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[Urist McVoyager]

They'll attack everything. So yes, you too.

Best bet is bringing in your own stone on the actual reclaim, and building your shops/slabs outside first.

[Meph]

I usually have 50% of the population in the military. If the enemy has only melee, he will die to ranged squads without any losses on my side. Little towers made of fortifications, with tunnels for the crossbowmen to go through.

[Spacespinner]

goblins will be friendly and inside the fort until next siege at which point you have enemies both inside and outside the fort. There's also a bunch of other annoying bugs with reclaiming.

[Russell.s]

Can legendary dwarves defeat goblin lords as well without risking death/injury? This one had an axe lord, a spear master, a lasher lord and possibly mace lord if I recall. I had steel shields and helmets for all 10 of my troops and was in the process of melting down traded items for breastplates when the siege hit.

Today I had a siege of 80 on cave crocodiles and olms. Here are the results: absolute carnage. You can see the military dwarves training. Not a single scratch on any of them.

[SOLDIER First]

Magma.
Modded tamable !!adamantine colossus!! that doesn't burn or melt.
Minecart shotgun/Shockwave gun (that just pushes them with water).
Lots and lots of war dogs.
A respectably large military with good gear.
Lots of traps.
Atomsmasher/retractable bridge trap.

[Art]

Thanks for all the replies folks. I attempted a reclaim. I just thought I'd share what happened for anyone else who hasn't done a reclaim so they can have an idea of what to expect.

1. Firstly, there aren't enough points to fit everyone in iron. I went in with 2 iron axes, 4 copper warhammers and 4 copper shields. Dwarves were trained to proficient.
2. All 80 Goblins+pets were present and friendly, but I could attack them one at a time. This caused them to start fighting back(one at a time).
3. Additionally there were about 5 goblin thieves that weren't with the original invasion force.
4. My Dwarves were receiving injuries and in fact one died on the very first Cave War Dragon.
5. I chewed through about 5 enemies before my squad was basically broken.
6. There 2 ghosts out of the ~200 Dwarves from before, even though it was the first reclaim. They were not aggressive to me or the Goblins.

Ultimately I decided it would be too much hassle to reclaim and will restart. Hopefully my next fortress will do better with a better trained/larger military and more different types of defenses.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

I use basicly every type of defense possible. I need it; for the past five years I've been under nonstop sieges.

[Dirac]

In one of my forts, I have a "death corridor" that I funnel goblins into during seiges.  I have two bridges at the entrance to my fort: one at the start of the main entrance corridor, and one at the start of the death corridor.  When a siege breaks out, I close the main entrance and open the trapped one.  The latter is a long, winding 1-tile wide hall fitted with over two dozen weapon traps and about a dozen cage traps.

Once the entire goblin force has entered (I always strive for 99% obliteration), I close off the entrance so they have no choice but to move forward through all of the traps.  Currently, there are enough of them to whittle down a 100-strong force to about four or five stragglers that get mopped up by my military.  The ones captured are stripped of their gear, mass-pitted, and used as live combat training for my melee dwarves.  If the goblins are entirely composed of melee fighters, I'll send out my soldiers earlier to get more action, but considering arrows can pierce adamantine armor so easily, I bunker down whenever archers or crossbow goblins show up.  I've never been able to get my marksdwarves to do anything but clobber goblins over the head with their crossbows, so I rely solely on melee fighters.

In another fort, I have a less-lethal death corridor that softens up invading hordes but only kills a dozen or so, tops.  My military is much stronger in that one, though, and my nigh-invincible legendary +5 figher/hammerdwarf militia commander can pretty much take down a whole battalion on his own.  I am experimenting with a pitfall/atom-smasher combo trap, though, that I'm hoping will provide a more entertaining way of dispatching enemies.

[KingBacon]

Drowning chambers are great, automating them however is a a pain.

What you are gonna want to do is channel out a long pit, with two gates at each end (make sure the bridges are in the pit since you don't want any gobbos to survive.) Hook the gates up to a lever and trapthe bastards when the come through. Pump water, drown, open drain, repeat as necessary. Put some marks dorfs above the channel with fortifications and you got a nice siegebreaker.
 
Key: O - Walls
B - Bridge
F - Fortification
8 - Pump

    O B O
O O F O O O
B . . . . . . . . B
F F F F F F F
. . . . . . . . . .
8 0 8 0 8 0

Right now I've been experimenting with automated traps, magma throwers work nicely so far:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I built the trap over a cistern and most of the magma drained back in through grates and iron bars. Had to remove the flood gates because they activate too slowly. Gonna add like 8 more routes now seeing it's effectiveness. 

[enolate]

Really, if this is Art's first time trying to withstand sieges, I would forget all the fancy water and magma machines and wild beasts to path past and every other amusing but impractical solution. Rather go with about 10  2-3 man melée squads, hammers preferably, but other things also work, give them at least iron *armour*, and let them train continuously until they are not just experts in the weapons but have a familiarity with dodger, armor user, and shield user. At least level 3-4 in all those, dodger particularly. They will be indestructible against an even force. Make the entrance way to the fort have airlocks and be long and twisty, and you can ensure your men fight even forces.

Also have a few squads of marksdwarves and places they can stand relatively unharmed and shoot from. They will help soften the enemies.

If you can get only one path 3 tiles wide going from the depot almost to the edge of the map, traders are forced to take it, and they will no longer enter in a random spot. Trap the route behind the depot with serrated disks spiked balls. If the military is not yet up to snuff, let the goblins pass over the traps and mull there while you train more.

None of that take much labor and that, alone, is already overkill. And you won't lose anyone who did not sneak off to go fishing on a faraway, exposed area of the map.

[thegoatgod_pan]

A raising bridge is all you need.

Seriously, if you raise your bridge and lock a siege out you have:

A.  all the time in the world to get your militia dressed and guarding a bend in the passage leading to the entrance (important to keep you safe from their archers by breaking line-of-sight and to outnumber the goblins one by one as they make the turn)

B. All the time in the world to get archers in position to shoot down.

C. All the time in the world. period. If the siege is nothing but archers lead by master lashers and lashers lead by master archers, just sit it out, it will go away in a season or two. Just don't have a shoot out that leads to a tantrum spiral and you will be fine.

[EvilBob22]

A raising bridge is all you need.

Seriously, if you raise your bridge and lock a siege out you have:

A.  all the time in the world to get your militia dressed and guarding a bend in the passage leading to the entrance (important to keep you safe from their archers by breaking line-of-sight and to outnumber the goblins one by one as they make the turn)

B. All the time in the world to get archers in position to shoot down.

C. All the time in the world. period. If the siege is nothing but archers lead by master lashers and lashers lead by master archers, just sit it out, it will go away in a season or two. Just don't have a shoot out that leads to a tantrum spiral and you will be fine.

I agree.  Have the lever for the drawbridge out of sight of the front.  If you are out-numbered, let a few in, pull the bridge shut, and then have the military take care of the smaller group.  (Rinse and repeat.)  If you take too many losses, or there are just too many there, turtle-up and wait for them to leave.

The fort I'm in now took the first two sieges a few at a time, the next few by standing inside, and a little back from the open door, and since then has been hitting them head-on.  I have an 80 strong military with about 65 legendaries.  They are split into squads based on weapon: 10 axe, 10 spear, 10 mace, 10 hammer, 10 crossbow, 10 sword, 10 lashers, 10 bow.  (The non-legendaries are the bow squad and a few of the lashers and hammerers.)

[Tapeworm]

Whenever I want to set up a military quickly, I set two dwarves as my fighters: each gets points in their weapon skill and trainer, making demonstrations more  profitable. One of them gets points in Shield and Armor use, and the other gets points in Dodging. This way they spar frequently and give useful demonstrations; it's very simple and low-maintenance, and these two soldiers can later serve as dedicated trainers for recruits.