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[DovydasAL]

What do you use to defend YOUR fort. Put in screenshots, tutorials whatever it takes. What is your favorite method of defence.

[NRDL]

PTW

[Crashmaster]

The  Magma Hammer Is built over a volcano. Water drips from above in 7 places in the center of the U-shaped catwalk and the cave in's knock invaders into the volcano where they sink, burn and disappear. Nice and clean. Also the entrance, magma hammer chamber and/or outdoors can be flooded with large amounts of magma.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Two levels down is a by-passable bridges drop pit and a constructed floors on supports drop pit; here shown trapping elves for slaughter.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magma can be pumped all the way down to the depot and fill the drop pits as well.

Also that dwarf has about 4k kills.

[Tarqiup Inua]

Can one run out of magma from volcano?

[Naryar]

Nope.

anyways for defense you've got the normal way and the special way (reminds me of Sun Tzu quite a bit...)

The normal way is fortifications, marksdwarves and melee dwarves, and possibly tame war animals or tame large predators.  Defend sieges the medieval way. Charge enemy ranged squads with melee dwarves. Go all Vauban on fortifications, moats, archer towers, build castles, pillboxes, bunkers, whatever. Just make sure your enemies cannot go more than 1 tile close to your fortifications, with moats mostly.

The special way is traps, both simple weapon/cage traps and devilish Bond-like death devices. Drowning chambers ? Magma chambers ? Cave-in traps ? Putting tame dragons on pillboxes and see them burn everything that isn't an elite ranged soldier ? Dropping gobbos 25 z-levels and see them decorate the cavern with body parts ? !!Lignite floors!! ? Minecart shotguns or minecart railguns ? Encasing enemies in obsidian ? The sky's the limit !

You can of course mix both. I prefer the first way because it is more glorious, but the second way is generally funnier. Good for evil laugh practice as well.

[Triaxx2]

Dwarven Pillboxes wrapped around gobbo choppers. Basically a long zig-zag of 3 wide caravan paths, with the center areas covered in 3x6 lengths of serrated Glass Discs traps 4-6 discs per trap. The walls to either side have a single tile wide moat and the pill boxes are walled with fortifications. Marksdwarves stay on station there in case of attack. Very little manages to get through. The depot is more or less inside. The path from the depot further in is lined with traps, and watched by dogs so no thieves can get through without being seen.

Anything that does get in has to take a route through the barracks. Both of them.

Not much gets inside.

[vjek]

upright steel/candy menacing spikes tied to a 101 tick waterwheel-gear-powered minecart cyclotron, with the spike path forbidden by burrows.

No citizen deaths, kills pretty much anything.

[Knick]

Drowning trap in the entrance, backed up by cage traps.  I need to prepare a panic room as well with appropriate beds, food and so forth, for maybe 100 plus dwarves.  I have, in the past, used weapons traps, plus stone fall traps with a multi-z-level drop to dissuade invaders.  It is usually workable, however my marks dwarves are less helpful then I would like.

[Greiger]

Defenses in order they are encountered:

Dodge pits: My main entrance usually is a bridge over a 2 or 3 tile drop.  My crossbowmen or other implements of death force a dodge, and they drop below.  Sometimes I stick spikes down there too, but the bridge is usually 3 tiles wide, a combination of not wanting to make it too rediculous, and caravan access.  Sometimes they will have a single line of weak traps near the beginning.

Crossbowmen: Behind fortifications naturally. Usually 1 z level up to not be in the way of...

Ballista(s): A ballista or two behind fortifications at ground level.  Fired while the bridge channels the goblins into a thin line.

Cartcannon: I don't build this as often, as it sometimes seems too good.  A battery of minecarts (usually 3 in a line to match the width of the bridge) set up to be fired from a lever in the meeting hall (or a series of levers if it has a crude 'magazine')  Minecarts are usually lead, and filled with useless heavy stuff, like dead goblins, or heavy trap components.

Checkerboard hall:  Usually a bit past the front door, using a raised bridge to keep them out of the caravan path.  The checkerboard is designed to limit LoS, to both help keep my melee guys on the other side from charging out the gate, and to keep archer gobs from getting too big of a range advantage on my melee guys.

The arena:  Where all the melee guys are stationed during the siege.  The checkerboard empties out into this room, and my archers typically have line of sight on the floor of this room from their spot on the battlements, to provide support when they aren't shooting at stuff outside.  Reserve archers and hunters are usually put in this room too, farther back.And the fortress guard is usually stationed around the corner in the hallway leading into the fortress proper to try to catch any critters that get past all that.

[Mushroo]

1 legendary sword dwarf and 1 legendary hammer dwarf, training at an armor stand at the fort entrance.

[javierpwn]

I don't have the picture, because my computer broke

But I started a mega project to cover the entire map in stone fall traps....
Not even necro sieges stood a chance...

[Dorftrottel]

A long spiral leading into my baracks, full of various traps. The walls consist of fortifications open to a parrallel corridor, allowing archers to shoot them without the risk of getting in melee range.
The Spiral can also sealed with drawbridges at both sides and flooded (with water, for now).

If the intruder doesn't avoid traps, it gets either chopped or caged.
If the leager gets caged, the remaining idling squad can be shot by my marksdwarves,training them.
If it avoids traps and/or shoots back, it gets drowned.
If it can't be drowned, it gets sealed there until the next siege or ambush arrives. 

[Itnetlolor]

I just recently got my main fort ready, and I established a drop-bridge accessway to the place.

Spoiler: See for yourself (click to show/hide)

Construction just started for the main fort, but the bridge is built and linked. I tested it, and it's fatal enough to be effective (Pic related; poor bastards didn't see it coming). We get occasional survivors; perfect for an arena to wait below. In case they prematurely land (missing the arena), they'll have to work their way into the arena through a trap gauntlet to soften them up, since they didn't fall as far down as their buddies deeper down the bridge.

Got a marksdwarf pillbox on the side, and I intend to have a minecart railgun established firing from the front door, towards the ballista firing system opposite of it which also catches the runaway minecarts for rapid-reloading. Below the suspended fortress lies a barracks/arena. Since I'll also have a cistern lying below, I may need to have a way to protect it from any flying corpses and such, along with a method of drainage that doesn't compromise the rest of the land. Just in case.

As I work on this, I also cut out a chasm 5-tiles away from the edges of the map, and setup drawbridges on various points to re-route invaders and trade caravans, with a decoy trade depot so I will always receive wagons, but even I can alter whether they go to it or the primary depot across the drop-bridge. I have a burrowed dwarf in a switchbox room I have specially made for them (living quarters and dining room for them) so they're always at my beck and call. In case they sleep on the job, the room can still be accessed by everyone else, including those who keep their food and drink in stock.

EDIT:
Oh yeah, I also have my fort built along the walls of a volcano (cheap heating, if you will). Through modding, I can always make sure it's raining out, and let my invaders through the front door, and watch them melt before my eyes, making the core of my fort a microwave (that bug was awesome). Alternatively, I can always include a magma dump zone; but I already engineered enough ideas in my head; doing so, efficiently, and keeping the other parts functional as their design intends, may be a challenge. The minecart railgun would be compromised, along with the barracks/arena below.

[Scootagoose]

I tend just to go for a maze of traps.

[Broken]

Fully automated Water Railgun.