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[Hyndis]

Weapon traps full of iron menacing spikes seem to work extremely well. I have a single row across the entrance to stop animals wandering in and a fifty eight zombie siege just wiped itself out trying to cross them. No jamming, just dead zombies.

If the entire map is an evil biome, the zombies will just keep standing up again. This can be very problematic if you're using edge weapons, as you can turn a single zombie into a very large number of zombies. I think you can finally kill a zombie for good if you dismember the body parts into small enough pieces, but that takes a long time to do, and all the while you've got an enormous number of zombies everywhere.

My fortress is half evil and half normal. Only the left side of the map will cause corpses to reanimate. The right side of the map is where all graveyards and refuse stockpiles are so they're safe from reanimation.

[Loud Whispers]

Well I don't know about you, but smaller bits of zombie are easier to kill and kill for good. I mean, your average humanoid zombie can be turned from a full sized zombie into a head with no features and two hands with no fingers.

[Hyndis]

Well I don't know about you, but smaller bits of zombie are easier to kill and kill for good. I mean, your average humanoid zombie can be turned from a full sized zombie into a head with no features and two hands with no fingers.

Only if you hack them to pieces, which means edged weapons like axes, swords, and giant discs. Piercing or blunt weapons probably won't work if you want to keep a zombie down for good.

[Loud Whispers]

Well I don't know about you, but smaller bits of zombie are easier to kill and kill for good. I mean, your average humanoid zombie can be turned from a full sized zombie into a head with no features and two hands with no fingers.

Only if you hack them to pieces, which means edged weapons like axes, swords, and giant discs. Piercing or blunt weapons probably won't work if you want to keep a zombie down for good.

I implied blunt/low contact weapons how...?

Also you're not going to keep a zombie down without a way of stopping the interactions with the eligible body parts. It's pretty much inevitable, if you've embarked on an evil biome, have fun.

[Saiko Kila]

So far all zombie assaults on my fort are synchronised with goblin sieges (and dwarven caravans). And if goblins have more than one team, they can wipe all zombies with minimal casualties. My dwarves role, after disposing of goblins, is only to collect bodies, so I cannot really test any methods of killing zombies - goblins steal my kills.

I turned a bunch of accidentally caught zombies into body parts, by releasing them on a platform 15 z-levels above ground, and then releasing the platform... But goblins don't allow me to have more fun with zombies. Anyway, I was spying on them fighting, and it seems that they kill the zombies with all kind of melee  weapons and crossbows easily. This is not evil biome, no reanimation, but I hope a necromancer will come, then I'll try to implement these ideas.

[Hyndis]

Zombies that don't reanimate aren't too tough.

Its when you get a zombie spiral that things get really fun. Only takes one zombie breaching your defenses to doom your fortress.

One zombie gets through the defenses and gets into the meeting zone. My last line of defense is made up of packs of war dogs hanging out in the meeting zone. War dogs swarm zombie. Zombie kills a few war dogs. War dogs rise as zombies, kill more dogs, which turn into zombies.

Soon I have packs of zombie war dogs in my meeting zone.

Things go downhill from there. 

I've noticed that after hacking apart a zombie enough times it either doesn't stand up anymore, or is no longer a threat, but you need to kill the same zombie multiple times for it to be dismembered enough.

[Loud Whispers]

...You bred animals on an evil biome, and then used them for your defenses... On an evil biome?

Also what you may be noticing is a zombie corpse getting so mutilated that all eligible bp's (grasp/thought centers) have been lopped off. That just means the main body can no longer res. I've repeated this effect on fortress and adventure mode, it's really fun.

[Uristocrat]

Easy way? Wooden cage traps. With the caverns you have unlimited wood.

Just chuck the zombie filled cages into magma or an atom smasher. Don't even open the cage, just toss the whole cage, zombie and all.

I hate wasting valuable wood for that.  Once you have magma workshops, green glass terrariums are completely free, so I make tons of them.  I use all my wood on beds and traction benches and bolts.

[Saiko Kila]

Zombies that don't reanimate aren't too tough.

They aren't tough, but they are a big logistical problem. Normally fights last for a day or three, but cleaning can take whole year, unless I let all dwarves haul the bodies and stuff.

How to stop them from being assigned to coffins? Dead dwarves (like caravan guards or my citizens) aren't assigned to coffins nor moved. They rot where they fell. I have to engrave slabs for them, but since there are so many dead, I can't be sure who was a dwarf a who wasn't, and end up engraving slabs for all goblins, stray animals and stupid kobolds. But I cannot confine dwarves to coffins, because zombies take all vacant places immediately. And there are hundreds of them. I'm not afraid of ghosts, but I want all good dwarves to be buried.

[SRD]

Zombies that don't reanimate aren't too tough.

They aren't tough, but they are a big logistical problem. Normally fights last for a day or three, but cleaning can take whole year, unless I let all dwarves haul the bodies and stuff.

How to stop them from being assigned to coffins? Dead dwarves (like caravan guards or my citizens) aren't assigned to coffins nor moved. They rot where they fell. I have to engrave slabs for them, but since there are so many dead, I can't be sure who was a dwarf a who wasn't, and end up engraving slabs for all goblins, stray animals and stupid kobolds. But I cannot confine dwarves to coffins, because zombies take all vacant places immediately. And there are hundreds of them. I'm not afraid of ghosts, but I want all good dwarves to be buried.

Wait for them to become ghosts, then when engraving slabs it will tell you that he's a dwarven ghost.

[Saiko Kila]

Darn, if I knew earlier that it is possible to assign both dead and alive dwarves to particular coffins... I think it wasn't possible in some earlier versions. Or I kept thinking that. This practically solved my problems. I still engrave slabs for all possible fallen friends and foes because it creates a kind of chronicle. But with coffins freely configurable (both to dead and alive dwarves) I can even choose more cosy spots for their eternal home, and put to rest even the ghosts of bodyguards without engraving.