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[targetstar]

so yea i heard people do a 5X5 or 6X6, is that really better? and how much will it slow down my CPU?

[knutor]

Hard to say, try it.  Systems vary.  Depending on your tileset, the season changes and leaf colors, can really bog ya down.  That's when it crashes for me.  When all the leaves change colors.  Hasn't happened recently however.  So I dunno, maybe it was fixed.

I use 5x5 nowadays, so I get more topside wood, and room to hunt.  I also play lots of hunters.  Back in last version I used 3x3, because of all those unsafe murky pools, that didn't have ramps.  They do now, great fix that was.  Saved tons of clicking.  So is the tile painting vertically, across zone levels.  Love that. 

I know if ya filter the world with a bigger region, ya tend to get more exact results.  And more F1F2F3 subregion options when manually searching for an embark site.  That is kinda nice.  Knutor

[FuzzyZergling]

Personally, I always use 2x2 embarks.

[NecroRebel]

The game has to track each tile and what's in it, and a larger map means more tiles, so that certainly can't help FPS. Larger maps also mean more space for creatures to pathfind in, and if you have a river, it means the area the water can flow through is bigger. Those can't be helpful for FPS, either, though how much of an effect they have is questionable.

Personally, I like 3x3 maps. I've played 2x2s, but it just seemed to take too little time for sieges to get to my entrance, even if I specifically put it dead center on the map. I also seemed to lose dwarves on the surface more often since they'd be working closer to the edge more often. A 2x2 undead zone would be impossible IMO; you wouldn't have time to get your wagon walled off before the corpse creatures showed up. 3x3s solve both of those problems, give more trees, catch more features, and leave room for tree farms and such around the actual fort's perimeter underground. Much better.

[i2amroy]

Going to a 5x5 or 6x6 can greatly lower your FPS. This is because even by a small increase in the number of tiles, you greatly increase the area of the fortress. 4x4=16; 5x5=25, so about 1.5x as large; and 6x6=36, or 2.25x as much area. This extra area can very quickly add up. Personally I suggest that if you want to experiment with larger maps trying moving up to a 4x5, then 4x6, then 5x5, then 5x6, and then 6x6, stopping when you feel like you have a good balance of speed for the size of fort you wish to run.

[knutor]

More room, also creates more AI vs AI battles. 

I hardly ever see more than one spawn type, more of them, yes, but no more than one or two types, diversity, meandering about up top, when the embark size goes up.  It just gives them more room to meander and more room to hide. 

The caverns can get awful unwieldly on larger embarks, clutter ontop of clutter, from AI vs AI, and lots of competing spawns, trivial goo piles, and slug trails, especially once the Forgotten Beasts start to appear down there.

[Elone]

I prefer 1x1 or 2x1 ! And shallow embarks. Any more, and I feel rather wasteful, as I'll never get to use it all up; I prefer to make use of what I've got. Also, more scrolling. If I want more wood, I dig up a soil layer or two for them to grow.

[orius]

I'm going with 3x3s now for FPS conservation.  I've looked at 2x2s but never used them much because they feel very cramped, especially if rivers, aquifers and caverns start getting inconvenient.  There's also less minerals as well.  A 3x3 embark has a good balance.

[targetstar]

lol, i tried a 2X2, i didn't even have engough room, to make my usrall pattern for storage and workspops

(has 4 quadrent, each quadrent has 4X4 (16) section, each section is a 6X6 dig mass, and each section is divided by 1 tile (lenghth/with) rock, and has a perminter of 4 wide/high, for a walkway

(around total 6000 or less tiles dug into

[runlvlzero]

3x3, anything more is bourgeois decadence!

Also for the small maps. To control sieges you need to wall/trench a path that spirals, or zig zags back and forth. It will artificially replicate having a bigger map. You can still have your square keep, just put it in the center of a big spiral or at the top of a series of small steps or end of a zig zag. Make your courtyard have some room for maneuverability and it's all good =)

I like the series of steps or gated >outer>middle>inner or lower>middle>upper kind of design myself for small maps to control surface flow of bad guys. In that case my fort is usually off center more towards an edge.

[Moonshadow101]

I usually stick with the original 4x4, occasionally shaving off a bit if I really like most of the embark site and feel like I can survive losing a bit of it. I've only ever done 5x5 embarks for the purpose of grabbing two geographical features that are 5 spaces apart: a volcano and a river, for instance. It tends to slow things down a bit.

[Multiplicity]

I generally do 5x5. I've a strong system and can handle it enough that I'm cool with it. I only deviate from a 5x5 if there is something off to the edge of it I also want encompassed in my site.

[Azated]

I usually go with a 3x3 or 4x4, depending on how I feel like playing that particular day. I don't expand any more than that if there's a few features just outside my range because the tile lag combined with 300 dwarves can be a little irritating.

[Gamerlord]

On my laptop: 2*2 or 3*3
On home computer: 5*5

[slink]

5x5 here.  I like the symmetry of odd-numbered sides better.  I have used 3x3 and have to agree that it is snappier, but it's also, well, smaller.