40d Talk:Jail

I understand how to have happy prisoners with chains, but it does not mention the fate of unhappy prisoners in cages. Maybe someone can clarify about tis.--Rusty Mcloon 00:52, 15 May 2008 (EDT)

Completely pointless tangent: Does anyone know if dwarves get a happy thought from escaping prison? I certainly would. RomeoFalling 14:23, 20 October 2008 (EDT)

Yes, according to thought, they're just as happy as if they made an artifact. Gairabad 21:53, 18 November 2008 (EST)

One of my dwarves died of thirst in jail. There were two other injured dwarves right next to him that were getting water regularly. The only explanation I can come up with is that the alcohol in his personal stockpile ran out, and he never requested water out of hope it would be filled again. Can anyone confirm this? If so there should be a warning some where. In the mean time I'm going to try to figure out a way to get my dwarves to fill the damn jail-house ale stockpiles. DaWarMage 11:37, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Personal stockpile? Do you mean the one he's personally in reach of? Was he chained or caged? Injured dwarves receive water from those with the Health Care task turned on. I dunno about prisoners. --RomeoFalling 18:15, 6 November 2008 (EST)

I just had a dwarf die of thirst as well. It was really a strange thing. The noble had bad thoughts (no mandate met, no one punished) even though this guy got put in jail! He was in a cage, though, and I thought things in cages didn't need water/food. Funny the other dwarfs wouldn't have feed him either. Also, in the jail screen, it shows a dead dwarf. Is that a bug?Kwieland 20:47, 6 February 2009 (EST)

If you put your prisoners within reach of each other, is it possible that they would make friends? Gairabad 21:53, 18 November 2008 (EST)

Yes. I had two dwarves in prison become friends.--Wpatton 15:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

do prisoners need to be fed, like injured dwarves? or do they happily go without for their sentance (i.e. not die from starvation if no-one brings them any food)? i have micro stockpiles of each liquor, so they'll be happy to swig their personal choice, but will i need a prepared food one too? also, do i need to designate one chain/rope for the whole room? or are lots of 3x3 individual 'rooms' all inside one big room preferable? – unsigned comment by User:DJ_Devil

Dwarves need both food and drink. If there's some within reach, they'll use that, but if not, they'll be brought food and water. Booze stockpiles by the chains help keep dwarves happy, but aren't strictly necessary. Same goes for beds. Food stockpiles are convenient, but also not necessary. As for rooms, you can make a bunch of little rooms if you want, but one big room designated from a single chain works just fine. --LegacyCWAL 11:56, 6 March 2009 (EST)

okay, thanks :] oh! do prisoners pay for food? 'cause i only have, basically, roasts and stews. and if they're not earning, they cant afford them long-term :/ – unsigned comment by User:DJ_Devil

I'm not sure if they do or not, but I do know that dwarves will still eat or drink what's available even if they can't afford it anymore. --Edward 12:43, 6 March 2009 (EST)

Prisoners and beds

I had a dwarf chained up with a bed next to his restraint but he wouldn't use it. He came out all right anyway (he had food and booze) but it made me wonder, is there any trick to getting prisoners to use a bed? --FunkyWaltDogg 18:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If he already had a bedroom assigned or claimed, you could have freed that room. He may have been avoiding the constructed bed because he was trying to sleep in his own bed but couldn't. Also, you could have made the bed a single-tile room and assigned it to him speciffically, then freed it when his sentence was up. Also, by setting restricted traffic halls between your prison and the rest of your fortress, you can somewhat control the number of dwarves stealing a drink/food/bed from your prisoners. --Kydo 23:24, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Jail Design

I've been looking at better ways of designing prisons in such a way as to more effectively rehabilitate prisoners and catch tantrumers before they cause too much damage. Some things I've noticed...

1. A restraint allows a dwarf a 3x3x3 cube of movement. This means you can have your jail "cells" have 3 rooms on three levels, increasing the number of nice things you can put around your prisoners.
2. Building a well somewhere in your prison complex will decrease the time it takes for water to be delivered to any tantrumers who may have been hurt prior to or during the imprisonment process.
3. Putting a barracks full of soldiers between your prison and the rest of your fortress may help. There are ways of escaping, and I like to be careful.
4. If a dwarf is unhappy for long enough, they'll go insane. Nearing the end of a fortress, dwarves tend to stay sad for a fair while. Any imprisoned dwarves who go nuts can be locked away (somewhat) safely if you put each restraint in it's own chamber with a door.
5. Expanding on the insanity thing, trapping your prison may be helpful, as could guard dogs. Although, I did that more because I had too much of everything. Mostly overkill by that point.
6. Expanding on the "too much of everything" tangent, I also designed my prison with a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOCKDOWN lever. Just in case of an inmate uprising the game isn't normally capable of generating.
7. Just for the hell of it, I have been thinking about making a specific execution chamber for prisoners I particularly dislike. Is there any way to control what cell a prisoner is placed in? Aside from locking all but one?
8. To reduce the number of dwarves grabbing food/drink/bedding from your prisoners, you can put long hallways with restricted traffic designations. Then only dwarves who are way closer than (random large number) steps from the normal stockpiles or beds will go into the prison.
9. Another surefire way to prevent beds from being inappropriately occupied, is to assign a single low-value bed to all of your dwarves. This, of course, becomes a little silly when the economy activates, but it'll help until then.
10. If you want to be SUPER accurate, you could simply lock the prisoner's cell until he's free to go, but you'll have to keep track of the sentence, or you may find yourself with a pile of miasmiating dwarf-jerky.

Anyways, any other ideas? Not sure if it should really be added to the wiki proper, as this doesn't really talk about game mechanics so much.--Kydo 04:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Added 8-10--Kydo 23:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)