Dwarf Fortress - Quick Tutorials - Justice and Crimes 

I've got several retired forts in my Civ and have left many crimes unsolved in my wake. In my current fort, while investigating a murder, a dwarf confessed to stealing 3 artifacts from 2 of my prior forts. I wish I could send a message to that fort and have them come and get him.

On the topic of improving the health of your fortress, bringing food and water to prisoners fills the need for dwarves who want to "help someone", which is one of the more difficult dwarven desires to squash without first squashing a dwarf or two so they wind up in the hospital.

I found out the hard way that if you convict a random innocent animal of a crime, your whole fort becomes disgusted and has specific unhappy thoughts about it. I'd never seen it before!

Something worth noting about the hammerer: while the possibility of them killing their victim when doling out punishment is *very likely* you can significantly curb their lethality by choosing a weapon made of lighter materials. Sadly, light-weight hammers are pretty difficult to procure, needing to either be artifacts made of Aluminum (or a non-metal hammer like bone or wood) or to make one yourself out of !!spoilers!!, since that is one of the lightest materials in the game and thus makes some of the worst hammers. (Though now a quick wiki dive tells me that you *might* be able to assign a training hammer to the hammerer, which would be excellent for preventing him from inadvertently doling out the death penalty because someone accidentally sold a goat cheese wheel, but this will require science. I may check back on that one.)

I've only ever played the Steam version of DF. I have 320 hours played as of right now and I'm still learning stuff. Thanks for doing these tutorials.

The great thing of like about dwarf fortress is that it doesn't throw everything at you all at once it on day one. I didn't really have to make use of the justice system until I was at about a population of 100 dwarfs and that was 20 hours in. A nasty ass goblin decided that he wanted one of my legendary buckets. So he convinced a dwarf to migrate to my city to steal it. The dwarf had been there for a year and a half before he finally stole the bucket from a stockpile that I had moved to temporarily. I can see that it was in his inventory ( hidden ) so I began interrogating anybody that may have had access to it. After two separate interrogations, the door finally admitted it. But by time he did, the bucket had already disappeared entirely. He was sentenced to a beating. The captain of the guard beat his ass so badly he began vomiting everywhere. I never did see that bucket again...😢

You can give the captain multiple offices throughout the fortress to cut travel time if conducting large numbers of interigations.

Hey blind! Love the tutorials, but definitely don't think you're slacking off. The rate at which you released at launch was just nuts! Feel free to release at a rate that feels sustainable and enjoyable to you :)

Commenting for the algorithm and replying to your question. I like your tutorial videos and other vods. You have a unique style. ^^ So between you, Further Reading, Twisted Logic, DasTactic, Nookrium and many others I finally learned how to play Dwarf Fortress after nearly a decade of trying. Oh snap, i starting writing a wall of text, i wonder if that will confuse the yT AI? *Good luck and have fun Blind*

These tutorials are extremely helpful, I really enjoy them. That said, don't burn yourself out to make them. They're something that is just going to sit in your back catalog slowly accruing views over time and bringing new people to your channel (like your Let's Play/DF introduction series) so consistent content isn't needed as much as making sure most of the FAQs are covered and the older stuff doesn't get out of date (like this video when the additional crime stuff comes in to the Steam version).

Congrats on being the only channel I (consider) running below 1.0x speed lmao. Thanks for the content ♥

One time I retrieved a stolen artifact because the intermediate thief (a sort of demon that periodically joined my inn) convinced a dwarf to stole that artifact and the next time he showed up I attached him. There was even a third criminal, a boss, never identified.

Another question I have, unrelated to the video, is how do I make my military dwarves happier? Some of them love what they do, most importantly my militia captains, but a lot of them have unmet needs for stuff like prayer and meeting friends and family. My schedules have orders with fewer assignments than the squad size so some of them go "off duty" but they hardly ever fulfill those needs. I always need some guards posted and to train when possible, so is my best bet just to make a massive army and let different squads take turns? Pretty important because whenever a member goes "haggard" I have to unassign him lest he become a threat when tantruming. One marksdwarf started a mass sho*ting before being knocked out with a lucky punch that prevented casualties.

8:59 _"...but a percentage of them will actually improve mental-stability-wise while in prison, unlike in real life"._ Yea it seems more like a retreat or rehab. Somewhere they can go to chill out from their stressors, & contemplate/untangle their life. It's apparently a form of therapy for them. The fact that the whole fort gets a mood buff from this "justice" being implimented is fascinating, coz it implies that dwarven society (incl those who are in prison) really do all value & expect rehabilitation - not just physical punishment & incarceration.

Very good guide! Easy to undestand and fully coverable, as always. P. S. Could you overlook the possibility of making a guide on foreign guests? In terms of how a fortress can attract them and make them apply for work and/or reside at place at all?

In real life better prison conditions have a direct correlation with recidivism rates. It's one of many reasons private prisons are a sort of blight as they typically have bad conditions, for a modern prison.

Very informative. Thanks blind.

Just want to drop in and say I really love these tutorials. Don't worry about how often they've been coming out; I didn't even know that I didn't know any of this, so I didn't even realize there was more that you were 'slacking off' on! You just keep doin you, amigo, and everything'll be wavy gravy. 👍

Greatly appreciate this! My first long-term fort had a lot of run-ins with the justice system, and I would have killed to have known who the crimes got reported to (good to know now which dwarves I should keep around what areas for faster reporting!) I have a few questions though: What does it mean for a dwarf to be "assigned" to a case? I once got a huge negative thought almost entirely across my fort for convicting a long dead dwarf of a crime they definitely committed. I thought it might provide closure, but almost every dwarf I saw was upset by it. Is there any rule of thumb as to how long a dwarf can be dead before convicting them of a crime becomes a bad idea? Is it possible to change which squad the captain of the guard or the militia commander are in charge of? I found I could disband the squad and then reform, but when my squad members are all hand picked, custom schedule, custom equipment, it's quite a burden to fix it and I couldn't find an easy way to change.

In my game almost all my visitors are intelligent undead and they corrupted a crazy number of my dwarves. In fact one time two different dwarves were standing at the same display case, waiting for days for the other to leave to steal an artifact. Needless to say I put the display case behind a platinum grate, though there were two more attempted thefts just while setting that up. Known conspirators tend to return eventually, but interrogating them or assigning a conviction means they'll immediately run away (the game is bugged so if a visitor escapes after you assign a conviction, no sentence is given). What I like to do is raise the drawbridge before arresting them so they can't get away. Then, after they are safely in custody and I interrogate them they tend to disappear…mysteriously. Doing all this is rather tedious so my question is that can I eventually run out of "villains" or do I have to wipe out the entire population of fallen ghouls, putrid ones and necromancers from the world?

Thank you for this! I haven't understood the importance of these systems at all, since all my "crimes" are just dwarves going against the mayor's export bans

You're a lifesaver with these tutorials, man!

Yeah, this is great! So useful for someone like me, who has only recently 'struck the earth'

It's so damn deep and complex, which I love it but still it's hard to convey all the jobs alone because everything is happening at the same time; once you unpause the game for 30 seconds, there are dozens alert and info pops up. DF could be a very good co-op game where you take noble jobs and one of you can be sheriff, taking care of peace and order, meanwhile others could share other jobs.

ah so sticking the criminal scum in a half flooded basement isn't what i was supposed to do :O Always informative to watch your stuff

I’m wondering, how do you use chains and restraints? I’m seeing folks talk about chaining up war dogs, or prisoners of war. I was attacked by 15 dwarves and they all got stuck in cages and idk how to move them around / put them in jail since they don’t show up in the justice menu? Is the only option throwing them in a pit?

I don't know if this would be feasible, but an overview of maintaining haply dwarves could be useful. Big picture items and getting into the weeds a bit.

This was fantasticly. I like your videos. They have created a true enjoyment of the game. When you're feeling up to it, would you please craft a little more in depth on the cell construction?

I was on what is really my second fortress, one that worked that is l. Really pulled out all the stops bon what I learned and got rich very very fast tons of gems and ores and I had found my first magma field. I had about 50-55 dwarves and guests and then I noticed no one was eating anything no one was complaining no deaths thinking it must be a big and it killed the fun for me to, and I just had a dwarf missing for a few weeks and dead animals started showing up and I had yet to explore the justice system. Think I'm gonna retire the fort and start it back up to see if they use anything maybe fix it. But I really don't want to play with unlimited food resources.

Not sure if you’ll see this, however I had a suggestion for a potential short tutorial that I think would be really beneficial. I find sometimes I want to set up a !FUN! And wacky fort, however I’m newer to the game and it takes me a while to set up all the basics and infrastructure and therefore takes a lot of effort to even start working on the !FUN! parts. Perhaps a tutorial on how to set up everything you need to support a basic fortress with minimal/effort and dwarf allocation in as compact and fast a way as possible? Or something along those lines? Just a random idea. I mainly say this because it’s hard to figure out what exactly is all essential and what isn’t the biggest deal to go without and how to set those things up rather quickly.

Also, a dwarf simply getting beaten up might cause some loyalty cascading and put several more dwarfs in the hospital and/or the crypt.

3:55 Oh, so that's why I have so many dead dwarves. I thought they were all just resisting arrest.

You will always be in our hearts, Weathermountains

Is there a way to use pastures/pits as holding areas Like with animals but more reliable re-pasturing with dedicated guards to keep suspects and convicts in place inbetween investigation and punishment

If I have enough candy i'll usually make 1 wiffle bat for the hammerer just to be safe

They're way less likely to commit crimes again if you make the prison cells really nice

my hammerer had a well crafted silver war hammer and just kept killing everyone haha!

What's the weakest weapon to give a hammerer aside from fists? I'm hearing it's either a training sword or a bronze maul?

Good. How about a tutorial or just tips on how to take out a demon in a goblin fortress?

Is it possible to force criminals to do some work? And if there are no witnesses, is it possible to somehow automate the interrogation? Or is the player required to manually choose who to interrogate in this case?

This system looks like it brings a lot of life and fun in the game, but at the same time i've heard it also straight up brought unfair doom onto some fortresses such as dwarves fighting each other and other dwarves getting involved until generalized chaos ensues. I'm new to the game, so i don't really know. It feels like something you choose to activate but could (and reading some advices should) ignore rather than something necessary or very beneficial, i don't know if dwarves commit crimes before justice is implemented either, is it worth it?

2:33 1 cage or chain for every 10 dwarves, a 10% incarceration rate, wow 😅

How do you investigate visitors? Do you have to have an open case to do so?

A troubled child in my fortress has killed like 5 people including the mayor. Captain won't arrest him even after confession and is still rampaging. Any way to deal with this lol?

You can already take back your artifact, but it would need you to be at war with the faction that stole it, and to raid their settlements till you get it as loot...

“…Unlike real life” LOL!

If there was ever an argument or fight at the pub, my grandfather would walk up and headbutt both of them into oblivion because they were disturbing his peace. In the same town, there was also a South African, who would stand up and give them a stern look, if the out of towners still created disturbance, he would knock them out and throw them out of the pub. Simple Dwarvern times.

whats the best way to make the dwarves happy?

I see the newly made dungeon is filled with future convicts.

Maybe my Dwarves are just really happy but in my current run I have only had a few crimes. One was my fault because I forgot to make an order to fulfill a mandate and a metalcrafter got blamed and the Mayor himself beat the shit out of him lol, and the other was 3 separate instances of vandalism which I know was done by a tantrum. I forgave the guy because I accidentally left his pet goose unburied after an ettin attacked the pasture. Generally more than 75% of my Dwarves are in the green and super green happy zones. Really the outliers tend to be the minority and have unsolvable issues like missing loved ones or they are just children and hate doing chores. Sorry Timmy but that ore needs hauled to the stockpile and many hands make light work.

Tried it.... didnt go as well. Especially when demons and hell broke loose.

Wait...give hammerer the weakest weapon? Whoops...I gave mine the best hammer ever crafted or even legendary ones if available. 😅

Wow. I thought most of this was automated.

can you free prisoners?

Had to check my playback speed. Man u talk fast

As a newb. Mr creator. You are blazing through shit so god damned fast. Jumping around saves not explaining things. Do I need to setup an office inside of the dungeon and link them? Or a meeting area? How’d that word? You blitzed through it so fast jumping around saves reading info on dwarfs I am totally lost.