Captain of the Guard Bug?

[TechReaper]

I'm 11 years into my fortress and just assigned a guard captain, he immediately goes on a spree and beats the snot out of a ton of dwarfs (doesn't seem to stop, loaded after he started racking up kills). I thought it was a loyalty cascade but DFHack doesn't detect it. Plus when I follow him his thoughts say he is punishing people. He seems to have and endless list of targets.

[TechReaper]

It's persistent and doesn't matter who I pick so I've picked a weakling. to let him go about what I assume is 11 years worth of owed beatings? Lmao, this game is so buggy.

[Anyndel]

You likely had a huge backlog of production order violations, export violations, etc. Hes just taking care of past "crimes"

[Fel]

I'm going to go on a wild guess and say you didn't pay much attention to the demands of your mayor/noble in these 1 years.

Every time you don't do what they ask, a random dwarf gets pointed out as the "criminal".
If you want to limit his ability to kill, give him a hammer made out of the lightest material you have access to (often wood but adamantine is the best).

If you make a proper prison, there are good chances that at least some of the "criminals" will be put in jail instead of getting a beatdown.
They are usually not too happy about that but it's often the fault of the overlord on the other side of the screen.

If you have limited access to some materials, it's often a good idea to appoint someone that has tastes you can handle when the liaison first tells you about giving your fort a noble title.

[harlequin_corps]

They committed crimes. Most likely, you/they violated an export order, a nobility mandate to not sell a thing, and you selected that thing and sold it to a merchant. This one is tricky because they can give a mandate AFTER you selected the item for movement to trader outpost. Just one of those things that has to be paid attention to. So if there was an export mandate that had 100 items and you sold 100 items that's 100 beatings to administer.
Another possibility is you had a lot of drunk and disorderly charges racked up. Beating is the lowest level of punishment, followed by imprisonment, and finally by the tender concern of the Hammerer. If you don't have a prison/dungeon available with chains/cages the imprisonment conviction will be lowered to a beating.
In the trade menu and in the move items to trade menu you will see both purple items and items with a scroll with an X on it. Those are "don't export these items" markers.
In the nobility tab for each nobility capable of establishing a mandate, Royalty/Mayor, there is a symbol on the far right, that gives you a list of items that are mandated to be made or not exported.

[DoubleG]

Best to make sure you have a prison before you get a lawgiver, else everything will be a beating.

[TechReaper]

I just assigned someone with no fighting skill and let him go to work. A few bruises and lost teeth but all is now well. I assigned my axe lord to it at first. It was horrific.

[Diarmuhnd]

If you build Prison cells before appointing Law Enforcement then they get arrested instead of beaten.

[nrusselluk]

sure, some my never leave their hospital bed again, but least it's good xp for the doctors!

[TechReaper]

Originally posted by 76:

You'll have to find a workaround for this 'feature'

Lmao I have. I assigned a weakling and let him go to town until all the built up justice had been served. Now I have a jail and I'm wondering how long my dorfs will stay locked up.

[Fel]

I had some mild "crimes" (sold things to a caravan and my noble decided to ban their export after the caravan had departed from the depot but before they left the map) so I decided to make a jail and appoint a captain of the guards.
I also appointed a dungeon master just for the flavour (I know he doesn't do much of anything in a fort that doesn't accept visitors) and apparently I forgot about my mayor's request for yet another batch of maces (she loves maces and large gems, both easy enough to do).

So on top of 8 people in jail for about a month, I now have a dungeon master in jail for a year (because of course it had to land on him).

I love how this game sometimes works out great narratives out of completely unrelated stuff.

I mean, jailing 8 people by deciding that what was traded was outlawed after the fact is already fairly good as material but then jailing the very person responsible for intelligence gathering and counterring spies just makes my noble look like someone that wants to show off her power.

[TechReaper]

Originally posted by Fel:

I

So how do I find out how long they are jailed for?

[Fel]

It's in the justice menu, the convicts tab shows you what they did, who the officer responsible for them is and how long of a sentence they have left (full sentence if they have not been punched or jailed yet, including if you don't have a captain of the guards).

[harlequin_corps]

And boy howdy, do they NOT like being imprisoned. Actually, the steam version they completely nerfed the mood variables so you just don't get the depression death spirals you get in the original. Very new player friendly this version. I haven't had one fell mood yet.

[TechReaper]

Lack of search bar strikes again. Far too many convicts to waste time with it. They'll just have to rot in there.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by harlequin_corps:

And boy howdy, do they NOT like being imprisoned. Actually, the steam version they completely nerfed the mood variables so you just don't get the depression death spirals you get in the original. Very new player friendly this version. I haven't had one fell mood yet.

Engraved cells, nice furniture, artifact-quality chains, great food/drink... What's not to like? :)