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[Abadayos]

Hey all.

I have just started up a new fort, well just about to start one. I have used this seed before  and now modified it to be nice and nasty with loads of Titans and Megabeasts still around after my 2014 year long generation. It took almost 1,800 years for it to struggle out of the Age of Myth and I look forward to a load of interesting engravings and tales when I eventually do an adventure mode on it.

Now my question is, what sort of defensive method and lay out do you all use? Do you just do the easy (and boring) method of a drawbridge? Or a long snaking trap corridor 1 block wide with a 3-5 x-level drop each side for dodge kills (with a much longer 3 wide caravan friendly detour that invaders never take)? Magma traps? Minecart cannons/shotguns? Do you end up with archer towers with underground tunnels beneath them with patrol orders? Or with enclosed walls with fortifications connecting your towers to corral invaders and pelt them with bolts as they make for the 'safety' of your fortress entrance? How about animal landmines or guard animal outposts before/after your traps? Or do you simply ignore all of this nonsense and just have steel equipped behemoths of wars to march out and face the enemy on the glorious field of battle?

Usually I do a serpentine trap system with fortifications on one side, a 4-x level deep drop to dodge into and balista's way back at the end or around a corner to get those that managed to somehow make it.

I'm interested in hearing how you do your defenses as I want to try something different but also effective without relying on drawbridges (they can be good on re-animation sites, but anywhere else I see them as cheap or boring, unless I'm doing !SCIENCE! then it's fair game.

[Varnifane]

A liberal application of steel encased dwarves.

[wierd]

Creative abuse of bridges and pressure plates, coupled with high walls and vertical spikes.

Spoiler: whee! (click to show/hide)

Essentially, it's the "hallway method", only with a twist. To gain entry to the fortress, one must walk on top of a wall. A very tall wall. On the wall is a series of long raising bridges with pressure plate activators. Goblins or trolls step on the plate(s), which activates the bridge. Walkway is only 1x tile wide, but 10x tiles long. Random nature of the bridgeapult makes them land in a randomized pattern around the area, but because they are VERY high up, and the bridge is VERY narrow, the vast majority of them take a flight with a long drop and a sudden stop at the bottom. Usually involving "decorative fixtures" that would make vladamir teppes proud. Sadly, does not work on big invaders.

[WoobMonkey]

Steely beards, held in reserve behind a LOS-blocking wall or two, just inside the Traders' entrance.  Marksdorfs posted above said entrance, as necessary.

[jcochran]

Wagon accessible only trench around the border with a walker accessible "welcome center" that allows me to either cage unfriendlies, or feed them to a goblin grinder depending upon which path they choose.

[Guvnah]

A strong offense. 

[slothen]

I tend to do the following things in my defense design.

archers on the walls, sometimes with melee dwarves as cleanup
archers to shoot enemies crossing a bridge over a pit
archers to shoot prisoners or pitted enemies

water to drown enemies
flowing or falling water to knock enemies into a pit/trap/chasm

animals loitering about the surface to catch arrows and spot ambushes
animal pits for executing naked prisoners

Melee dwarves as mobile hit squads and rapid response
Melee dwarves as the second line of defense for when something screws up or a threat appears unexpectedly or in an unexpected place

Cage traps to get prisoners and non-trapavoid megabeasts
Random outside cagetraps to catch wildlife
Cagetraps to prevent prisoner escape

Weapontraps for early defense (I embark w/ ore)
Weapontraps for when I really don't want enemies to get past a certain location

Upright spikes for when I've got something elaborate planned.

[Swonnrr]

Very early, and as long as it can help, putting by big and dangerous animals as a living door.  20 dogs and 5 bulls are a nice defense against isolated goblins or bold kobold.

Then, spamming wooden training spears and putting them in weapon traps. If wood is an issue, i bring some serrated disks and 2 copper hammers.

When my industry takes off, serrated disk traps, silver maces or 30 marksdwarf with bone bolts eat anything not armored.

When the bigger threats come, i usually get creative. Minecart-shotgunning spears or serrated disks (yeah, i love those.) are effective to slow down a lot of things. Dogs get the ennemies busy.
A lead cart full of lead bars accelerated at full speed is a good way to clean a hallway.

But my favorite is this:
In some of my fortress, i only build every even levels.
Odd levels are were  "plumbing" goes. Early on it's water, then magma.
I airlocks evey aera. Workshops, stockpile, dining room... Where the dwarves are supposed to be.

When the bad happens, i regroup the dwarves in safety, lock the doors, and let the baddies in.
Then i flood the fortress.
All of it.
...
Then, when it's over, i flush it in the caverns.

Why not a simple drowning trap, do you ask?
...
No idea. It's awesome. Also magma.

[Button]

Entryway split. Short path goes over bridges-over-a-long-fall-sometimes-with-magma-or-spikes, with fortifications overlooking them, and is followed by a bunch of cage traps, an emergency hatch, and a 1-wide path by a dog for kobolds. Long path is for caravans but can be blocked off if necessary. Even shorter 'escape path' which is kept blocked off at all times except when then dwarven caravan arrives while humies are still packing up.

I usually like to make my fortresses inside a naturally-occurring hill or peak, and choose my sites accordingly. I remove all the ramps at entrance level and then can safely send marksdwarves to any point on the hill. (I make sure to put cage traps around my hill access door too, because rocs.)

[Crashmaster]

I'm a big fan of cave-in dust from various types of repeaters as nothing is immune to it. Knocks enemies off catwalks or against walls/ in the air. Animal watchtowers for intel.

[Victor6]

For goblin sieges \ megabeasts I'm really boring and just go for the old fashioned pathfinding abuse trap field - a big room \ island with a 3 space route around the edge for caravans, tons of traps in the centre, and atom smashers at either end to seal the room \ kill the stragglers who won't abandon a caged squad leader. - I tend to embark with a mechanic so it gives him something to do early on.

If I have decent magma access then everything just gets sealed underground and buried in obsidian - gotta keep those miners busy.

Caverns are marksdwarf + garbage chute setups. - There's few things that survive both, and those that do are far more fun to develop plans against on the fly rather than setup ahead of time and risk a gremlin.

[Emily Murkpaddled]

I use an active military for my main defense, and rely only slightly on a single wagon-accessible entryway to funnel siegers and ambushers into a predictable location. For entrances apart from the one I intend to fight at, I use retractable drawbridges or am just prepared to seal over the tile because I just don't care enough about wanderers from the cavern levels to have dedicated defenses there. If a GSC is going to wander into the fort I let it wander in and my military path to it instead of worrying about stopping it beforehand.

[Di]

All of it.
Firstly, there is double-barrelled watergun which becomes the only entrance when all bridges are raised. It is quite capable of stopping full blown goblin assault. Not terribly deadly though. It's mostly cascade of collisions which result into bruises and breaks. Especially for shorter accelerators. Also puts down several zombies in one shot.

Then there are shooters zapping around the map in a minecart. Quite satisfying to see, but most related fatalities are those of pilots and gigantic fauna that got in the way, even if bolts are covered in sure death syndromey contaminant.

Also there is pressured magma minefield. So far it only killed my fps. Seriously, pumps trying to press magma into a large already filled network of tunnels decreases frames from 30 to 20.  (edit or maybe not, hard to tell the reason in an old fort)

And of course, there is a handful of overtrained soldiers for dispatching a loose fb or berserk down there.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Melee dwarves, a good hospital, and determination.

Dear cheese makers and wax workers.
You are expendable.

[Cobbler89]

I'm a big fan of cave-in dust from various types of repeaters as nothing is immune to it. Knocks enemies off catwalks or against walls/ in the air. Animal watchtowers for intel.

Wait -- you can have repeating cave-in-dust traps? Instead of the ones that either have to be rebuilt (floors held up by a support) or have to be designated each time you want them fired (build a wall "supported" by only a bridge)? If so, I am unaware of how to do that and would love to know.