What's your expansion strategy?

[hi im kyle]

I've seen some people constantly buy new land and make their prison infinitely deep. Others go to the other side of the road and build a replica building. You could also build one section at a time, tear down buildings and rebuild them, or sell your prison and start from scratch with more money.

I'm definitely a sell the prison and start from scratch guy. I like to "roleplay" in a sense, building unique prisons each cycle that tries to directly attack what my downfall was in the last prison. ie, if I ran out of money, I sell the prison and build a heavy profit-based prison. If there's an unstoppable riot, I'll build my next prison as a strict military compound.

[Kunovega]

Really whatever I'm in the mood for.

My first few years of playing I'd just build up to a point of profit, sell the prison and start over and experiment with new styles. Once I had a save file worth 100's of millions I now use that as the basis for any new prison I feel like starting.

As for buying land expansions, I've tried just about every variety you can think of, but I would say the two most common styles I use are either:

1. Left side of the road prison, right side security

2. 4 squares, equal sides of the road

With left side prison you make just one entry point into the prison on the left side of the road, your prisoners go in and never come out. On the right side of the road is your armory and security rooms with surveillance equipment and your offices for staff. This is an extremely secure set up, your prisoners will never get anywhere near rooms they shouldn't be in as the only cross over point they could even attempt it from would be the single main entrance, but any of them trying to cross the road die to snipers before even entering the security compound on the right.

You can also use the right side extra land for tree farming (don't use prisoners to work the tree farm), this style makes tons of money, sell the prison, try some new experiments, make more money, repeat.

The downside is you may have a hard time segregating prisoner security tiers, and if you grow the prison too large you end up with buildings further and further from the road that become less efficient for food delivery and building materials.

With four squares you make a central office and security complex around the road and then expand with prisoner security zones into the four corners around you equally on both sides. You can form a much larger prison while still keeping all parts of it within reasonable walking distance of the delivery zone for efficiency, you can easily segregate prisoner security tiers from each other and overall it generally looks better

You leave a staff only walking path across the middle and of course the road to form 4 big squares for prisoners with no prisoners having permission to cross into the other corners. It's like a big four leaf clover if the clover is made of squares with all the security and staff in the center.

Really just experiment and sell frequently until you know what works for you and build up a solid foundation of cash for new prisons. Once you have a nest egg you can branch off from that and make any types you want.

[dande48]

To be honest,"expanding" your prison by buying more land hasn't really ever worked out well for me. I usually only buy land across the street to move my offices, security, etc to (away from the prisoners).

The issue is, once you have dupes of certain buildings you can run into "bugs". Clothes can amass in a single laundry, and empty out the other laundries, leading to the clothing need escalating a bit too much. Luckily similar issues have been fixed with multiple kitchens and Infirmaries, since you can assign workers there now.

I almost never go for total money, as it's too easy to get through grants and prisoner intake. Profit per day, number of prisoners, "Days without incident", or "re-offending rate" are all good metrics to shoot for. Those last two are often what I shoot for: High security prisons, with great reformation and no murders.

[Magicsimmer]

I've been doing a small prison challenge lately, trying to fit all sectors with 300 prisoners. Aaaaaaand a women's prison. It's not easy trying to fit family cells when there's so much going on.

I've succeeded in that challenge.

Now, I am making the "prison transfer" challenge. I start out with only medium inmates. Every offense they make they either become maximum or supermax depending on how volatile they are and my policy rules. Every night I check to see which inmates earned the privilege to be promoted to minimum security.

My minimum security has amazing perks like a gymnasium, mail room and shop! So currently I'm twerking my large prison for my "prisoner transfer" challenge...

Insane and PC inmates have their own wing with all the rooms, perks, and jobs they need.

[Whirl]

I think if you use unlimited money, you don't have to sell from scratch. I like women's prisons too. Family Cells aren't as hard to do as you think, as long as you keep the Nursery right next door.

With the new update coming out, I'm pulling a new prison. I like to do symmetry and this time I'm using the Lunar Landscape. Gonna make me a Space Prison!

My latest idea is to have a main prison, of course... and across the road from it, a dedicated asylum.