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[AdeleneDawner]

Bring plenty of female (and one male) dog with you. You can then train them into war dogs which can kill of things like monkeys raiding your food, titans with some casualties and late game they act as a mighty fine meat shield.

[CAVE_SPIDER_GIANT]
[PET]
[TRAINABLE]

[COMMON_DOMESTIC]

[vassock]

You need to make your fort airtight. That means walls, ceiling, and a raising drawbridge at the entrance. I usually make a separate (also bridged) entrance into my fortress to lead enemies to a spiraling hallway all the way down to the magma levels. So when I see migrants, I open the main gate. If I see enemies, I close the main gate and open the second one which also leads to my fortress, but it leads them through the lower levels. Then I just flip the switch to close the entry gate, close the gate on the other side of it, and open gate #3 which fills the spiraling hallway with magma. It works against anything not immune to magma (demons and magma dwellers) and not make out of magma-safe materials like Steel/Iron.

You can line your main entrance with traps to prevent surprise attacks and give you time to react. And of course use burrows to keep your dwarfs from entering the magma hallway in an effort to retrieve something (a way in is a way out).

[noodle0117]

A good way to crash course learn how to manage the military is to create a spartan like experimental fort in some evil and haunted world.
10% of your population being farmers
75% fighters
5% doctors/healers
and the rest as useless meatshield recruits.

[franti]

Simply mass produce a shit-ton of spears. Don't bother training your dwarves or giving them armor. That's the beauty of a spear: one dwarf with one lucky strike can pierce the heart of a dragon and kill it instantly. You will lose a lot of dwarves, but 80 speardwarves could bring down a titan. Try to make them out of iron or bronze: copper and silver suck and steel isn't worth the trouble for a militia.

[Byakugan01]

Thing is, he's then SCREWED against any "Immortal" forgotten beasts and collossi.  A spear won't kill them, because the only way to bring them down is to HACK THEM APART.

[franti]

Thing is, he's then SCREWED against any "Immortal" forgotten beasts and collossi.  A spear won't kill them, because the only way to bring them down is to HACK THEM APART.

Those are rare, and even if he gave 80 dwarves axes it wouldn't kill it because they'd be untrained. Speardwarves are also untrained, but luckier. Plus, spears work better against armored opponents such as goblins or humans that may attack.

[jester]

Ways ive killed beasts without military:  Dog pack, 100 war dogs will hurt or kill some beasts.
Drop a floor on it:  pretty much that, build a floor in the air supported by a support linked to a lever, chain up larger tame stuff underneath.  While the beast is ripping apart your cows, pull the lever.
Anything that cannot be killed with magma can be killed by being encased in obsidian. Magma + Water.
Dont know if it works with surface stuff but I throw my goblin prisoners to cave beasts.  Toss enough of em down and the thing will die.  Note:  Do not try with flying beasts.
Seal up the fort then open up a side entrance 5 tiles wide and 100 tiles long, position ballistas at the far end.  Dwarves will run at about 20 tiles from the beast, gives about 80 tiles of good shooting.  2 - 3 hits will usually do it.  Likewise using drawbridges and empty moats to trap the beast on a small patch of land then blowing the crap out of it.
Doors, workshops, statues and there ilk are like candy to any building destroyer enemies, you can use this to lure them into purpose built traps