Overview
This Guide has all the information and tip for any new, and old Prison Architect player Last Updated: Dec 22 2015Current Update: 1.2Guide Updated: No, out of date at the moment Prison Architect Wiki [prison-architect.wikia.com] BUY THE GAME! My Group
What is Prison Architect?
Prison Architect is a private prison construction and management simulation game by the British game developer Introversion Software. It was made available as a crowdfunded paid alpha pre-order on September 25, 2012 with updates scheduled every three to four weeks. With over 1,000,000 copies sold, Prison Architect made over US$10.7 million in pre-order sales for the alpha version.
Beginning Stage: Choosing a Warden and Gender
There are a few different types of wardens that can change your game quickly and make it easier in different ways. The choice is up to you.
The Warden:
The most balanced individual on the planet, he does his job and nothing else. People just call him The Warden. The default warden, offers no special abilities.
The Lobbyist
The Lobbyist has friends in high places, and makes sure the more easily controlled prisoners end up coming his way. Halves the likelihood of receiving prisoners who are Violent, Lethal, Volatile, Deadly or Fighters.
Rita
Ruthless and terrifying, Rita has a reputation for running her facilities through judicial application of fear. Rumours of her carrying a whip may be exaggerated. Halves likelihood of prisoners being Stoical or Fearless. Prisoners are suppressed twice as quickly.
J. W. Periwinkle
Warden Periwinkle says he was a sapper in the war. He never says which war, specifically, but he certainly knows everything about digging tunnels. Guard Dogs have a 50% chance of fully uncovering any tunnels they detect.
The Pacifier
The Pacifier has an unusual talent for being able to calm even the most violent individuals. Even being in the same room as him is enough to make people docile and compliant. Reduces the overall temperature of your prison, making your inmates less likely to cause trouble.
Saphara Acknova
Saphara Acknova has a spotless reputation and a squeaky clean record. But behind the scenes, shady deals and under the table offerings are nothing uncommon for her. Gets a small cut of the re-sale value of each piece of contraband found – Prisoners found with contraband will be ‘fined’ directly from their savings.
I use Saphara Acknova because she reduces the contraband in your prison, as a perk you get money for the contraband you find. She gets you money for keeping a secure prison and doing shakedowns.
When choosing a gender, you have to take into consideration a few key notes.
Male
The male choice is much cheaper construction wise. As you dont need to build rooms such as Family Room. But it comes at the price of them being harder to control, and more violent.
Female
The female choice makes it more expencive to build, but the female prisoners tend to be more tame and less aggresive then the male gender.
Beginning Stage: Prisoner Control
These inmates are very easy to control and are usually very easy going. Rarely do they make a misconduct or try to escape. Recommended to start with these prisoners in your beginning prison, but try not to keep them for more then you need them until you have a working security force. Try getting 1 guard for every 20 Low security inmates.
It is best to keep these prisoners allowed to float around as these guys wont really cause any problems. They will however move contraband around making it easier for the Med and Max risk prisoners to get to contraband.
These prisoners are the middle class, some are a danger, some are not. They are likely to dig more then most prisoners and are going to escape if given the opportunity. Recommended for mid game prisons with a decent security force. Try getting 1 guard for every 10 Med Security inmates.
It is recommended to keep these guys close to the Min risk prisoners and to keep there regime simple but have lots of work hours as they really dont care.
These guys aren’t easy, they will try anything and everything to get out. They will dig when ever they get a second. Keep a constant eye on them as if you see them, they won’t dig as much. Try to have 1 guard for every 5 Max Security inmates or 1 armed guard for every 10.
Keep these inmates in an septrate area from everyone else as they will cause too many problems. It is sombler to keep them close to the yard and common room to keep them from lossing there sh*t.
Basic Stage: Start-up
Starting the prison can be a little hard if you have no experience using your money wisely. But not to worry, there are ways to get money before you actually start building.
When starting a new world I like to get a map with lots of trees. Why you ask? Money. Trees are worth money if you dismantle and sell them. You can get a maximum of 20k from trees giving you a massive head start when starting for the first time. The larger the map you start with, the more trees you will get, but this is all up to personal preference. I like to start with a medium sized map.
After getting money from trees and such, you should start with picking out your grants. Picking the grants with the highest value gets you money early on, but will ultimately pay less afterwords. If you don’t know what to choose, do what I do, pick basic detention centre and health care for a max of 30k.
When your building your prison, you should consider your design. If you planning long term for a big prison for profit, build smart and keep it and open concept with few small buildings and an open area with many workshops. If you want a max security prison, you will want to build everything very close to your cell blocks with many metal detectors in cell lock areas with guards stationed at the cell block.
Before your finally building your prison foundation, use the planning tool, it’s there for a reason, to plan. Try building something you enjoy looking at, not like a pile of sh*t. If you don’t like it then you won’t enjoy the game.
You want to start with 2 guards and 2 cooks like normal. When building farther and getting a bigger prison, try to have a 1/10 radio of guards to prisoners (1 guard to 10 prisoners) For cooks try to get 4 cooks for every 40 prisoners (the more cooks, the quicker the food is made. Using Dorms as a early way to house your prisoners is highly recommened. Only use dorms with Mid and Low tier prisoners.
Advanced Stage: Expansion
After your first few weeks in the game (In game weeks), you should be able to upgrade your prison and make it larger. Now depending on your design, it is up to you when and were your expanding to.
My current Prison for example:
This prison has been planned to expand to the west, and a new cell block will take its place. It will be identical to the one on it will mimic asside from the fact that it will be used to hold Max risk inmates instead of Med or Low risk.
One of the most important things I have found while playing PA, is try to staying as organized as possible, and try to make your prison look symmetrical. It’s your prison, try being proud of it. And if your prisoners happen to destroy your prisons in riots then so be it. It happens to the best of us.
I’m my PA experience (+2 years and counting), I’ve found that prisons look better in “Pods.” An example is this:
I still have this prison, it have some problems but iit still is creates profit. I did sell it for 300k dollars because it worked well. It is easier to control a prison when it’s in sections, when it has lockdown checkpoints during a riot, and when it uses its own power and water pumps and generators. It makes them independent and when one fails, the others runs without an issue.
Development and expanding is a difficult part of the game, because whatever you build your stuck with. So aim for something that works well with the base design. In the prison above I built the first “Pod” as an empty shell. Then later added some rooms that I later took down and matched the design. Rinse and repeat for the next 6. (I never did finish them, but I had the cash to do so.)
I’ve come up with 3 types of prison designs:
The mess
This kind of prison has not pattern and is freely expandable, but is confusing when building it as a start. These prisons in built well, can have amazing looking buildings and has the added benefit of making it hard to get out of.
The clean build
This prison type is very organized with very little randomness. It has a pattern that is followed all the way threw out the design. It doesn’t use squares and has many different building. These prisons are easy to secure and are very difficult to escape from.
The Pod
This kind of prisons have to same composition of a Clean build prison, but with the exception of the main cell blocks having there own cells, canteen, kitchen and extra rooms. These prisons usually have there own security force along with there own power and water pumps/generators.
Advanced Stage: Cost-Effective Security/Costly Security
This type of security will be limited to the size of your prison. To make the most of your security using guards and dogs, have them set on patrols that change with your regime. Using this method will reduce the ammount of guards you need per room and prisoner. If you place your forces well, you can get as much as 15 prisoners per 1 guard or 20 prisoners for every 1 armed guard.
For example: Set the roughts up like this:
There area few issues with the set up of the prision showed above. If you have multiple Legendary prisoners, they will start to cause problems. Keeping them issolated from the rest is a good idea as it will keep the death toll down.
(Note: The lower the death toll, the more your prisons worth)
This type of security is very expensive and not well set up. This happens when you purchase to many guards but don’t want to delete them. The best kind of security is having guards stationed at high usage areas (Cell blocks, Canteen, common room eat…) and having a regime set up where those “extra” guards not standing around unless until shakedown.
This method of security should be used in high security prisons and/or profit prisons as high risk prisoners have a issue with working in workshops, kitchen and so on.
It will look something like this:
Advanced Stage: Additional Techs
This part of the guide is only needed if your using CCTV, Door Servos ect. There is really no limit on how or when you use this equipment, but it can help you run a prison more efficently.
CCTV equipment is a great way of monitoring your prisons “Dark Spots”. The areas that are not guarded or not watched by your staff. Like solitary or common rooms. Use them as you wish. But if you deside to use a lot of them, remeber that you will need a lot of power for the monitors.
Installing CCTV is simple, place your camera anywere, and then connect the camera using the connect tool to the CCTV monitor you have set up.
Door servos can be used to increase the efficency of your prison making it run without failure. An example is to use them is for high usage door ways like canteens, cell blocks and other high traffic areas. NEVER USE AT THE FRONT OF YOUR PRISON. Because they will walk out.
Installing Door Servos are simple, you can place a servo anywere, but make sure that the servo gear is ontop of the door. After You have installed it, simply go into utilities, and use the connect tool to connect it to any control station/serface that you want (Door Controler, Presure Plates ect).
Expert Stage: Death-Row Expanding
This is the most expensive part of your prison. Building your death-row and execution facility is part of the game were you need to save up and be prepared if sh*t hits the fan. If you screw it up 3 times, game over.
Building the execution facility should be a separate building for the death-row inmates. Try building them large and nice cells, but do t build many of them because death-row inmates don’t come quick, it can take up to 2 In game weeks to get 1 death row inmate.
Everything should be heavily fortified as I have had High risk inmates come and attack them for no reason.
Also don’t forget to add an execution area. You get 10k for each successful execution. And when you do an execution, get your armies ready, because other inmates go ape sh*t.
Try setting it up like this:
