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Author Topic: My dwarfs love my jail too much...  (Read 548 times)

grody311

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My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« on: August 05, 2013, 07:00:45 am »

My dwarfs prefer to eat all of their meals in my jail cells.  I have a legendary dining room right next to the food stockpile, but they prefer to walk down 10 flights of stairs and down the hallway to one of my 4 lavish jail cells, where I keep a nice bed, table, throne, and food/booze stockpile next to each of the chains.  They will even do this when the jail cell has a prisoner in it; eating in front of the (usually) starving/dehydrated prisoner.

Is there any way to prevent this behavior?  I suppose the easiest way to stop this would be to downgrade the jail cells, but I really don't want to take the mood hit on dwarfs who wind up in jail (which only happens when I stupidly fail to meet some noble's demand, so it's not as if the dwarf ever deserves the jail sentence).  I'm tempted just to remove my legendary dining room altogether and just make 20 lavish jail cells.  The only reason I haven't already is, well, it's kind of stupid.  I know it's a game and all, but it's quite immersion breaking to see this happening.

Is there a way to have a nice jail (where my legendary armorer won't die of dehydration and depression) and have a jail that isn't seen as a 5 star hotel?
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AutomataKittay

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2013, 07:06:44 am »

Only way I've found to stop them from using up cells is to lock them up. I usually put well and food stockpile in the cells ( booze stockpile have too much issues to use in such cramped space ), I think it might be dwarves see place to go that's closer to them than the dining hall and ignores the z difference that'll get them around the too long way.
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Laurin

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2013, 07:07:38 am »

You could assign the table and chair to the prixoner while he is in jail.
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grody311

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2013, 07:16:35 am »

Ah, that's how I'll do it.  I can have all the tables assigned to the king/duke/whatever until it eventually comes time to imprison someone, then I'll swap the assignment over to them.  That way, the only one eating in the jail on a regular basis will be some guy who has to chose between either the jail or his own personal legendary dining room.

I would not be surprised if he still picked the jail, though.  These dwarfs just really, really like my jail.
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grody311

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2013, 03:58:59 am »

Your suggestion worked.  My jails are no longer filled with dining dwarfs.  They still like to drink in there, but I really don't mind.
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Bandreus

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2013, 08:41:05 am »

I think it might be dwarves see place to go that's closer to them than the dining hall and ignores the z difference that'll get them around the too long way.

It's exactly this.

It is very common with jail beds/tables as well as with hospital beds. Dwarves will try to path to the nearest facility they need, regardless of what its intended purpose is, as long as its available for them to use.

This is also why you generally don't want jails and the hospital to be built too near to the rest of your forts where the vast majority of the dwarves dwell.
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AutomataKittay

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2013, 08:53:30 am »

I think it might be dwarves see place to go that's closer to them than the dining hall and ignores the z difference that'll get them around the too long way.

It's exactly this.

It is very common with jail beds/tables as well as with hospital beds. Dwarves will try to path to the nearest facility they need, regardless of what its intended purpose is, as long as its available for them to use.

This is also why you generally don't want jails and the hospital to be built too near to the rest of your forts where the vast majority of the dwarves dwell.

Hospital beds' at least not too bad, I can designate hospital bed as a bedroom and seal off the bed used for that and nobody can claim it ( set the door to be internal so designation can spread ), they get happy thoughts from it, too!

Jails, on other hand, are pretty annoying to deal with.
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chris_strain

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Re: My dwarfs love my jail too much...
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2013, 08:57:11 am »

I've found that ringing the entrance to the jail/hospitals with a few tiles set to low traffic designation solves this problem for me. It keeps them thinking the dining room is always closest, but doesn't close off/lock the facilities when i actually need them.
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