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[gtaguy]

Magma cannon triggered by a pressure plate. It opens a door and releases the minecart horde. Fortifications and impulse ramps do wonders when combined with magma.

Plus it disposes all the unwanted goblinite and leaves all the more precious concentrated goblinite.

[Panando]

Well I remember my favourite defence worked like this. I built a large cistern in the sky, and pumped magma into it from the magma sea. Most of the floors were actually retracting bridges. When invaders came, a simple pull of the lever flooded the entire map with magma.

The pump stack itself could deliver a pretty apocalyptic flow of magma because a massive row of pumps drew magma from the map edge (where it refreshes fastest) and force-fed the pumpstack, so if I wanted to I could keep the entire surface perpetually flooded with magma.

[hops]

I usually have a long, snaking trao hallway. I take in traders from a separate entrance which can be isolated witha. few lever pulls, keeping the fort and my dwarves safe. Of course, I also pen a ridiculous amount of dogs to help spot ambushes.

[Witty]

Putting 6 or 7 seven axe lords between the Thing and my fort tends to solve the problem pretty well.

[Baffler]

Has anyone ever tried putting trenches outside for marksdwarves? Will they stand on a ramp and shoot, or do they need fortifications and a place to stand? I was thinking of trying this now that I can get marksdwarves to work. My usual mainstay is a mob of lightly armed and armored speardwarves with a tiny core of elite swordsdwarves in case things go poorly. I don't usually use traps, just pure dwarfpower and chokepoints.

[puke]

my military knowledge is antiquated, but I can't imagine that this has changed between versions:

Being adjacent to a fortification makes you harder to hit from range, as well as protecting you completely from melee.  Elevation gives a slight range boost to archers,  so high platforms are beneficial.

l

[FrankMcFuzz]

my military knowledge is antiquated, but I can't imagine that this has changed between versions:

Being adjacent to a fortification makes you harder to hit from range, as well as protecting you completely from melee.  Elevation gives a slight range boost to archers,  so high platforms are beneficial.

l

I actually heard that being elevated reduces the range 'as crossbow range is measured in a 3-dimensional diagonal shape', but this could be wrong.

[Ramaraunt]

I hire a yak to command my army.

[WoobMonkey]

I hire a yak to command my army.

Just right now, or.... wait for it... in general?

[Lich180]

Walls, doors, and dwarfs clad in local materials. I've had great success with copper-only military (including weapons) in vanilla, since nothing really comes on the surface that copper and bone can't handle.

Of course, I prefer iron and steel, but rarely do I get candy, and what I do get is meant for statues and such, not armor and weapons when steel is almost as good.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Walls, doors, and dwarfs clad in local materials. I've had great success with copper-only military (including weapons) in vanilla, since nothing really comes on the surface that copper and bone can't handle.

Of course, I prefer iron and steel, but rarely do I get candy, and what I do get is meant for statues and such, not armor and weapons when steel is almost as good.

Due to how light candy armour is, steel is nowhere near as good :O

[Arcvasti]

I'm partial to having trap hallways filled with serrated discs. Little bits of goblin everywhere. That plus some surface archer towers and some hammer-armed iron or steel clad dwarves usually end up being both fun and difficult to breach. Although lately I've been using more creative methods like danger-rooming goblins and training exotic beasts and dropping them on enemies.

[Elagn]

In my fortresses, ive been digging a large pit several layers deep. Over it is a 1 by 10 retracting bridge, a preasure pad, then another 1 by 10 retracting bridge.
Goblins run on, hit pad, bridges retract, and they all get to go swimming. Ive even devised a system using bridges and draining to retreave what they had on them, and i could even do so while more are being killed. My system is fully automate.
My only problem has been one goblin out of many who could cross the whole bridge before it retracted, that's why i now keep nasty creatures at the end in my fortress. Gotta love kingsnakes brutaly injecting poison into the hapless invaders while jaguirs rip them apart.

I also have a wall surrounding my fort, with a drawbridge entrance for the merchants. I have some cage traps around to get warnings of ambushes, catch test subjects, and interesting animals.

After a while, i will create a military for some usage, but often not for a few years.

[Frostea]

Personally, I put barracks at every entrance to the fort and always keep at least 40% of the fort enlisted in the military. When possible, I enlist everyone to solve the clothing issues, leaving only a few for mining. But that's for extremely matured forts. The best defense is a great offense... or something like that. Traps are nice but I feel that the metal you spend making traps is better off as more equipment for the military.

[PDF urist master]

a one tile wall surrounding my entire fortress with a ring of fortifications around that wall. when the gates close, only flying enemies and elite crossbowmen can penetrate through. My only two gates into the fort are guarded by giant cave spiders and war bears.

underground, I have a shitton of furniture traps and a giant cave spider/cage trap (I modded them to be breedable) corridor for every main cavern level. I created a lockdown lever that blocks every entrance to the caverns with raised drawbridges.