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[enizer]

ok, i survived my first major siege, 50 or so goblins, all riding cave crawlers, with a bunch of trolls?
first i scramble to get everyone indoors, most of them make it,
the goblins chase them to the front of my fort, where they fight my animals, including two tigers and one lion,
a a few cave crawlers find my aqueduct and charge in there, and stopp at a cliff i left in there, then spend the rest of the battle confused
my marksdwarves shoot out the enterance, at the fight
my elite marksdwarves run out of ammo, and charge in to beat the goblins with their crossbows... there were almost no survivors
the goblins are now scattered
the human caravan decides to bail at this point and charges out, they make it almost intact
then the goblins charge my base again, run through a trap corridor, and after heading ALL the way through it, lose morale and charge back out through the traps

now, i have a few things i dont quite understand..
1: a few of my dwarves ignored a burrow i had activated and set for everyone, and set out to fix traps, i never got those guys to even try to run indoors, did i miss anything?
2: even forbidding everying on the map did not allow me to read the message list, it was spammed out by "inaccessible item", can i filter the message list somehow? i know there is something out of reach, i dont care...
3: the last i heard from the goblins were 5 confused guys who were messed up by a dog and one angry Coati, what the hell happened to scale?
4: is there any way to prevent marksdwarves from trying to fist-fight the goblins when they run out of ammo? i'm pretty sure some of those guys would have lived had they not decided to go charge insead of fetching more ammo..
and 5: will the goblins slow down now? or? i'm going to have to restart my military from novices, i'm pretty sure i cant take another fight like that soon

[Snaake]

ok, i survived my first major siege, 50 or so goblins, all riding cave crawlers, with a bunch of trolls?
first i scramble to get everyone indoors, most of them make it,
the goblins chase them to the front of my fort, where they fight my animals, including two tigers and one lion,
a a few cave crawlers find my aqueduct and charge in there, and stopp at a cliff i left in there, then spend the rest of the battle confused
my marksdwarves shoot out the enterance, at the fight
my elite marksdwarves run out of ammo, and charge in to beat the goblins with their crossbows... there were almost no survivors
the goblins are now scattered
the human caravan decides to bail at this point and charges out, they make it almost intact
then the goblins charge my base again, run through a trap corridor, and after heading ALL the way through it, lose morale and charge back out through the traps

now, i have a few things i dont quite understand..
1: a few of my dwarves ignored a burrow i had activated and set for everyone, and set out to fix traps, i never got those guys to even try to run indoors, did i miss anything?
2: even forbidding everying on the map did not allow me to read the message list, it was spammed out by "inaccessible item", can i filter the message list somehow? i know there is something out of reach, i dont care...
3: the last i heard from the goblins were 5 confused guys who were messed up by a dog and one angry Coati, what the hell happened to scale?
4: is there any way to prevent marksdwarves from trying to fist-fight the goblins when they run out of ammo? i'm pretty sure some of those guys would have lived had they not decided to go charge insead of fetching more ammo..
and 5: will the goblins slow down now? or? i'm going to have to restart my military from novices, i'm pretty sure i cant take another fight like that soon

1. Sure you set the burrow as a civilian alert burrow correctly? Don't have much of a clue here though, haven't had much trouble myself.
2. You shouldn't need to forbid everything on the map, the surface should do? There's no way to filter the message list in-game. You can adjust announcements.txt out of the game, but of course then you'll be wondering why your dwarves are just standing around since they're not telling you with their "item inaccessible" spam. Check on top of trees for items, bolts and knocked out teeth can end up there (get them down by chopping down the tree).
3. I don't understand your question? Scale what? Strength through numbers? Doesn't matter that much if they're already fleeing and probably wounded.
4. Have them shoot from behind fortifications 1 z-level up (use a station order). If they don't have access to the enemies on their own z-level, they should just stay put and shoot. Then you might run into problems with getting them to get more ammo; I hear the solution to that is to make it a patrol order instead, with 1 stop at the shooting spot, and another at the ammo stockpile, which shouldn't have any enemies visible. When they run out of ammo, they should continue the patrol, and when they're out of sight of enemies, they should resupply.
5. Nope, goblins don't really slow down, or at least stop. I've heard of people fighting sieges 1-2 times a year for years... and then get 2-3 years without a siege. I hear it's tied to fortress wealth, mostly. I just had a siege both in summer and autumn in my fort, was almost done cleaning up the first... and now there's loads more to clear with the second.

[BlackFlyme]

1: Does the burrow cover the traps? That may cause it.

2: I believe going into the (o)rders menu and changing the job cancellation option (x) may help. I'm not sure if this works, though. Though if everything was forbidden I don't know what they were trying to do.

3: I'm not quite sure what you mean by scale.

4: When you see that they have run out of ammo, try setting their squad to inactive so that they will revert to civilians and run from the goblins and into the burrow. Or you could alter the crossbows raws to make it a more viable weapon in combat.

5: It's fairly random, I've had a fort go 8 years without a single snatcher, and another where I was under siege year 2.

[enizer]

oh, by scale i meant the scale of the attacking force, i went from 5 useless goblins attacking me, and getting repelled by livestock, to the next attack being 50 mounted elites, i was expecting/hoping for some middle step..

and the human caravan left their entire load of useless crap.. yeah, i'm thinking it's time to wall up the outside...

edit: and yeah, the cancellation spam confused me, i'm sure i forbid everything, it didnt even slow down the spam..

[TheDarkStar]

If you want to stop large sieges, make traps. Weapon traps (with serrated discs/spiked balls) are deadly, although they will occasionally jam. Making traps that force the goblins to dodge away (and off an edge into a deep hole, 25 z-levels should be enough) is also very effective. If you have a lot of marksdwarves, put them on either side of the entrance with fortifications there to protect them. If you are willing to exploit some game mechanics, you can use danger rooms (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room explains how) for fast legendary training (but make sure the dwarves have armor).

[mirrizin]

A small related question: I've been running a highly successful fort for 10 game years, and have yet to see a single mounted goblin. What do I have to do to attract these infamous cave crawlers? They sound like so much Fun!

That said...

Another recommendation for trap corridors. As described, You can make a dodge em trap catwalk like 20 urists long (make it snake back and forth if space is an issue) and make sure the only staircase up from the pit puts them back at the beginning. The obsessive AI will send them down the same catwalk again and again until they retreat. And if you seal off the entrance...well, goblins have their own kind of Fun.

I think DF has little sense of scale, once you're big enough to draw a siege you'll keep drawing them. Just be ready when you hit that line.

[Blargg Loves Biscuits]

If you are willing to exploit some game mechanics, you can use danger rooms (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room explains how) for fast legendary training (but make sure the dwarves have armor).

I like to balance danger rooms by only putting in 2-3 spears at most and stop them completely around skilled or talented. It gets them to start sparring as they should, and still takes an adequate amount of time to get them to that point. Also, make sure your dwarves have cloaks! Having an entire military with bashed open noses and ears can lead to an unexpected demise down the road.