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[miauw62]

Dig a 3-wide hall however far back you want. Fill it with cage traps. Put a drawbridge at the end, hook it up to a lever. There, done.

This
That should get you trough the first years until you have a military/more amusing traps

[ddonohu2]

No one uses drowning traps anymore? I still build one every time. They're easy to build from the beginning and work on most siege enemies.

[Loud Whispers]

I take it you're uncertain with the military screen? :S

[MysteriousOldGuy]

My common defense is to build a stairway going up about ten floors in the air, with one entrance going into my fort. Only a single floor line to the entrance and the stairway, and line that with wooden spear traps. When the enemies dodge the spears they fall to the ground and explode.

For bonus points, place a one-tile bridge just after the staircase and connect another line to the stair way, filled with traps, and make them pass through it to get back once you raise the bridge.

[AWdeV]

Simply wall up your fortress and make a door a strong chokepoint. Cage traps are super efficient but really rather dull and tedious after a while. Either set up your weapon-trap industry much quicker (should be possible in the first year) or use stonefall and wooden/bought/confiscated weapon traps to weaken them on their approach.

Use marksdwarves. Lots of them from relatively safe positions. (one level above ground behind fortifications helps a lot) Even wooden and bone bolts help a lot against the generally poorly armoured goblins and their mounts. They're not gonna be very killy but a goblin who is bleeding, vomiting and in extreme pain fights rather below optimal efficiency so it helps. That, and it's hilarious.

[MarcAFK]

Giant magpies just wiped out most of my starting 7 plus my first Migrant wave, i need a new defence strategy that works for an aboveground fort with non enclosed buildings.... Maybe i should work out that whole crossbow thing.

[hoover84]

No one uses drowning traps anymore? I still build one every time. They're easy to build from the beginning and work on most siege enemies.

This is one of the funnest methods I've used, and it's extremely effective.  Simply build a long, wide hallway with drawbridges at each end as a secondary entrance to your fort.  Channel out the center tiles all the way down as a runoff for water when drained (carve fortifications at map edge to drain water.)  Cover the channels with grates, then dig plenty of channels down into the hallway from above leading to the river.  Add floodgates at river and drain and connect all to levers.  When you have a siege, close your main entrance and wait 'till they enter your drowning hall...the rest is self-explanatory.  This is also an easy way to collect loot after draining the room.

Not the most exciting method after a while - becomes pretty boring.  But hey, it works.

[miauw62]

No one uses drowning traps anymore? I still build one every time. They're easy to build from the beginning and work on most siege enemies.

This is one of the funnest methods I've used, and it's extremely effective.  Simply build a long, wide hallway with drawbridges at each end as a secondary entrance to your fort.  Channel out the center tiles all the way down as a runoff for water when drained (carve fortifications at map edge to drain water.)  Cover the channels with grates, then dig plenty of channels down into the hallway from above leading to the river.  Add floodgates at river and drain and connect all to levers.  When you have a siege, close your main entrance and wait 'till they enter your drowning hall...the rest is self-explanatory.  This is also an easy way to collect loot after draining the room.

Not the most exciting method after a while - becomes pretty boring.  But hey, it works.

I just suggested cagetraps as a placeholder until you can build more amusing traps and/or until you have collected enough goblins for logic circuits.

[Spiderking50]

On the topic of weapon traps, as someone had mentioned it, is it better to build a few all the way full or a ton with only a few?

[Kar98]

Have a point where 1 space wide leading into your fort. Stick a door in and behind that a drawbridge. When an ambush/siege comes lock the door then pull the lever. The door is there in case a lazy dorf is pulling the lever and you don't lose your entire fort. Later on you can add a bridge that lowers directly infront of the door crushing anyone who tries to knock the door down

[Loud Whispers]

On the topic of weapon traps, as someone had mentioned it, is it better to build a few all the way full or a ton with only a few?

A few traps with a ton of weapons in them. Unless you have more ground to cover/don't have many weapons

[Kestrel]

From the moment I embark I retask everyone to masonry except my miners and woodcutter.  If there's no mountainside to dig into, everyone starts building up a fort wall with a row of fortifications on the top and a dry moat dug around the perimeter with a bridge reaching across it.  Animals get butchered, bones get made into arrows, and incoming migrant waves get to trade off patrol routes as archers.  War dogs get stationed outside for early warnings.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here I expanded my surface fort wall to split the map in half, with archers patrolling the top.  So far it's been very effective.  Even if goblin snipers take out all my archers a siege can't get inside.

[miauw62]

From the moment I embark I retask everyone to masonry except my miners and woodcutter.  If there's no mountainside to dig into, everyone starts building up a fort wall with a row of fortifications on the top and a dry moat dug around the perimeter with a bridge reaching across it.  Animals get butchered, bones get made into arrows, and incoming migrant waves get to trade off patrol routes as archers.  War dogs get stationed outside for early warnings.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here I expanded my surface fort wall to split the map in half, with archers patrolling the top.  So far it's been very effective.  Even if goblin snipers take out all my archers a siege can't get inside.

nice!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Have you tried using large serrated discs?

And if all else fails:Magma.

Why not both? Magma-safe mechanisms, put 2 steel and 8 green glass large, serrated disks per trap, and add a magma-safe pressure plate near the end that fills the corridor with magma. Simple!

[LARD]

If you've been getting that many gobbos so soon then you might need to settle somewhere that isn't that close to a dark tower. All the other suggestions work, and while magma is the dwarfiest and a very "good/fun" idea, if you're fed up and just want to get a fortress going, you can turn off invasions in the raws.  Unfortunately this will make you undwarflike.