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[jasonwill2]

My computer isn't the best so at most I think I use a medium sized island. This is the biggest map I have ever played on and was my favorite, not sure it's size. I used many custom parameters to get this, and unfortunately turned off the circus cause I didn't know what it was at the time. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyway, I was looking on another topic that was discussing different ages and I recalled how world size can greatly effect the history of the world. As well larger worlds tend to have more variation in cultures and civilizations. But large worlds get so big that I can't wrap my head around all the different civilizations, cultures, and really feel like I get to know the land. For this reason as well as for my somewhat below average computer, I typically use a medium sized world or smaller (never pocket really though). The only thing I don't like about it is that there is not enough wars.

What size world do you typically use and for what reasons does that choice appeal to you?

[CodexDraco]

I have a good computer but worlds still take too long to Gen. For that reason I use pocket or smaller regions with long history and low mineral scarcity. I sometimes increase vulcanism or civilizations but in general I use default settings for most parameters.

I don't replay worlds so I gen a lot.

[Starver]

I almost always go for a max-size world, and rarely go for the Island option.  For adventuring, I get much more adventuring area than I might ever need[1], and for fortresses I get a good chance of finding exactly the situation I'm looking for, with absolutely no compromises[2].

Of course, there's flaws in both those arguments, and it takes patience during worldgen (and Site Finder operation, if required), but none of this really matters to me, so that's the way I roll.


[1] Am still feeling the sting of Adventuring on a Pocket world, once, and "getting to the end of things to do", although that was well before bogiemen and all the other changes that came about around that time, and one could consider it overkill...

[2] Or minimal, but usually I'm spoilt for choice anyway.

[peskyninja]

Large worlds with large history and many, many civs.

[JohnieRWilkins]

Medium non-island for me. Large worlds will be worth it when there's more stuff to do in the wild for adventurers.

[Starver]

Forgot to say:

• When I modify the generation parameters, it's usually to put more layers in, in-between caverns (and magma sea),
• When non-square worlds started to be possible, I played around with max/minning the width/height (or the other way round) to create a long, thin strip of world.  It was a short-lived experiment, but quite interesting nonetheless.

[Loud Whispers]

Large world pilgrimages are only possible in the very largest worlds

[jasonwill2]

Hmmm well my computer is no good so I can't really gen anything bigger than a smaller map for a few years unless I want to wait a while.

Also why would someone gen a new world every time they do a new fortress? That's kind of overkill lol.

Also I should note that apparently my map in the original post is a smaller size.

I've been expirimenting with playing on pocket more recently as well as maps with very few towns for both fortresses and adventuring.

[CodexDraco]

Also why would someone gen a new world every time they do a new fortress? That's kind of overkill lol.

It is faster to delete the region folder than to load and then abandon. Plus it let me experiment with world gen settings and check if I get interesting worlds.

There are many reasons to generate worlds. Modding for example.

[Rafal99]

I always gen Medium Region (not island) with about 400-600 years of history, and with custom settings with increased numbers of civs/populations/caves/beasts etc.

I never had a need for a world bigger than Medium. Even my custom medium world produces quite a big save (120MB) and takes quite a while every time I load or save the game.

[Quietust]

I generally do a Medium Region for fortress mode - Large takes too long, and Island worlds end up with the caverns being stupidly tall (e.g. 100+ Z-levels between the surface and the magma sea, whereas a Region typically has it only 40 Z-levels down).

[Rafal99]

I usually get about 40-50 levels between surface and magma sea but my current embark has 170 underground z-levels for some reason, despite the surface being flat and the world not being island.

[Jeoshua]

I generally do a Medium Region for fortress mode - Large takes too long, and Island worlds end up with the caverns being stupidly tall (e.g. 100+ Z-levels between the surface and the magma sea, whereas a Region typically has it only 40 Z-levels down).

Have you ever done science on that?  Is that result really reliable?  Because if so, I want to understand why it could possibly be like that.

[Pharaun]

Having recently built my own pc (which I strongly recommend), I've moved to large worlds.

[ST753M]

I've noticed regions with lots of oceans in general tend to be deeper.  Putting the elevation at 95:400 and removing all low elevation and ocean requirements usually gets me 35 - 40 z-levels on most embarks I attempt, and I've never seen an embark over 70 z levels deep. 

I think it has to do with the fact that caverns go underneath the ocean; if an ocean is 40 z-levels deep, that's 40 z-levels before the caverns can start, plus the 5 between the ocean floor and the first cavern's top.

Not having too many oceans also makes regions more efficient.  Less room is taken up with non-embarkable ocean tiles, meaning there are more forests, fields, deserts, etc. to embark on.  Same with mountains - one or two good-sized mountain ranges for dwarves to start on is all that's needed, then they're taking up space with places that can't be embarked on.

I usually use small or smaller sized regions with high maximum number of subregions and double the default x and y variance for elevation/rainfall/drainage/etc to make a lot of places to embark that have 2 or 3 biomes.  I also increase megabeasts, good and evil regions, and make most of the world low-volcanism.  With those settings, even a smaller world has many good places that suit my preferences.