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[chevil]

Practice your choice of abuse: Walling-In, Cages, Smashers, Melting Metal bugs, Butchering, and Forbidding doors.
(Or DFHack away the zombies, but that may turn you into an elf).

You can search TV Tropes too, it mentions DF and stuff.

Please stop posting links to tvtropes. I don't have the time to read throug them nor the will not to. Please be mindful of the recovering addict.

[omg_scout]

20 Markdorfs is enough.

Silber bull... ekhm bolts.

[Di]

You seem to be well aware of ways to kill things and your final defeat doesn't seem to be brought by zombies themselves.
I guess you need to find out what caused dwarves go lemming style. Were they trying to haul stuff from those weapon traps? They path completely random when they see enemies, which can lead to them running towards enemies on winding bridges.

Secondly, your defense strategy seems to me resembling that of hedgehog: pointing spikes at general direction of enemies and hoping that they'll kill themselves. Which despite being useful in some cases is philosophy of a prey. To become more of predator you need to turn your entrance into that of spider's lair. Enemy must deliberately surge forwards until the very moment when he's doomed. Dig long tunnels that will hold most if not all of foes you want to eliminate. Have a few shortcuts that will allow dwarves to operate there freely but are sealed for enemies. Use the behavior of your prey: trolls will path to destructible buildings, necros - to nearest corpse, kobolds - through locked doors if that path is shortest. Have the means of sealing such entrance form outside for cleanup when dealing with necros.

As for current state of things:
a) arm your vampire with crossbow, make sure he has ammo and designate zombies to be killed one by one. Think of dota or diablo with autistic heroes. Engaging in melee isn't good idea since any injury can lead to vampire becoming stationary.
b) Or get him build weapon traps outside near large packs of undead.
c) Enable mining on vamp and isolate large clusters of undead with derapmed channels. Disable all meeting zones and when migrants show up designate one at their spot, have vampire rush there and dig underground chamber before they're spotted by zombies.

[NRDL]

PTW

[ZzarkLinux]

You need to monitor the dwarf/zombie ratio.

If you have a high ratio of dwarves to zombies, you can usually "keep clean" and properly smash/imprison corpses.

If you have a moderate D/Z ratio, you can still make tactical strikes, or possibly still sneak outside to grab stuff.

If you have a low D/Z ratio, well cross your fingers and abuse the heck out of everything.

(It's just like the movies)

[pixl97]

Burrows are important. Maybe not for this fortress but for your next one. I'm currently playing on a a flat map so it's pretty easy, steep hills can be a pain in the butt. Also after a siege with lots of corpses and junk make sure to d-b-f everything that dwarves will try to run out and get, especially dead caravans. Also, only set a very few dwarves to be on burial patrol, picking up dead bodies is a great way to get killed.  I currently build an expanding set of walls until I ring in the entire buildable area of the map. If the zombies are really bad I'll build a ring inside that I call the 'safe zone'. On the outside ring I'll abuse the current exploit where if you disassemble a wall it pulls all the items in a 16x16 square on to one tile. I separate a few of the 16x16 tiles in the ring in to paddocks with walls and a bridge for atom smashing. Then I'll build a chunk of wall and take it down, and dump all the body parts under the bridge and dispense with them. All the goblinite is smelted later. I then have an entrance path that forces anyone entering to go thru a few switchbacks. This forces the enemy in to cage traps, a row of spikes on hooked to a lever, and a high pressure pump that blows the enemy in to a deep z level pit with spikes in the bottom. I am currently pitting most of the edge of the map and putting pumps with large tanks in the walls so when enemies enter I can dispatch them quickly.

[ZzarkLinux]

I always just forbid everything outside, because I'm not sure if dwarves still queue up "claim owned item" outside the burrow.
I know that they don't get "Haul Item / Store Stockpile", but can anyone confirm if burrows it stop a dwarf from trying to "claim" outside items?

Another suggestion: Know when to attack, and know when not to attack.

In my current fort, this Merchant triggered "The Horde".
I did not try to save him, the zombies were too ravenous.

Spoiler: For The Horde (click to show/hide)

[GreatWyrmGold]

...Is that blood natural or from blood rain?

[Hanslanda]

Gotta be blood rain.

[GreatWyrmGold]

You'd be surprised at how bloody fortresses get without regular cleaning, and there's not really time for that during a zombie apocalypse.

[Chilton]

The Dwarvern Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse
Its a thing, trust me

STEP 1:
Seal the Entrance
STEP 2:
Dig
STEP 3:
Pump Stacks
STEP 4:
Build Lava Moat With Pressure Pad Activating Retracting Bridge To Drop All Oncoming Attackers Into Lava
STEP 5:
Build Hallway Of Cages, Weapon Traps, And Stone Traps To Kill The One Zombie (Trust Me, Even If It Looks Like A Human Or Elf, Its A Zombie) That Triggered The Pressure Plate
STEP 6:
Build A Wall With Archers On Top Just In Case They Somehow Break The Laws Of Physics Or Something Ridiculous Like That, Or If Some Ambushers Get Across.
STEP 7:
Use Migrants To Build A Village Outside The Fort, And Keep All Original Occupants Safely Inside, And Able To Use The Wall To Shoot Stuff For Fun.
STEP 8:
Do Dwarfy Stuff.

Happy?

[thegoatgod_pan]

The thing about zombie attacks, is that you come at them with a wrong mindset. Goblins are thinking, fearing beings. If you want goblins out of your hair, it is enough to kill a leader or just enough of a band to get them running. Zombies will not run. As such zombies cannot be taken with anti-goblin tactics. I learned very quickly that attacking zombie sieges is stupid.

Instead: lock up, make bolts, and train your marksdwarves on the zombies.
Slowly but surely their numbers will decrease, necromancers will pop out of hiding, trouble will get dealt with.
Indeed, a few years of periodic lock-up/zombie shooting will give you a damn effective ranged force, in the meanwhile your melee militia should be training up into proper killing machines.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Zombie hordes will only increase in number if you don't cut off the source. Magma kills necromancers but leads to flaming zombies, which are like normal except they destroy wood and booze and start inflammatory arguments on the Internet.

[Chilton]

Zombie hordes will only increase in number if you don't cut off the source. Magma kills necromancers but leads to flaming zombies, which are like normal except they destroy wood and booze and start inflammatory arguments on the Internet.

All the more reason to have a moat of flaming zombies.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Downside: Your dwarves are afraid of your moat. Get their eyes rotted first.