Settled my fort Cakeshot somewhere with at least a dozen towers as neighbors. Plus, my civ is at war with elves. From the beginning, I can't get the population over 14. A small rundown:
1st try - Everything started fine, the first wave of migrants came and soon after, a small siege of undead elven soldiers. The siege lasted a whole year, to my luck they never moved closer to the main entrance. I've took the time to put up some walls, but with only 14 dwarves also taking care of food in general, things were slow.
A short while after the siege was lifted, the zombies began walking aimlessly. Soon after, a dwarven caravan arrived with no liaison (guess the civ is nearly dead) and the zombies somehow managed to start attacking them and my dwarves.
As if that wasn't bad enough for me, a new undead siege came soon after. Horrified dwarves fleeing the safety of the inside, climbing up trees as if they were monkeys and running straight towards zombies ended with my fort crumbling a first time.
2nd try - Brought extra booze this time around, since the old fort had quite some food. Reclaimed everything, stockpiled food and noticed a strange bug/glitch that showed an alert for each of the old 7 original dwarves in pink, but only their names. One rose as a ghost and that was it. A few seconds before summer, came the first siege, this time goblins. They went straight to one of the walled entrances and mostly fell to my cage traps. Though one remained at the border, unmoving, the siege went on until mid-autumn. To my relief, sometime after the siege ended, my first wave of immigrants arrived.
In the meantime, I decided to try and cage all goblins in a single built cage. Single biggest mistake fun. As one dwarf approached the cage, the goblin somehow managed to shoot his arrows, hitting my manager/broker/bookkeeper and a metalsmith. Chaos erupted as these mangled-yet-still-alive sods started wandering back and fort near my main stairs, horrifying other dwarves, canceling all kinds of jobs. I set up a militia and attacked the goblin, killing it. Soon, I've found 3 dwarves up in trees, not wanting to climb down (one of them going as far as "Attending meeting" high up in a tree with nobody, he came down during a tantrum and went back to tree to the "meeting").
As I write this, they're enduring another siege that will last a while because a goblin doesn't move from the border. Only 5 are alive but at least all of them can work. But I know that sooner or later, they will fall. They will spend most of their time creating more traps, to ensure the next generation will be properly protected within the walls of Cöskeskal, the Cakeshot fort.