rush to double up and that would help me later. End game, clean networks, mean you have room to get messy. Something I need to allow myself to do.

@@DaveKaufman Red lone circle is placed centrally enough that I'm guessing you want overlap there by late mid-game, ideally. For stations further out I'd say trust your instinct for each attempt separately, at least that's how I go about it. In this instance you couldn't extend to save the island circle of course. Even so, guessing you have more in ya' here. Anyway all in all we're seeing eye to eye on almost everything here. Maybe I'm beginning to understand your thinking more as I comment. Certainly am trying to absorb as I watch.

@@woxiong At 4:52 or 5:17 I could have dealt with it. The first would have been easy, just have the blue line help out. The second would be when using dark gray have it go through that station too. It was clearly a fail, obviously not the one one that ended it, but still. As for us seeing more eye to eye, I think part of that is I'm doing a lot more meshing in my approach. That helps you like it. ;-)

Thanks for watching...the Creative mode does have people playing the game with actual metro to see how it works. Because the key there is you can also place the stations exactly where they are in real life. I think Mini Metro's RNG of moving stations in areas and having special stations show up means it is very hard to replicate the lines as they are. Also Mini Metro isn't constrained by budgets, buildings, utilities, and other red tape of any kind. That means any city might not be optimal, and this could be better. Just some food for thought.

Wow we were very close in score. At 13:24 we must have diverged pretty much, as I had just 4 tunnels. Sadly the solo station did me in. Did you have the same issue?

​@@DaveKaufmanThis is the one thing I did very differently from you: the island circle was only served with one tunell from the north, on a short line going through cross, a square, five triangles and finally NW across the river. My actual failing station was just due to lack of attention this time. But there were many others in trouble, didn't make much difference. On iOS I noticed this DC had several all-time top 50 scores. I can't see why, seed doesn't seem that great.

@@woxiong Did you have 5 triangles in a row? As for the island circle, I often have it terminate there to save a tunnel. I made this decision back at 0:53 and it was clearly part of the core of my approach. I was trying something new. I am kind of shocked how that tiny little change actually had us so close to in final score. I had just 1 really failing late and one on pink near failing. Both stations were single serve. I am getting closer and closer to the acute angle falsehood, that station variation when late game paired with multiple lines isn't nearly that important and actually could hurt you. I see that from time to time that a DC on Extreme has scores that I know are the best ever and I chalk that up to the constant issue with the scoreboard and the DPC/Android Google Play Store issues. Sadly.

@@DaveKaufman My five triangles: not strictly consecutive because of a square and cross, but the line had only two circles (one in each end). Yeah I too am trying hard not to over-emphasise angle sharpness. iOS scoreboards actually aren't untrustworthy once you know how to double-check with the separate system there. I think. Maybe several people were lucky this day, or there's a new generation high level iOS Extreme players coming - that would be cool.

@@woxiong I like the lines where the design is the same shape on each end. I find them very useful. I can see the value in what you did. I am saying that I am lower valuing station alternating WHEN you have that served with multiple lines. It really helps. Another false myth from the early days LIKE acute angles. Double check with the separate system? What do you mean? I am rooting for that new gen of iOS Extreme players....let's hope!

Thanks for the love on the achievement. Would love to blow past the 1200 mark though...this seemed like it had a shot...until it didn't. 2:14 So the overlap is creating mesh and a loop, in opposite directions. I like this too. The football, I used your method and counted, there were five footballs on the board with one station having two already. Maybe I could have waited a little longer, but in the past when I wait on specials it often spells disaster. So the other option which I strongly thought about was a new line, bring in green, but I had diamond already across the water and was worried that might over extend. 3:45 The theme continues, there were 10 diamonds on the board and many multiples including one station with three just felt they needed attention. At 4:12 jewel appears so maybe having that would have been nice, but a lot of diamonds to clear and when you add a second special the end of a route, havoc usually ensues. 6:35 They do need help with triangles. Thoughts? 7:11 I see no easy way to solve it. None. 7:25 Orange might be a way to solve this. But in retrospect I think it was too early! LOL. Funny how we disagree on that. As for length at 8:01 Orange does a great job. One thing we rarely talk about, but comes into play right here is balance. You like having specials spread out and on various lines, and I like and have noticed that having the square in the middle of the line is very balancing. I see that right here when the Orange helps out red. 8:38 Looking back I fully see why I did this. Red was much longer and the northern part took a lot longer to clear than it seems as the lines go back and forth. The red triangle was a solo station and the SE circle had at least orange and purple to try and help it. Along with two trains that both had carriages nearby. And I was planning on extending green as I did at 8:56

​@DaveKaufman If I remember right, anything past 1200 demands a lot of pausing since the traffic grows in insane spurts. Looks like you're close to getting there though, and this is already a good score of course. 2:14 I like that line of reasoning! 3:45 It's a tough call. And you just didn't have any luck with shapes in the SE here. 6:35 Through 8:01 Hmm... Suggestions. Short-term at least: you could consider extending Cyan to Star, and either way you could create an Orange line from Purple's penultimate circle, through the circle shared with Cyan, then directly to triangle and no more. Then a little later on, extend this Orange line to Diamond or Jewel (and/or further into the city center at the other end). Idk I have nothing brilliant to offer :). Are we really disagreeing though? I'm saying Orange line timing is good, or would be if it was shorter. In other words, Orange is too long at 7:25 but not at say 8:00. Could be we're actually suggesting the same solution. 8:38 through 8:56: Again, once you explain I agree much more with your decision. BTW I could now probably get around to doing a screen recording from some city if you'd be interested to see me do the same things I criticise you for :D. If there's a map you'd like to see attempted on my end.

Very nice! Auckland is so tough. I think you handled the right side pretty well and could’ve gone further with a little more luck.

@@woxiong 6:35 Actually the Cyan to Star is a great idea. Even at 9:51 there just weren't a lot of Stars on the board but I do get that maybe it allows other shapes to offload there and helps spread out the build up. As for Orange...I think we aren't in total disagreement, but the thing we agree on the most is that there is no easy solution until 9:30 when a triangle finally shows up a bit late. A lot late. And by then...not much to do. If you want to show off your skills...go for it. I would say since you are struggling with DC, do that one. Maybe I'll see something.

@@cjee246 Thanks! Did you play it? How did you do? Auckland is always a really fun map and once in a while you do get luckier than this on the right side...this was not one of those times. Next time?

Great question. I have found that I can late game increase my scores with a few more key touchpoints. So early game here it doesn't matter much, but later in the game it could. Squares are "special" like stations so having another one connected even with two in a row is something to try. At 7:06 you can see how I even did it again for the light blue line. How have you done on this map?

@@DaveKaufman Hmm I have not unless there's no other way to by-pass them but I'll try to start doing so! I'm currently at 2,335 which is #4 on iOS. You definitely have more success with overlapping lines than I do. Looking back at my final screenshot, I had no station serviced by more than 2 lines.

@@cjee246 You are 4th on iOS with a score that's basically identical to this one of mine. And you did it a very different way. It's what makes this game so great and interesting. I have been trying to evolve my play and making more choices I would normally not make. The mesh approach isn't something I normally do, but something I have been doing thanks to @woxiong who's in this comment section. You might see that name in your iOS leaderboard on Extreme maps.

Whoa. You crushed it. That's a great score! I'm very impressed. So you think you figured out this map then? The "more tunnels" comment at the end made me review 13:30. I had one more tunnel. My issue was stretching out lines on the east side, would have just made it harder.

​@@DaveKaufmanThanks! No I think I was just lucky tbh. I used my tunnels to overlap even more on the circles north of water. This helped a lot in the last couple of hundred, but it's probably not a good recipe for a PB attempt.

@@woxiong I actually had a few moments in this map where I was thinking I need to do X and then waited, to eek out a few extra passengers before I needed too. I actually didn't say "patience" in my mind during that, but now looking back I was thinking that concept. As for the tunnels, the biggest issue with Sao Paulo is capacity. Now you often think up unique things like how tunnels might help more than carriages or lines with capacity. That's why I like learning from you. I think in the late game, it does make sense you might use a tunnel to help a struggling station with extra second line coverage.

@@DaveKaufman The other thing in Sao Paolo: rhythm. Trains become so slow through traffic, especially with carriages. I agree for higher scores you probably need fairly high capacity.

@@woxiong I think it is funny you saw rhythm as I think that Sao Paulo has zero rhythm. Why? Because of the next thing you said, the fuller the train (and carriage) the slower the load/unload at each station. It's nearly impossible to keep up. And since no other city is that population blooming, slow loading we just aren't used to it and it makes it so much harder.

4:03 One more tunnel here for blue or pink would have been really helpful. Or maybe another train and carriage. You seem like an expert as you refer to mid-end game and trying to reach 1300 on NYC1972, which is a hard challenge no question. What platform do you play Extreme Mini Metro on?

@@DaveKaufman Ya sometimes just unlucky on assets, still a great run for you! I play on iPhone. I guess the leaderboards aren't cross-platform as I couldn't find your score listed. Currently sitting at 1260 at 61 for this one. Are you playing on steam?

@@cjee246 I play on Android. Android, Steam, iOS and even some countries have their own leaderboards. Even more odd, sometimes the games are even different. For example in Seoul iOS often has no square on the small island. And as you noted 1260 is 61st on this map, and on Android as of 2023-10-24 that would rank you 37th. In general though we can compare notes and strategies and discuss how you handle things. That seems to be uniform. One thing I am working on for Extreme maps is patience. I often rush a move when I don't need too. What are you working on?

@@DaveKaufman oh nice, I just assumed they’d be the same across all platforms that’s so interesting. Love comparing notes! I find my patience is good, if anything I play too close to the edge (putting of bridges, waiting too long to put a carriage and then needing to put a suboptimal locomotive instead). As I’m on my arbitrary quest to breach top 50 in all extreme, I’m finding each map to have its own challenges. I tend to struggle with dense maps with high passenger spawn rates. I think that means I’m working on line distribution/density. When/where to place new lines and how much to overlap them. I’m more comfortable being able to put long lines with well distributed station types and more trains. Any tips on your end?

@@cjee246 I love comparing notes too. Please continue share as you see things in your game and others. It's great to learn from you. Good to hear your patience is working for you. Waiting to long in Extreme if done right, is a great move. I still move to fast. Top 50 Extreme in all maps is a good one. I worked on it for a long time. It is very hard. But that means you are very good too. Dense maps with high spawn rates we all struggle with those. One thing I have seen work really well in that area is to focus on having stations (as many as you can) served in late game by more than one line. The more lines the better. Another great player (better than me by a mile) does this and we coined this a mesh system. There are tons of discussions of it in my many videos on this channel. Have a look around. Happy to help you more. They are an expert and also very friendly.

Wow. Thank you. That's a pretty strong compliment. As for your effort. We were very close in score. As for the East side at 8:39 there were 12 circle stations and just two triangles and both were in the southeast and three specials. It was brutal. At 8:04 Week 8 started - I really was torn on carriage or line. Really torn. I also had that brown east circle station filling and the green/brown junction filling. So then do you get a carriage or a line? What's the best? I did have a tunnel in reserve too. I should have either gone carriage and added it to brown to clear the junction OR gone blue line to the junction and to the square. Very tough call. Easier to see in hindsight. I need to be willing to "long pause" and really study things a bit more. You are likely right, to soon, but not really that soon.

@@DaveKaufman Your early- to midgame was really good. Maybe hard to notice that yourself when shapes were like they were on this day. Yeah RNG was merciless. I wasn't prepared for quite this many isolated circles in mid-game. I'm guessing neither were you or was anyone really. We had similar scores but your attempt was much better honestly. Regarding Blue line: When I say it's maybe hastily made, I meant you included too many stations on it right away. As opposed to the line itself being premature. Idk if that was clear or not. Either way I agree with your assessment of what would've been done ideally.

@@woxiong Getting compliments from you IS the compliment. I felt it went ok in early/mid. It was a tough map. Just the kind I like. It is nice to see the game do crazy things like that. I always imagine a DPC in a big room with thousands of monitors and saying ok, let's move this circles in the east slider to the extreme setting. Muwhahahahaha. You are to kind, we were very close. I need to again, pause just a bit more and really evaluate. That's my big weakness.

@@DaveKaufman I like your idea of the DC process :D We were close, but your network really was much better than mine this day. I just managed my late-game better I think & remember there isn't so much happening in the first 700 or so. Not just being nice here :)

@@woxiong For either of us it wasn't hard, but it was stressful. 5:57 - 8 circles, 1 triangle, 3 specials AND both tunnels.

Yes...early game, I kept feeling a bit too soon on various decisions. I knew it. Thanks for confirming it. This video is 14:30 and not until 12:46 does the first southern triangle appear, after 11, yes 11, circle stations! At 14:07 the 12 circle appears. I mean is that unlucky or just how it is...seriously. As this was a personal best and a top ten, I felt overall I was pretty late game. And of note, the fail wasn't south, but north!

@@DaveKaufman I mean on iOS at least, I think I've typically here restarted to force one starting southern triangle. You handled that sea of circles brilliantly though, better than I would've.

@@woxiong I never restart. I wonder if I am making a mistake there. I often figure playing the harder levels better prepares me.

@@DaveKaufman I don't like restarting to get the "perfect beginning layout". But I do restart to get a triangle in some region of the map if the probability is 20-50% let's say and getting it seems like it makes a huge difference.

Thank you! Do you play Mini Metro? What's your best city?

@@DaveKaufman I have it on my iPad from years back. Lately I started playing again to see if I could beat the remaining challenges and the new lines they added. Don’t know about best and I don’t play extreme mode but my score of 1652 on Montreal is in the top 2% so maybe that?

@@Paraninja Wow. Congrats on that Montreal score. I have a bunch of older videos on my personal best attempts at the Normal play of each map. I have been on the Extreme kick for a long time since. Happy to help if you are running into problems. It is a great community.

@@DaveKaufman Ah thanks man. I'm actually a competitive Catan player and there's an important tournament coming up soon so very focused on that. Mini Metro provides a welcome relief from the prep. I may take you up on that offer once things have died down again and if there's a map I can't crack. :)

@@Paraninja Competitive Catan....interesting. I saw your channel with a few Catan and Colonists videos. Good luck on the tourney, that's really cool that you do that. I also play Colonists and Catan IRL and could see why MM is a good distraction. There's some parallels too. Please share how you prep and how you do in the tournament.

The fact that I ended with an extra tunnel was a bit disappointing. I felt I should have score a lot higher and this ended early. And what did it? Not meshing while having a line without alternation.

​@@DaveKaufmanYou talking about Blue or Magenta? You were about to get a square station SW, would have helped with a lot of things. I was luckier with upgrades timing on this day I think.

@@woxiong At 10:10 you can see that I have a Square station in the center (North). My issue was letting Yellow go to the point of two circle stations in a row at the end of a line with no mesh/help to either station. I could have expanded literally any line as I had an unused tunnel. It was a big mistake.

​@@DaveKaufmanOh right at the end , yeah I see what you mean about Yellow.

LOL. No worries...I appreciate you pushing.

@@DaveKaufman Yeah I hope you don't mind some occasional nagging from here. Just so it's perfectly clear what I meant with my rants: I just through mere luck have discovered pretty perfect geography in this city, it's weird. I'm good but not that good, I can't in any other city just cruise into top ten and I wanted to share that with you to see if it's correct or imaginary. No rush or pressure really on that front though :).

@@woxiong I think you saying it is "mere luck" is pretty funny. You are WAY to good to say that. You are an expert. You have countless years of play and that allows you to understand new city mechanics better and faster than others. You are good and you are that good. Maybe you don't "cruise" but you get there. I'll keep at it.

@@DaveKaufman My mental image of the Tashkent geography (where the busy places lie etc.) comes pretty much solely from my first and I think only normal mode attempt there, which was very straight-forward (all the specials on one island etc.). This is why I say it's mere luck. I'm seriously cruising into top ten in this map though (one out of three half-serious attempts let's say), which I'm nowhere near doing in any other city. And that tells me it's not to do with my skills primarily but rather I've stumbled upon some geographical rules of thumb that are just golden. That's why I've been bugging you about that: it honestly feels weird. But again no pressure, it just felt worth sharing, which I've done at excruciating length by now :)

@@woxiong I would say luck is always a factor in these maps. But yes it sounds like you got overly, overly lucky if that was the case. I haven't see the specials arranged like that. It would be nice. I know I am not as good as you are, as I don't see it. And you see that I don't see it, because...this was my personal best which was a slight bettering. I can keep at it though.

Woah. That's tremendous play by you. congrats. I didn't love my approach on this map at all. Clearly you did it the right way.

@@DaveKaufman Thanks! Yeah I'm normally in the 1500-2400 range on dailies here, dunno what happened tbh.

@@woxiong You are an expert is what happened. Meaning you practice and work and that pays off when it matters on a DC. I know it isn't every time. Clearly we both fail a lot. But we are getting better and your PB here is exactly that proof. Remember I also scored my PB and a top 3 global on the last Paris Extreme DC. Hard work...it pays off.

@@DaveKaufman Haha yeah that's the spirit! :) I couldn't tell you what I did right this time though. But you might find it interesting that I chose the circle where you placed your hub as my drop-off point for Pentagon passengers. This after having discussed that with you on your previous vid. Normally I'd opt for triangle instead, meaning approaching from the south instead (I used only one tunnel to Pent.). After our talk though I wanted to try to depart from this habit - just to see what happened.

@@woxiong That's you always trying new things...and getting lucky more times than not. It doesn't surprise me that you have found ways to up your game, break your mold and achieve more using many tactics.

That is uncanny we were tied. Wow. I mean that's kind of weird. I am personally disappointed in my play for this map. I haven't played this map in a while and so I suffered from that, but overall, it was getting tunnels and I should have taken a line early. That's on me.

@@DaveKaufman You're much better than me on this map. I wasn't really disappointed, this isn't untypical score for me here.

@@woxiong It was clear to me that when you don't have something top of mind it really does make you forget sometimes the best ways to handle it. I know you often play a map ahead of time, just to remind yourself. I don't and it showed with this one. I mean the last time this was an extreme DC I got over 1000. That's a bit more toward my norm. Now I do take into account as you noted the top scores, and these were very low today indicating the map was very hard. But still, I would like know I am ready.

@@DaveKaufman Yeah, doing a quick practice run is good when the city isn't fresh in mind. My usual strategy doesn't handle Sao Paolo at all, maybe I'll bingewatch your older vids and work on my balancing skills :)

@@woxiong My issue is mostly time. I know Sao Paulo is pretty quick but other cities are much, much more of an investment. Clearly it does pay off. Your kindness and willingness to study is admirable. We both practice, but you always are taking it another few steps.

Do you play Mini Metro?

@@DaveKaufman I used to, on my Nintendo switch

@@pfitzerone Is it hard on the Switch? I have only l played on Android mobile and tablet. Why did you stop playing? Lots of new maps recently in case you didn't see that.