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[Dwarfu]

I'd like to get some feedback on what y'all think of the current ratios used in the fortress.

Guards 1:10, Royal Guards 1:20, prisons 1:10.

I've never had a situation where I questioned the guards/royal guards being sufficient or not, so those are fine by me.

The prisons (cages or chains used for justice), however, seem a bit much to me.  Maybe change it to the same ratio as the royal guards.  I may, very rarely, have 1 poor Urist that gets locked up for some mandate or somesuch, but generally the hammerer kills them.  At no time, with a population over 180, will I ever need 18 cages for justice.  I try to play naturally - I don't use cheats (cooking booze, trapping the entrance) or mods that change the non-vanilla.  I know there are areas of the game currently that are too easy (such as insta-wrestlers) that perhaps lend to the unnecessary prisons, but overall it seems a bit high.

What say you?

[UristMcGunsmith]

I never play with more than 80 Dwarves, so I've never had a hammerer, economy, or some asshole king.

With 80 Dwarves I usually have 5-10 cages but never use more than 3.
My military is always 1/5 or 1/4 the population, including children.

And I play the game by nearly any means necessary. I don't use exploits though.
By this I mean I'll cover my entrance in traps, train instant-champion-wrestlers, but I won't use things like the atom smasher, or anything else that bends the laws of physics or breaks reality.

[Rowanas]

I never have more than 2 dwarves in cages no matter what, so 1/10 is crazy.

[Hectonkhyres]

GCS silk ropes or chains for me with the most decadent prison cells in existence. A masterwork bed, chair and table... engravings everywhere. I even have stockpiles of some of my best food in the cells with them. To me its not a prison: its a day spa that dwarves are sent to as my apology for the crap the nobles put them through or whatever sent them into tantrum.

I start with a block of eight 3x3 cells and add another story to the complex when I inevitably get bored. I never went above 16 cells though.

The fun thing is that, if I ever hit tantrum spiral, I can seal off my day spa and wait out the carnage in perfect luxury. Then lower the bridge and repopulate.

[Rowanas]

Hecton, it sounds like we set up similar "day spas". When I see doom on the horizon I just ignore loads of mandates and get a few precious dwarves into the safety spa. Voila! all the essentials Also, if I'm lucky there will be traders so I'll just trade off mandated items until everyone is in prison. Tantrum spiral fixed. nothing gets done, but nothing is lost.

[Quatch]

eh, I have 0 guards or jails of any persuasion. Just a sheriff (most unskilled pesant), and a hammerer without a hammer. Any more is a waste of good military or workers.

I generally dont have crime either, I meet demands.

I did, in a previous fort, go for the throneroom jails. Its good fun.

[Vester]

I usually have a full fourth in the military, and the prescribed ratios for royal and fortress guard.

[Lecithin]

For some reason, in my fortress of 158, I had 10 people all get sent to do some time in jail all at once. Most of them are still in there. I'm new to this whole "being punished for not making pewter stuff" thing, so I have no idea is this is weird or not, but I suppose I am glad I made my extra awesome jail tower in any case.

So yeah, in my (limited) experience, 1:10 chains seems appropriate.

[Rowanas]

My army is usually between 1/3 and 1/2 of my total population. It rises steadily from 1/10 because as more and more immigrants come I fill up all of the available job slots and the rest are made military.

[Quatch]

Oh yes, military. I'm all for that. 25-33% right now. Orc mod. I can't waste anyone on the guards.

[MrFake]

What's wrong with 1:10?  It's not like it takes up much space.  With 250 dwarfs--an average population after cap--that's only 25 restraints, or a small 5x5 room.

I had just that in my last fortress: over 200 dwarfs and the restraints to match.  When the tantrum spiral was in full swing, every single restraint was occupied.  It got nasty when berserk dwarfs would get into the jail and start slaughtering prisoners, presumably choking them to death with their own restraints.

The Guard ratios should be changed, though.  I think they should still be 1:10 and 1:20, but it should ignore babies and maybe children as part of the population count for the ratios.  The fortress mentioned had over 100 children and babies.  That doesn't leave much room for labor, military, hauling, and the requisite guards.

[MuonDecay]

With the way that offenders tend to get mangled by the hammerer and spend a very long time in the prison bed recovering from their wounds ( in some cases laying there forever* ), one stint of sufficient unhappiness (maybe a less general trend, like a couple with many children both being killed) could lead to that 1/10 getting filled up.

It's not so much an everyday consideration as a contingency estimate.

How many times have you used your house's fire extinguisher or been saved by the smoke detector? Similar principle behind the cell count, I think.

I make my prisons opulent dens of wealth and excess, too. I figure their point is as much, if not more, about rehabilitation as about punishment. My dwarves don't intimidate their kind into obediance with the threat of long painful time spent in horrible prisons. Instead, they reprimand offenders for their behavior ( by arresting them and/or hammering them ) and then focus on bringing that offender's mind into a state where they can be peaceful and useful again after their release.

Dwarven justice, naturally, should different from, and more effective than, human justice.

* - I once had a failed mandate result in a hammering for a fort's legendary armorer, giving him a nasty red leg wound. He was the only armorer I had trained to any level of skill, since I tend to specialize armorers and weaponsmiths to make sure they get to legendary even without a mood. He wound up laying in a prison bed with that red leg trying to heal for 10 years while I had adamantine wafers waiting for his recovery. I eventually gave in and used Dwarf Companion to heal him. A broken leg that bad either throws a clot/marrow early on and kills someone, gets amputated, or leaves them a mobile cripple. It never lays them up for a decade entirely immobile. The healthcare update and setting breaks alone has me glowing with relieved excitement.

[Kanddak]

Yeah, the jail numbers seem like a bit much until you have some multiple-fatality accident spark a tantrum spiral.

When possible, I try to give the sheriff/captain of the guard job to new migrants with low stats (for weak beatings) and few/no friends (so that they are less likely to tantrum). I try not to appoint fortress guards under normal circumstances, because they constantly spar and get strong. If you care about filling the guard quota, dwarves who are bedridden with injuries are good candidates for temporary guards, and dwarves with serious spinal injuries are great candidates for permanent guards. During a tantrum spiral I will anticipate casualties and conscript as many suitable dwarves as I can find to be guards for the duration of the emergency.
I treat hammerers mercilessly; I haven't perfected a specific standard method to use in all my forts, but one time I used a dust-based cage trap setup to imprison a hammerer for a long time. It might be easier to just lock them in a decent room with a hole in the ceiling through which you can provide magma big roast stacks and booze barrels. In any event I always dump their hammers the moment they show up.

My justice system only comes into play for tantrums because I never fail mandates. If I get something really retarded like a glass mandate on a sandless map, I drown the noble involved. Sometimes I preemptively drown any noble with an inconvenient material preference. Sometimes I just drown all the nobles on sight without ever letting them into the fort.
I also make sure to trade for a few bars of any metal I can't find on my site. It's helpful to remember that if someone wants pewter or whatever, all you have to do is smelt some pewter bars and they will be happy. You can then save the pewter bars for the next pewter mandate (thereby reusing the same materials to satisfy multiple mandates), or else use them to make barrels or bins.