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[Oaktree]

My pet approach from my one fort on wooded terrain that cut a lot of surface wood was a seasonal egress from one of my four access tunnels.*  A large wood stockpile was temporarily set up inside the tunnel and my group of woodcutters and associated haulers would go out and cut and collect all trees right around the tunnel exit - right after I posted a few military squads on the borders of the cutting area.  If a squad got thirsty or hungry I'd rotate them out.  Once the new stockpile was full I would bring everyone back inside, close the tunnel gate and then let the haulers move the wood in safety to the main wood stockpiles in the main fortress area.  The temporary stockpile made for a short hauling run from the cutting zone to a safe spot and thus the expedition ending quicker. 

* - This fort had tunnels extending 40-50 tiles in each direction from the center of the embark that cut through a stone layer and then surfaced.  They had outer and inner drawbridges to allow each to be independently sealed; trap systems; and animal watchtowers (like described above) at the exits.  Most had a few weapon traps near the entrance to dissuade thieves, wildlife, and ambushers from coming very far in.

[Mura]

Bolts in general have been buffed, so wood ammo will take out goblins in iron/bronze armor coming from good marksdwarfs. You don't need any resources other than logs to get a competent ranged squad going.

[Telgin]

I haven't tried using war dogs at all, honestly.  I have a bunch of puppies stuffed into a cage though, so that's an interesting idea.  Sacrificing a dog to save the woodcutter seems like a reasonable tradeoff to me.

I'm in the process of constructing a wall, but building one that surrounds the map and encloses much of the map sounds like a very time consuming proposition that would likely end up with lots of masons encountering ambushes and not coming home.  Still, stationing soldiers near the construction points might be a viable tactic.

I've been a bit more proactive about stationing soldiers near designated trees and that helps.  Apparently the key is to station them well before the cutters get there and not let them leave until all of the wood has been hauled back.  I swear DF is just trolling me now.  If I give any opportunity for the ambush to intercept a civilian it will.

Having more marksdwarves in the stationed squads helped until I got ambushed by no less than 5(!) squads with crossbows.  Cue bolts tearing apart nervous tissue in the neck through metal helms.     Oh well, 3 casualties is better than 8.

That's an interesting idea on the seasonal harvesting, I may try something like that.

[Togre]

Not an answer for the best way to help, but something I personally do, is to make a number of paddocks or fields with multiple doors guarded by cage traps.  I feel walling off the world is a little cheap for my taste, but this is more reasonable.  If nothing else it gives you a better chance to have a woodchopper escape or  they can be assigned to a safe field.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's a way to make an animal warning system that isn't designed around sacrificing the critter.  If you build something with fortifications or windows or something, the critter can still see danger, but not be killed by it.  Might be a bit of work and unpractical.  I can't wait to try to build one!

[Replica]

O-oh dear god, you don't have a defensive wall and moat surrounding your fortress entrance?

By Armoks beard and all that is holy.

[WealthyRadish]

If you want to be safe about building the above ground wall, put all the masons (who can be anybody not doing something important) into crossbowman squads and keep them off duty. They'll still shoot while off duty, making a large group capable of defending itself. Unfortunately this doesn't work with woodcutters though, because of the military/civilian uniform conflict.

[Joben]

I have a fort on flat land, I built a wall around the stairway down into the tunnels. There are multiple trap protected entrances for civilians to run to for safety. And my legendary melee squad has a little building up there that they train in with a roof to keep off the rain. There's almost always at least 2-3 up there practicing.

Unpartnered war animals also are pastured inside the wall and mill around spotting thieves and snatchers.

It's not optimal though. I did lose a few civilians in the last attack. I had people out gathering wood when a siege hit.

[wuphonsreach]

When it comes to ambushes, walls are your best friend.  You don't have to wall off the entire embark, just enough so that you:

- have 2 ways into the walled area on opposite sides
- have some sort of detection mechanism that the sneakies must get past
- said detection occurs far enough away for you to get civs to safety in time

I usually start with a very small walled area, then gradually spider-web my way outwards from that.

All civs who are not miners / hunters / woodcutters / nobles get shoved into militia squads with a minimum set of armor, crossbow, buckler, etc.  I segregate my militia by gender / legendary status.  So I'll end up with at least (4) militia squads as times goes on.

If you don't mind replacing watch-animals, build a 1x1 wall, build a ramp next to it, pasture the bird on top of the wall, remove the ramp.  Leave a 1x1 stone or block stockpile next to the location so you can quickly rebuild the ramp.  Granted, the poor beast will die every time goblin archers show up, but it's cheap and fast.

If you want to go with sacrificial animals, use a rope and a puppy.  Expect many losses as the goblins uncloak to skewer the poor puppy.  Or surround the puppy in cage traps to capture melee goblins.

As for war animals - never assign war animals.  Or no more then 1 per dwarf.  The other way to get war animals to follow dwarves is to take advantage of the fact that after training, the war animal will follow whatever dwarf trained it.  Now that we can specify which dwarf trains which animal, this makes it much easier to train 20 dogs with 10 dwarves and end up with 2 dogs following each dwarf.  (Not sure if they eventually bond, but it's less risky then actually assigning war animals to dwarves.)

[Oaktree]

Something else I have been doing is militia-ing most of my normal civilians a year or two in.  Give them stuff like a metal cap (copper), shield, a weapon and the hood/cloak/tunic/boots/gloves set.  Since they do individual weapon drills and also some training periods they start getting into better physical shape.  I have had masons or woodcutters caught outdoors *out run* the ambushing goblins - or at least stay ahead of them long enough to get rescued by a properly armored alert squad*.  Plus with a weapon or shield on hand they might deflect or dodge a few attacks while running.  (If the ambushers have bows/crossbows, well that is probably not going to help anyways.)

* - My "alert" squads are small squads (3-4 dwarves) in full armor that are training in a barracks near or above the main gate.  Usually my best trained troops.  I track which squad is on duty and know which one to activate to get dwarves moving who are already in their armor and fully armed.  Much faster reaction than waiting for a squad to go grab gear and trickle out to a rally point to get in formation.  Once I get weapon lords they go into the full-time equivalent of this and do most of the heavy lifting in terms of intercepting ambushes and mopping up small troubles.

Overall, walls are a good way to go if you have the time and blocks.  Even if you do not completely wall things in you can minimally get greater control of the surface by channeling ambushers, sieges, thieves, migrants, etc. towards choke points where you can concentrate stealth detection, traps, etc.  This is the main reason I use access tunnels that extend out from the fortress before surfacing in the "open" countryside.  I want the migrants and attacking goblins underground as quickly as possible where all the advantages are mine and I control the local terrain.

And if you prefer using miners to masons or do not have blocks you can also do dry ditches to create choke points and approaches as well.  Does not protect you from the archers and such, but with good miners a ditch goes in very quickly.  And the Z-1 part of it can be dug in advance safely by mining that out first and then doing the surface channeling to create the unramped ditch afterwards.

[DrKillPatient]

With relation to war animals, the dogs will only be a distraction, but if you can manage to get a giant cat (e.g. giant lion/tiger) from the elves, even a cub will be able to swat a goblin in two. Bears work too, although to a lesser extent because they're much smaller. Maybe giant eagles. Anyway, assign them to your favored woodcutters (or have them tamed by those dwarves-- see wuphonsreach's last point) and send the WCs out in tight groups (i.e. don't designate too large an area). If anyone discovers an ambush, the giant cats will deal with the problem fairly adequately, giving you time for your military to arrive.

[Seraphim342]

Yes... Giant Tigers are simply amazing.  Once you get a stable breeding population of them going, you barely need melee dwarves anymore. 

[Telgin]

O-oh dear god, you don't have a defensive wall and moat surrounding your fortress entrance?

By Armoks beard and all that is holy.

I suppose 7 dead soldiers in 3 years isn't so bad then? 

I actually do have a partial wall around the entrance, although there's no drawbridge in this fort yet.  That, and there is an easy path up the hill behind the entrance to get inside right now anyway.  My last fort I had the luxury of building a wall and a moat because I somehow didn't embark near goblins.  That fort spoiled me badly.

I think I'll try war dogs with the woodcutters, and will keep an eye out for giant animals from caravans.  I hadn't considered that either.

Arming all of the civilians with crossbows seems like a good idea too, and is something I considered.  At least then I could expand the wall without worrying about the masons getting slaughtered.  If only that worked for woodcutters. 

Oh, and look, another ambush!  One of my expert masons just got stabbed in the spine by a steel dagger (must have been a thief) and now has bruised nervous tissue.  Arghh, guess he'll be dragging his legs forever now.  At least it wasn't a soldier.

[Iosyn]

draft your woodcutters into the military, train them up as wrestler/axedwarfs, assign them a few wardogs each. That should be enough to help maul them while you either draft the military to regroup and attack or just be bait until your woodcutters can peg it back home.

Alternatively, mine out a large area and wall it off as a tree farm, or create support landmines linked to meetinghall levers. Walling off the entire map except for a few entrances and posting restrained animals or animal pastures there could help spot them quicker.

Also assign them armour, shields and axes to be worn at all time. Note that armoured dorfs are slower, so you might want to consider shoving them in a danger room to skill up some armour user and dodge.

[Telgin]

draft your woodcutters into the military, train them up as wrestler/axedwarfs, assign them a few wardogs each. That should be enough to help maul them while you either draft the military to regroup and attack or just be bait until your woodcutters can peg it back home.

Alternatively, mine out a large area and wall it off as a tree farm, or create support landmines linked to meetinghall levers. Walling off the entire map except for a few entrances and posting restrained animals or animal pastures there could help spot them quicker.

Also assign them armour, shields and axes to be worn at all time. Note that armoured dorfs are slower, so you might want to consider shoving them in a danger room to skill up some armour user and dodge.

This is the first thing I'd do if woodcutter uniforms didn't botch attempts to get them to wear armor.  Still, training them up as axedwarves isn't a bad idea, at least then they could fight back instead of cower and see how many limbs they can lose before they die.

[SixOfSpades]

I'm curious as to the total lack of anyone mentioning the timing of these ambushes, and therefore the ability to predict & avoid them. Important metagaming tip: Sieges and ambushes only arrive in Late (name of season). Every time the 10th of Felsite/Galena/Timber/Obsidian rolls around, I make sure I don't have any reason for folks to be loitering around outside, and then I wait for the caravan, followed immediately thereafter by the siege. In my experience, both of these (or sometimes just the siege) always show up between the 10th & 20th of the month, although ambushes can wait a while longer to reveal themselves. But come the turn of the new season, the coast is clear, and my dwarves are once again free to frolic and cavort in the meadows.

Caveat: I'm still playing 31.25 (pretty sure), and this rather unrealistic scheduling may have been properly randomized in an update.