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[StupidElves]

Well, after reading about how someone else likes to use trenches in Dwarf Mode when it comes to defense in Design of a Fortress, I figured that this would be a good place to start up this topic.

What is your preferred method of defending your fortress?

I personally prefer building trenches in the beginning and having marksdwarves waiting in the areas above the trenches and having a group of melee dwarves inside the trenches waiting to clobber the nearest goblin that gets close enough.

If I ever find magma then I work to pump it up and into a basin that has several floodgates keeping it from going to the outside world unless a lever is pulled. And every time I forget to disband the squads and they always scream from inside the trenches as they burn.

[Eidre]

I usually build my fort with a checkerboard entryway (four wide, so there are two paths for dwarves to walk through from any point), with a line of cage traps on the outside to catch any early megabeasts or werecreatures.

Next, a drawbridge outside the entry to completely block access to anything too nasty (titans, etc).

Once I have a metal industry set up, I make a bunch of serrated iron disks and spiked iron balls and set up weapon traps with one of each throughout the checkerboard to kill goblins that might be chasing my stragglers as they run inside.  At this point I also move the cage traps from the outside to the inside, as a last line of defense (I don't really like having large numbers of caged goblins).

Finally, I set up a fairly large barracks just inside the checkerboard entryway, with doors between to block line of sight (so my idiot berserking military doesn't charge outside when they first see a goblin).

By the time the first siege shows up (hopefully), I burrow everyone inside, muster the whole militia on the far side of the barracks from the entry checkerboard doors (so none of them peek through accidentally), and watch the invaders chainsaw themselves into little bitty bits trying to get to the doors; if any make it through (sometimes enough attack to jam all of the traps and/or a goblin elite has good enough defensive skills to avoid the traps), they walk through the door directly into the barracks and the whole militia unloads at them simultaneously.

Once the siege breaks and the surviving goblins start heading for the hills, I assign the whole military to kill all of them (usually from the 'list') to allow them to gain some experience (and to clear out any mangled but living goblins dragging themselves through the entryway so the civilians can go out and gather goblinite).

When I breach the first caverns, I usually set up a line of cage traps across the one entrance (to catch mole dogs and other annoyances) and a cave-in trap (a last resort against forgotten beasts that I don't think my militia can handle).

[Beast Tamer]

Depending on the layout of the area I alter the way my defenses are. If on a mostly flat plain I dig a dry moat or two as a starting point, then put walls with fortifications behind it once my brick making industry starts up. While that's happening I select the area where I want my entrance, put a drawbridge connecting my fort to the mainland, then make a long walkway from the bridge to the outside of my fort. Outside the fort I pave the ground so that trees don't grow and create cover from my marksmen.

Once all that is done, I separate my fort into sections: Military, trading storage, and administrative dwarf section (1st from the outside), industry and agriculture (2nd), and residential and emergency fallback (3rd, with a huge stockpile of food, booze, and a hospital). All are separated by drawbridges, and I always have two people burrowed in the lever pulling house- waiting for the go to activate the bridges or otherwise alter the battlefield. So far, using this configuration, I have only lost one fort- and that to a sneaky necromancer that came in before my wall finished going up.

If in a mountainous or hilly area, I essentially make a tower with only one way in; still following the above method.

[ospamiony]

As the main entrance I use a long passage. It is guarded by chained war dogs as sentries to detect sneaking goblins, necromancers. The passage can be sealed by draw bridges from either side. There are fortifications above alowing marksdwarfs to eliminate anything that gets caught in between. The passage needs to be long enough to allow sealing it before an ambush gets through it (ambushes are sometimes detected by sentry dogs, so there's little time to pull the lever).

The secondary entrance splits into two narrow corridors. One has ATOM smashers (i.e. for zombies) and the second one has cage traps along the way (for goblins, dragons). Both corridors can be flooded with water (in case something cannot be ATOM smashed or the were to little cages). They lead to an arena where, as a last stand defense, I can open cells with FBs or human demon diplomat.

For lever pulling I use doctors. I always want them to be ready to heal people, so they don't have any jobs assigned. The positive side effect is that they are usually available for lever pulling.

[FallenAngel]

I find that one single drawbridge blocking the only way in works wonders.
Seriously.
Drawbridges are my only defense - I let the soldiers get out first, obviously.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Raw, dwarven stupidity prowess.

Seriously.

I don't use traps. My dwarves are hand-picked (I spend a lot of time reading up on their stats in personal pref screen and pick the strongest) and don't even bother to danger room. Sure, we take lots of losses, but...

One time, in a game where I refused to use drawbridges and had two, disgustingly large gaping holes in my defense, I had a dwarf that was so UNDENIABLY BADASS, that I sent her, alone, out into a siege of 150+ goblins. I had her tomb already cut out and ready, complete with gold trims and a gem-decorated adamantine sarcophagus, gold statues and gold chains for her pets, to be buried with her. I thought a hero's death would be fitting as her final send off.

NOPE, she just killed about 25 of the goblins in around 15 seconds and the rest of them bolted. Raw, dwarven combat prowess. And.. maybe full adamantine gear helped.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had to savescum a couple times when she died to CHEATER FORGOTTEN BEASTS, don't you judge me, danger-room users!

[Remuthra]

My favorite meatgrinders are the sniper balcony and the minecart shotgun. For the first, I dig a nice long passage between my fortress entrance and the surface, and dig it two z-levels high. On the second level, fortifications are carved with marksdwarves stationed in a one-tile channel directly behind them, along with ammo stockpiles, so they can shoot down on the enemy in complete invulnerability. For the second, I mass-produce green glass disks and load them by the hundreds into minecarts, then collide them with specially-created flintlocks, sending a hail of flak through a chamber consisting of a large maze walled in fortifications. Second one is funnier, but takes more work.

If I really feel inspired, I combine shotguns loaded with soap, a lava drencher, and minecarts loaded with green disk-shaped "scrubbing solution" and proceed to make a dwarven dishwasher to clean invaders.

[Frostea]

Usually I go with a highly skilled militia and drawbridge,  but recently I've been warning up to the idea of national conscript system. Basically, everyone is conscripted and handed copper helm, breastplate and a battle axe. They rotate in training. Only the minimal amount of dwarves required to keep the fort running will be off duty at any point. This usually means the farmers, cook, brewer and smithy. There's a core force of 10-20 dwarves fully clad in the best equipments, which expands as I am able to, depending on the scarcity of metals. This means no traps are needed. Pure dwarven badassery will kick the butt of any would-be invader.

[Skuggen]

I usually have a main entrance with a drawbridge and a back door with traps. I tend to play with fairly low population limits, so my military doesn't go beyond 1 melee and 1 ranged squad. I've started paying more attention to the military equipment, though (meaning specifying their equipment instead of just letting them grab whatever they want), so might start relying more on the military.

[Melting Sky]

I usually run multiple redundant layers of defense. Outside I begin with a trench dry moat and guard animals pastured at the edges of the map as an early warning system. Then I have my underground entrance followed by a long hallway with guard beasts and a catwalk with  deep pits running down both sides. I put a ton of weapon traps on the walkway. I have fortifications overlooking this set up so my marksdwarves can shoot things as they enter the catwalk. Down below I have the collection pits for the trap dodgers from above. I normally have a draw bridge entrances to the pit to let my melee dwarves, pet monsters etc. in to play with unwelcome guests. This collection room also has fortified walls overlooking it from above so marksdwarves can pepper particularly dangerous foes that fall in and still pose too much of a threat to deal with directly in melee. If the foe is so dangerous that even that isn't safe, I flood the room with magma. I also put draw bridges before and after the catwalk as a final layer of mechanical defense. If all else fails and the enemy still manages to get in then they face my melee dwarves.

I'm in the middle of adding a dragon flame thrower pill box to the mix as well.

[Matoro]

Professional military. I tie random migrant pets to be my guard animals in the gate. They detect hidden invaders and then I send the militia to kick their asses. Or if there's a lot of bad guys, I'll use bottleneck defense in my long, 3-tile wide gate corridor. Sometimes I even build fortifications or walls for marksdwarves to control large areas. Traps are only used in cavern levels to keep unwanted animals out; I have had only once full-trap based defense system with Boatmurderesque grinding corridors and enormous amounts of serrated discs. It is really damn effective, it felt a bit too easy.

[Fluoman]

Usually I simply go into lockdown and turtle it out. It doesn't work with undead sieges.
When I expect The Undead, I do a short trap hall, with no more than 5 tiles without a turn (to break line of sight for non undead attackers) where my military (always full masterwork steel, but most of the time undertrained) will fight in case of a siege. If they get knocked out, they get skewered, but that's alright.
Never crossbows. Too much micromanagement for me.

[fragfish]

A huge military. Drawbridges and walled roads are used to herd attackers into my Arena, and to cut off their retreat. In my current fort, I have 3 Elite Squads and 8 Militia Squads - the difference is largely in equipment (steel/adamantine VS iron), as almost all of them are legendary skilled.

Nothing lasts particularly long against one hundred dwarven heroes, and a goblin siege can count itself lucky if it manages to inflict a bruise on someone - though that might also be because they were always outnumbered, maybe they'll bring more bodies in the future.

Even my crafters have military training and equipment, though they are not usually drafted - unless I want to attack something from range, as my "real" military uses "real" weapons - melee weapons.

Entrance to the fort is through an elite squad barracks, so any thieves that make it there meet a quick end. Caverns are sealed off by a simple drawbridge, so my Elite Cavern Guard can cross all the z-levels and gather before whatever threat arrived makes it into the fort.

I'm hoping I meet something challenging in the future, but so far everything went down pretty fast. The bronze colossus deserves honourable mention for staying alive a couple days while my melee horde was beating on him, but he didn't land a hit. I did not yet encounter anything with webs, that might be interesting given I'm basically all melee.

[Skuggen]

Oddly, I wasn't at all worried about giant cave spiders until I started reading the forums, since the only two times I encountered them before that my mediocre squads took them down easily with no injuries

[Loud Whispers]

When Necromancers are involved, the level of Fortification has to be legendary. Moats, ditches and walls have to cover the even larger curtain walls, all of it securing the surface. Fortresses have to branch off into more Fortresses, the overworld must be divided into sections by ditches, towers and gatehouses and ever bedroom and every dining hall must become a part of the Fortress if it is to survive.

When no such necromancers are involved, that is when the trenches can be brought out. A series of channels in the ground, curved and staggered so as to ensure that even creatures within the trenches never have more than 5 tiles of straight line of sight, meandering throughout the entirety of the map to allow a quick redeployment of large numbers of soldiers even under heavy fire.

In either case, the bulk of the defence relies on mass ranks of Dwarven soldiers. It matters not whether the original starting 7 managed to set up the Fort's first elite shocktrooper squads, the massed ranks are what keep the Fort running in times of panic. When the goblins arrive, send in the massed ranks. When the zombies arrive, send in the massed ranks. When the Titans arrive, massed ranks again and again.

The constant attrition on the massed ranks means that eventually the Dwarves are whittled down, and as they are whittled down the surviving Dwarves have the benefit of all their years of training and fighting and they gain access to any better equipment the fallen Dwarves held. In this process, the concentration of skills and equipment increases until the massed ranks of soldiers have gone from recruits to elite soldiers in their own right.