# How to pick a good square on the wall (location strategy) > Where to put your $1 square on Square Town's favicon wall: near the Throne, in a corner or in a neighbourhood — and why the live area, aura ring and 3D view matter. Source: https://square.pov.town/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-square On [Square Town](/) (square.pov.town) every square costs $1 and every square is 1×1, so location is the whole game. The short answer: cells nearest the Throne are seen first but attract evictions; corner and edge cells are cheaper to *hold* because nobody wants them enough to pay double; adjacent cells let you build a neighbourhood for several projects; and the best time to grab a fresh spot is right after a ring unlock, when a new band of cells appears at once. Below is the long answer. > **TL;DR** — Only the central live area is buyable (16×16 at launch, growing by 8 in each direction every time it hits 70 % full). The 4×4 Throne is $100 and its surrounding aura ring can't be built on. Near-centre = visibility + eviction risk. Edges = quiet + safe. Groups of adjacent cells read as a block. Tilt into 3D to see where the tall (busy) towers are. Share your exact spot with `?yaw=&tilt=&zoom=` in the URL. ## Only the live area exists — and at launch it's 16×16 The wall is a 1024×1024 grid, but the client never draws the locked part. At launch only the central 16×16 box is live: 256 cells. Sixteen of those are the Throne and 20 more are its aura ring, which leaves **220 buyable cells** on day one. When paid squares cover 70 % of the live box (180 of 256, the Throne counting as 16 if it's owned), the wall grows to 32×32, then 48×48, and so on, 8 cells further out in every direction each time. The full mechanics are in the [ring unlock glossary entry](/glossary/ring-unlock). Practically: whatever you pick today is, by definition, central. There is no bad seat in a 16×16 room. What changes over time is that the wall grows *around* you, so today's edge is next month's inner ring. That's worth remembering before you pay double for a cell two rows in from where you'd have sat for $1. ## Near the Throne: seen first, evicted first The Throne is the 4×4 dead centre — one gold tile with a crown, $100 to start, doubling on every eviction ($100 → $200 → $400). The view fits the unlocked wall and zooming is anchored on the centre square, so the Throne and its immediate neighbours are the first thing every visitor's eye lands on. See [the Throne explained](/blog/the-throne-explained). The ring of cells directly around the Throne is its aura: nobody can build there ("the aura of the Throne is too strong 👑", says the error). So the closest you can get is the next ring out — the 8×8 border around the aura, 28 cells. Those cells get the most eyeballs on the wall. They also get the most evictions. Any square can be taken by paying double what its owner paid: $1 → $2 → $4 → $8. Near the Throne, $2 is a trivial price for the best seat in the house, so expect to be deposed. If you're evicted, you keep nothing but the memory and a line in the live feed ("💀 x evicted y for $2"). Read [what happens when you get evicted](/blog/what-happens-when-you-get-evicted) before you decide that's fine. **When it's fine:** you like the game, you'll evict back, or your project's whole pitch is "we're next to the Throne" and you'll pay $4 to stay there. **When it isn't:** you want to buy one square, bookmark the deed and never think about it again. ## Corners and edges: cheap to hold Eviction cost is the same everywhere — double the last price — but the *desire* to evict isn't. Nobody pays $2 for the far corner of the live area when there are empty cells to be had for $1. So a corner square is the cheapest square to *keep*. It also has an odd advantage in the 3D view: an edge tower stands against trees and lakes, not against 20 other towers, so it reads clearly when tilted. The catch is that corners are relative. The corner of the 16×16 box becomes a middling interior cell once the wall is 32×32, and by 48×48 it's fairly central. Buying at the edge on launch day is buying central real estate on a delay — the honest version of "get in early". ## Neighbourhoods: adjacent cells for several projects If you have more than one site, buy them side by side. Five projects in a 5×1 strip or a 2×3 block read as *one thing* on the wall — a person, a studio, a family of products — in a way that five scattered squares never do. Each is still its own $1 square with its own deed, click count and tower; they just look like they belong together. This is the trick the [developers-with-many-side-projects page](/for/developers-with-many-side-projects) is built around. Two tactics for holding a block together: 1. **Buy the block in one sitting.** Each purchase reserves its cell for 30 minutes while the Stripe checkout completes, so buy them one after another and nobody slips between you. 2. **Buy the ends first.** If you can only afford three of the five today, take the two ends and the middle; empty cells inside a strip are less attractive to strangers than a clean run at the edge, and you'll fill them later. Neighbourhoods also make evictions visible. If someone evicts the middle of your strip, everybody sees the gap, and everybody sees you take it back for $4. ## Use the 3D view to read the wall's traffic Ctrl+drag (two-finger drag up on touch) tilts the wall into 3D. Each favicon becomes a tower whose height is its click count — flat at zero clicks, rising with every click through, capped at 30 clicks — tinted with the icon's dominant colour. Busy areas look like a downtown; dead areas look like suburbs with lakes. Why it's built this way is in [why the wall is 3D](/blog/why-the-wall-is-3d). For picking a spot, tilt is a heatmap. Tall clusters mean cells whose neighbours are being clicked, which is where visitors are looking; a cell adjacent to a tall tower borrows some of that attention. Flat clusters mean nobody's clicking, which is either a quiet neighbourhood (safe) or a dead one (cheap to evict into). Combine with the 🏆 Boards tab in the side panel — most clicked, most kissed, most viewed — to see who the tall towers actually are. ## Timing: buy right after a ring unlock The best moment to pick a fresh cell is the minute after "🔓 RING UNLOCKED!" appears in the live feed. A ring unlock adds a band 8 cells wide on every side — 768 new cells when the wall goes from 16×16 to 32×32 — and every one of them is empty and $1. The cells on the *inner* edge of that new band, touching the old boundary, are the closest-to-centre squares that will be available at base price for a while. Ring unlocks are announced to every open browser over WebSockets and the wall grows on screen without a reload, so if you're watching, you'll know. Poll [`/api/state`](/api) if you'd rather script it: `half` is the live half-width, `fillPct` and `unlockAt` tell you how close the next unlock is. ## Kiss what you buy, and share the view Two housekeeping notes. (Three, if you count: make sure your favicon looks good at 16 px before you buy — [favicon design tips](/blog/favicon-design-tips-16px).) First, an icon nobody kisses for 90 days fades to grayscale — still yours, still linked, just heartbroken (💔). Click your icon and press 💋 now and then, or ask a friend; anyone can kiss any icon for free. See [kiss the icon](/glossary/kiss-the-icon). Second, once you've picked, share the view. The URL accepts `?yaw=&tilt=&zoom=` for the camera (`?yaw=0.6&tilt=0.9&zoom=2` is a nice three-quarter close-up), `?hour=` to fix the sun (`?hour=7.5` for dawn light) and `?theme=light|dark`. The camera is anchored on the centre of the wall — pan isn't in the URL — so pick a yaw that puts your side of the wall in front and a zoom that keeps your square in frame; on the launch-size wall the whole 16×16 fits on screen anyway. Tell people your coordinates too: the deed page shows them as `Plot № id · (x, y)`. `?tab=boards` opens the leaderboards directly. Don't share the deed URL itself (`/deed.html?token=…`) — it's the only proof you own the square. ## FAQ ### Where is the best place to buy a square? It depends on what you want. Near the Throne (the 28-cell ring just outside its aura — the aura itself can't be built on) gets the most attention and the most eviction attempts. Edges and corners get less attention and are rarely worth $2 to anyone else, so they're the easiest squares to keep. ### Why can't I buy the cell next to the Throne? The ring of cells directly around the 4×4 Throne is its aura and is unbuildable. The closest available cells form the 8×8 border around that ring: 28 cells. ### How big is the wall right now? At launch only the central 16×16 (256 cells) is live: 220 buyable, 16 for the Throne, 20 aura. Each time paid squares reach 70 % of the live area it grows by 8 cells in every direction, up to 1024×1024. `GET /api/state` returns the current `half` and `fillPct`. ### Does the price change by location? No. Every empty square is $1 wherever it is. Only the Throne is priced differently ($100 to start), and only evictions cost more (double what the current owner paid). ### Can I move my square later? Not directly. Buy a new square where you want it and let the old one sit (or get evicted). Each square is its own $1 purchase with its own deed. ### How do I share exactly where my square is? Pan and tilt the wall until your square is framed, then add `?yaw=&tilt=&zoom=` (and optionally `?hour=` and `?theme=`) to the URL with the values you like and share that link. Keep your deed URL private.