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[Tormy]

Allright lads, first off what is "siege"?
Let's check out the wiki:

"A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition and/or assault.
Sieges involve surrounding the target and blocking the reinforcement or escape of troops or provision of supplies, typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst or disease, which can afflict both the attacker or defender."

So, what I am suggesting is: Siege camps.
1. Invaders will start to set up one or more camps near the fortress upon their arrival. They build walls around the camp(s), tents or other small buildings, and set up traps around the walls.
2. The invaders will attack the fortress periodically from these camps.
3a. These camps won't be abandoned, only if the player completely destroys them -> wipes out all of the invaders [if all of the invaders will flee, that also means that the siege is over, and the siege camp will be abandoned]. If the number of the invaders in the camps are too low, they will receive reinforcements from their civilization, if it is possible.
3b. If the invaders are sieging the city for a couple of years, and they are unable to capture the fortress, there is a chance that they will give up the siege. [Example: If the fortress is under siege for 5 years -> seasonal RNG check from the beginning of the 6th year.]
4. While the siege camp is active, the caravans won't visit the fortress, and the player won't be able to send out patrols/armies at all to "interact with the world" [upcoming army arc feature]. Immigrants might try to join to the player's fortress, however -needless to say- it won't be quite safe for them, while the invaders are around.
5. Since Toady will implement siege engines/towers in the future, the invaders will be able to build these in the camps.

[Warlord255]

Any reason everything is struck out?

Right now, if I'm not mistaken, human sieges will make little campfires and congregate before attacking; perhaps this is a good starting method? The enemy sets up a camp and occupies it for about a month, with reenforcements flowing in slowly until you have the full legion, at which point they all start war-whooping and charge your gates in one horrendous mass. Since their caravan-blocking status only lasts while they're alive, however, you could feasibly take the offensive to end it early.

[Silverionmox]

I agree completely, but a siege should sometimes just have the aim of blockading, and not conquering.

[i are not good with compu]

"..., or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses"

That gives me an (admittedly mostly unrelated) idea myself.  Trojan caravans, anyone?

That aside, this siege system sounds much preferable to "unorganized mass attacks... unorganized mass gets cheese grated, unorganized mass runs away".

[Tormy]

Any reason everything is struck out?

Right now, if I'm not mistaken, human sieges will make little campfires and congregate before attacking; perhaps this is a good starting method? The enemy sets up a camp and occupies it for about a month, with reenforcements flowing in slowly until you have the full legion, at which point they all start war-whooping and charge your gates in one horrendous mass. Since their caravan-blocking status only lasts while they're alive, however, you could feasibly take the offensive to end it early.

Siege camps -> your fortress is under blockade also, as Silver pointed it out. Thus other civs won't send caravans to the player's fortress, because of the high risk, that they will loose them. It's quite logical.
Like you've said Warlord, the player can go offensive to wipe out the siegers. Basically these 2 things are the most important.
1. Blockade.
2. The player has the choice to..
a) Try to survive the siege without loosing a single dwarf, but it has it's downsides -> no caravans, no contact for a long time with the outside world.
b) Try to eliminate all of the invaders, but that means casualties.

[Neonivek]

Camp activities:

1) Dam Rivers (Or, though a LOT harder to program... Flood rivers into your fortress)
2) Create Workshops to make siege weapons and Ammo
3) Ambush Merchants
4) Start lines of Marksmens to stop you from firing upon them
5) Stop new migrants
6) Booby Trap the outside of your base (Imagine it! You attack... they retreat... BAMN you go through a forest of Weapon/Stonefall Traps)
7) Build a base/fort if they last long enough... A town if it lasts even longer
Consolidate even larger forces
9) Train and drill their units!
10) Train wildlife for war
11) Plant Totems and other haunting imagry to demoralise you
12) Plant Nets in Rivers so you cannot recieve fish
13) Start a system of tunnels
14) Sapping your base or starting a mass Sap (Imagine... Collasping your WHOLE fortress!)

[Impaler[WrG]]

A real siege would bring its own wagons, filled with supplies of food, ammo, fuel and siege weapon parts, one wagon per dozen invaders sounds about right to me.  Periodically additional wagons would arrive with more supplies and invaders. 

A tent item that military units can carry and set up to sleep in would be the basis for a camp, throw in a camp fire and it would look quite nice.

The camp would also have some defensive perimeter, perhapses some kind of crude 'rampart' of earth and sharpened sticks, their not impassible like walls but slow down a unit for a long time, defenders inside can shoot through it like fortification (but with less protection) and melle defenders inside can attack the those passing through with only a slightly reduced chance to hit, the unit passing through suffers a larger penalty when it retaliates.  It would be nice to build these yourself early in the game before a large wall is viable.

[Warlord255]

A real siege would bring its own wagons, filled with supplies of food, ammo, fuel and siege weapon parts, one wagon per dozen invaders sounds about right to me.  Periodically additional wagons would arrive with more supplies and invaders. 

A tent item that military units can carry and set up to sleep in would be the basis for a camp, throw in a camp fire and it would look quite nice.

The camp would also have some defensive perimeter, perhapses some kind of crude 'rampart' of earth and sharpened sticks, their not impassible like walls but slow down a unit for a long time, defenders inside can shoot through it like fortification (but with less protection) and melle defenders inside can attack the those passing through with only a slightly reduced chance to hit, the unit passing through suffers a larger penalty when it retaliates.  It would be nice to build these yourself early in the game before a large wall is viable.

Why build walls when you can use TRENCH WARFARE?

[Grumman]

4. While the siege camp is active, the caravans won't visit the fortress, and the player won't be able to send out patrols/armies at all to "interact with the world" [upcoming army arc feature]. Immigrants might try to join to the player's fortress, however -needless to say- it won't be quite safe for them, while the invaders are around.

I disagree with this. If they are blockading every entrance, sure, stop any merchants getting through, but there's no reason why a few dozen goblins sitting at one gate should do anything to prevent merchants coming through another gate halfway across the map, if there's a river and cliffs physically preventing the goblins from getting close.

1) Dam Rivers (Or, though a LOT harder to program... Flood rivers into your fortress)

No. Not even dwarfs can dam rivers reliably, so I can't see the AI doing it without cheating.

6) Booby Trap the outside of your base (Imagine it! You attack... they retreat... BAMN you go through a forest of Weapon/Stonefall Traps)

Some weak traps might be in order, but an army that is out in the open, potentially under constant observation by the nearby fortress, should not be anywhere near as effective at setting up traps as a fortress full of dwarfs that have the home-ground advantage and years to prepare.

14) Sapping your base or starting a mass Sap (Imagine... Collasping your WHOLE fortress!)

No. Why do people keep suggesting that giving unshootable enemies "Rocks fall, everyone dies" attacks is fun!?

[LegoLord]

A real siege would bring its own wagons, filled with supplies of food, ammo, fuel and siege weapon parts, one wagon per dozen invaders sounds about right to me.  Periodically additional wagons would arrive with more supplies and invaders. 

A tent item that military units can carry and set up to sleep in would be the basis for a camp, throw in a camp fire and it would look quite nice.

The camp would also have some defensive perimeter, perhapses some kind of crude 'rampart' of earth and sharpened sticks, their not impassible like walls but slow down a unit for a long time, defenders inside can shoot through it like fortification (but with less protection) and melle defenders inside can attack the those passing through with only a slightly reduced chance to hit, the unit passing through suffers a larger penalty when it retaliates.  It would be nice to build these yourself early in the game before a large wall is viable.

Why build walls when you can use TRENCH WARFARE?

Because it's a totally ineffective waste of lives, resources, and time.

[Neonivek]

"No. Why do people keep suggesting that giving unshootable enemies "Rocks fall, everyone dies" attacks is fun!?"

Because if you leave them alone your going to eventually lose unless they themselves lose interest.

Your supposed to be pro-active and deal with them WAY before they have any chance to pull off one of these plans. It would take years before they could collapse your whole fortress... if they succeeded, no offense but it would be your own fault since it would be as if you were intentionally trying to lose.

Even without a "You just lose if you ignore us" strategy they can still potentially pick you off person by person while not letting you recieve migrants and thus defeat you simply because you lack the dwarves at that point to take them out in one glorious battle. (Good time to abandon and retake)

Heck the 2d fortress had quite a few "You just lose no matter what you do" situations.

"Some weak traps might be in order, but an army that is out in the open, potentially under constant observation by the nearby fortress, should not be anywhere near as effective at setting up traps as a fortress full of dwarfs that have the home-ground advantage and years to prepare."

You want to send your soldiers to check on the enemies while they have a line of crossbowmen aimed right at you? Go ahead but expect some casualties from enemy fire. Don't then expect some casualties from enemy traps. Sieges could potentially last years which is more then enough time to set up enough traps to take down a squad or two.

[Pilsu]

Undermining an underground fortress is stupid. Sapping as a whole would create a hole that cannot be filled again and would probably ruin several forts by breaching the waterworks and at least ruin it aesthetically. If you want to lose that badly, fine, don't make an impregnable defense. Don't ruin it for the rest of us

[irmo]

Undermining an underground fortress is stupid. Sapping as a whole would create a hole that cannot be filled again and would probably ruin several forts by breaching the waterworks and at least ruin it aesthetically. If you want to lose that badly, fine, don't make an impregnable defense. Don't ruin it for the rest of us

If you want to maintain the aesthetic perfection of your fort, why don't you get some Lego blocks and build it? Then nobody else can restrict what you do.

[LegoLord]

Undermining an underground fortress is stupid. Sapping as a whole would create a hole that cannot be filled again and would probably ruin several forts by breaching the waterworks and at least ruin it aesthetically. If you want to lose that badly, fine, don't make an impregnable defense. Don't ruin it for the rest of us

If you want to maintain the aesthetic perfection of your fort, why don't you get some Lego blocks and build it? Then nobody else can restrict what you do.

Sure, you could build the fort, bit people looking at it online wouldn't be able to view it as well.

Also, it would take my entire collection to achieve such a feat based on just one of my smaller forts.  And frankly, building one thing using all my LEGOs--a giant version of something I already can interact with in a game--seems a waste.  I like my little LEGO castle and dragon shaped spaceship.

I like the idea of building a Dwarf Fort out of LEGOs, but most people just can't do it, you see?

So, sapping should be in the init, and OFF by default.

[Tormy]

4. While the siege camp is active, the caravans won't visit the fortress, and the player won't be able to send out patrols/armies at all to "interact with the world" [upcoming army arc feature]. Immigrants might try to join to the player's fortress, however -needless to say- it won't be quite safe for them, while the invaders are around.

I disagree with this. If they are blockading every entrance, sure, stop any merchants getting through, but there's no reason why a few dozen goblins sitting at one gate should do anything to prevent merchants coming through another gate halfway across the map, if there's a river and cliffs physically preventing the goblins from getting close.

Well, I think it would be realistic like that. Why should other civs risk it to loose their caravans, when the player's fortress is blockaded? Also just a note: Siege camps must be big, so obviously not only a few dozens of goblins [also why are we talking about goblins again? All civs can siege your fortress, even modded in civs.  ], should be in the camps. I am thinking about 100++ units / siege camp. Yeah this would cause an FPS drop, but max. siege camp size should be controllable in the RAWs...