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[blaholdings]

....and why there were caravan guards permanently stationed at my depot.  I finally realized three years later that I had finish construction of a wall around the depot WHILE the dwarven caravan was in town.  I had (mistakenly) assumed the caravan could leave through a doorway.  The traders left and the emissary left, but since the wagons couldn't leave, the guards didn't leave, and since those two didn't leave, my wealth status was never reported and no migrants ever showed up.  I guess the positive of this is that I had 3 strong caravan guards to protect my entrance during the 3 8-man goblin ambushes I received in a row in my 3rd year.

This brings about a question though ... how are ya'll defending your trade depots with a 3 tile wide opening to allow for wagons?  Is it feasible to simply destroy and rebuild the wall every time a wagon caravan shows up?

[sjmarshy]

it's possible to link up wall grates to levers, making nice little portculisses. thats what I do, four wall grates to one lever = gate.

[blaholdings]

Ahh, good to know .... could you use floodgates in the same way?

[Skid]

Drawbridges and moats.  Of course, I always build my trade depot deep inside my fortress so it gets the same defense that everything else does.

[Aranna]

Ahh, good to know .... could you use floodgates in the same way?

You can use floodgates connected to a lever. As wagons can go pass floodgates. Hope this helps 

[Proteus]

....
This brings about a question though ... how are ya'll defending your trade depots with a 3 tile wide opening to allow for wagons?  Is it feasible to simply destroy and rebuild the wall every time a wagon caravan shows up?

My trade depot is always behind a tunnel that is near my main stairs.

Its defenses depend on the location. Normally I try to put the main entracne (that leads to the trade depot) at a height of 1-2 levels above ground, reachable only by a retractable bride (that can be retracted by a trigger that is within good reach of my dining hall (= meeting hall).

In my current fortress however I was forced to make the main entrance at ground level (just a couple of ramps leading one level deeper to the tunnel that lead to the trade depot.
Therefore as soon as I could I built a keep atop the entrance, as well as 2 rings of castle walls around it. You can only get past these 3 lines of defense (each independent and able to fire at the next outer line of defense, should this be breached) by a long way of platforms and retractable bridges that are 1 level above ground. (with a guard animal being chained at the place where ramps lead up to the first platform, so that kidnappers, thieves and ambushes can be detected before they reach the first wall.

All bridges are (in groups) connected to levers next to the dining hall. 
Well, at the moment, as my miners had some time at hand, I also made a long tunnel (protected by bridges with moats, as well as several cage traps) that leads to an entrance near one of the spots near the map border, where usually the human and elven caravans tend to appear, so that the wagons are better protected from ambushes and thieves that might be active in the countryside (a human caravan wagon detected a kobold thief once; obviously the Arnold Schwarzenegger among the kobolds, as he was able to demolish the wagon before he fled, causing the caravan to iummediately travel back home) 

[RogerN]

I recommend using a drawbridge.  You don't need to dig a moat - just treat it like a paved road.  The advantage of a drawbridge is that you only need one set of mechanisms to control it, as opposed to linking three or more floodgates or wall grates.

[duro]

I recommend using a drawbridge.  You don't need to dig a moat - just treat it like a paved road.

However note that if you want to dig a moat later, you cannot channel directly on the tiles covered by the bridge (even if raised), so at least [d]ig some [r]amps beneath it (except for the tiles where the bridge will act as a wall, of course).

[motorbitch]

put the depod under earth. have a drawbridge in front of the 3x1 ramps that lead down. have 3x3 weapon traps with 3 wooden spiked balls each in front of the bridge. have 3 war dogs behind the ramps (underearth).
this will keep off smaller ambushes. for lager invarsions, have a narrow sideway leading to the ramps, bypassing the bridge. heavy trap it.

alternately (and much more funny): have military dwarfs early on and kill the gobbos the hornor full way.

[numerobis]

Who says you have to protect the caravan?

[Eatnobles4breakfast]

personaly, i have a "causeway" across my magma pool, and my depot is surrounded by engraved floor and above the magma pit because i pumped water onto it for a while...it looks cool, but i guess it's not the best defense...

[Rhenaya]

i have an open 3 tile passage through my entire fort to the depot with the finished goods stockpile, guarded by chained war dogs on the entrance (helps a lot against thiefs and snatchers ^^) also barracks are near the entrance to quickly deploy on sieges on the guard posts.

like this: http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5605/entrancekb2.png

[betamax]

I don't bother defending it. When the caravan comes, it comes with its own guards. Why should I go to the trouble of guarding it myself?

(Although in my current fort, the trade depot is inside, so it's defended by the moat and ballistae that defend my whole fortress.)

[Soralin]

I built a drowning trap over my 3 square entrance.  Water is pumped up into a holding tank over a long enclosed entrance area, and there's a set of pressure switches around the middle of the passage, when those are hit, it sets off a series of events that opens a hatch in the ceiling to the water tank, and closes the floodgates on either end, drowning anything inside.  Once everything inside is good and dead, I can pull a couple of levers to reset the trap, and drain out the water, and when it's drained out the floodgates open back up again and it's ready to go.  The tank holds twice as much water as is needed to fill the corridor, and it's continuously being refilled by pumps.

Sure, a bunch of single-tile traps would have been much quicker and cheaper to build, but this was more interesting.

[hexrei]

I don't bother to defend my TD. I send my trader back inside during sieges or extended ambushes, and if the caravanners get killed, hey, free stuff!