Torturing Infiltrators

[Corwyn]

In one of the realms that I'm a member of there appears to be some serious confusion.  But before I clarify things, I thought it best to confirm things here.

There's a thinking that "It's a very well known concept you have to torture Infiltrators, if you're serious about banning them or executing them."

Apparently this comes from thinking that torturing an infiltrator damages their successful chance to escape prison.  I guess the rational is "torturing damages their stats, which must include their escape chance!". 

Some background: The goal of our realm regarding infiltrators is "to stop the infiltrator attacks".  Execution is just fine (and our enemies have executed our own infiltrators), and in fact is the preferred method (over deportation) of making sure that infiltrators don't continue their attacks.

Question 1: Is there any truth that torturing an infiltrator lowers their current and subsequent chances to escape prison?  (is it a permanent effect?)

Question 2: As a judge, if you have the chance to torture an infiltrator, why wouldn't you just ban them (and execute them on the second offense)?

Question 3: Is there any reason to torture on the first offense, ban on the second, and execute on the third; over just banning on the first and executing on the second?

[Bedwyr]

1. Yes.  It lowers chances of escape on that dungeon visit (and lowers skills which might lower infil skills which might reduce chances of escape).

2. You can torture before you can ban, I think.  (Torture is after first day, ban is after second day, if I remember correctly).

3. It's much nastier to them and increases your chances of keeping them long enough to ban or execute.

[De-Legro]

Torture is available before the Ban option. It also occurs before the infiltrator will get their own escape option (though they can still get the random game generated auto escape. Torture has long been used to stop a infil from logging in right on TC to escape before a ban can be read. And since torture doesn't release the infiltrator, you can still ban or execute them without needing to recapture them.

The other important piece of info is that good infils are hard to execute. You only have to look at how many times Hailey has managed to escape that result. When you choose to execute the infil the game generates one more chance to escape, and from all appearances if the infiltrator is very skill, it is a reasonable chance. In fact that is why some realms elect to simply deport them (there are other reasons, like being nice or prisoner treaties) It is simply a more reliable way to reduce infiltrator attacks, even if it does only work for a dew weeks.

[Peri]

Question 1: Is there any truth that torturing an infiltrator lowers their current and subsequent chances to escape prison?  (is it a permanent effect?)

Question 2: As a judge, if you have the chance to torture an infiltrator, why wouldn't you just ban them (and execute them on the second offense)?

Question 3: Is there any reason to torture on the first offense, ban on the second, and execute on the third; over just banning on the first and executing on the second?

If you are tortured in prison you are sent straight to 0 hours. 0 hours means you cannot escape. Therefore if the judge tortures you EVERY turn before you can try to escape, you simply can't escape if not automatically (the chance is very low though).

And if the judge manages to keep you in prison enough (2 days as Indirik said), he can ban/execute you.

On top of that there is the decrease of the skills but that's not very influential I think.

So:

1- Yes. The turn they are tortured they can't escape, plus they lose skills.
2- As it was said, torture is available before banishment/execution is
3- see 2, torture and ban/execution are not mutually exclusive. The latter set him free (or dead), the former keeps him in prison.