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[Chattox]

What do you do for your main entrance? Do you have a 2 wide corridor with double doors? If so, what do you do for your trade depot and wagon access? Do you have a 3 wide hallway with your trade depot inside for the wagons to get to? Or something else entirely?

I personally usually go for a 3 wide hallway with a drawbridge and my trade depot inside but I'm considering other options and would like some ideas/opinions.

Thanks!

[Coronel_Niel]

I like to keep the main trade entrance away from my main entrance, and drawbridge both. I keep the trade bridge closed unless it is needed and have a 2 tile wide hallway for haulers and the brooker to the trade depot. This way the trade depot can get overun and I don't have to defend it. Also you can put floodgates between the trade depo and your fort for perfect protection. Only let your guys in when the traders are in and the drawbridge is up.

The main entrance can have marksdwarfs and siege engines if I want. Normally I build walls up outside and get all the goblins channeled along up and down infront of my marksdwarfs. This is 40d tho cos marksdwarfs are mucked up even in .04.

[C4lv1n]

I have a pretty simple setup:
3 tile wide hall leading to the depot with a 2 tile wide hall behind, between the depot and each hall is a drawbridge. Both halls are filled with cage and weapon traps.

[Chattox]

In my current fortress that I just started there's a natural cave type thing in the cliff face that I'm going to use as my main entrance. I'm going to have a 3 wide hallway with a drawbridge, mainly for a sense of grandeur. Also, I'm going to put a curtain wall flush with the rest of the cliff, walling off the alcove for farming. Coronel_Niel, I like you idea of keeping the trade depot in a sort of airlock system, never thought of that! Going to try and implement that somehow...

[BurnedToast]

Previously I used to go for a dual entrance - the easy to defend 2x wide double door, which opened into a 4x corridor as the main entrance then a separate 3x entrance with an airlock system for the trade depot.

Now that wagons are bugged and don't show up, I just skip the trade airlock and let the merchants drive the donkeys in the front door and through the main hallway to the trade depot.

[Shiv]

I just do a three wide but carve out a cavern around it for marksdwarves to perch in.  Marksdwarves are bugged so I've skipped that step entirely recently and gone more into using traps for defense (didn't used to but it's the only distanced 'fighting' you can do at the moment).   

Trade airlocks don't work any more because carrion crawlers can destroy floodgates.  A traditional airlock combined with channels and bridges work though.  It's amusing that the best defense in DF is a hole in the ground.

[Psieye]

5 tile entrance corridor for me, which then forks off to the trade depot and my main stairwell at a T-junction. Drawbridges (with channels to block land-building destroyers) linked to the same lever close access to both but I also dig out a 1 tile wide killzone detour corridor so goblins would still path in... just through all the stuff I've set up there and then whatever my military is after all that (weapon traps first, cage traps to whittle down the numbers of whatever makes it through).

Though actually I never got to try out how well that works as I only recently started doing this and I kept making new forts before I got a goblin ambush (due to trying out mods).

[Rocky]

Although putting the trade depot inside the fort seems to be popular, I never do. My depot is always out of the fort, and under ground. This seems to be the best set up for my Auto Trader*

My forts are always built to be aesthetically pleasing, even at the cost of some efficiency. I always have 3-wide hallways (more impressive than 2-wide, but easier to defend than 5-wide).

I'm still trying to optimize my "big long hallway defense", but it basically goes something like this:
A big long hallway at the beginning. Around the opening and before it, there are traps. Anyone who gets past the traps will enter the hallway. Both ends of the hall are drawbridges that lower to trap people in range of siege engines. They get brutally slaughtered and I loot their corpses.
Also, I have a captured dragon that I plan to have trained one day and integrated into my defense some how.

*The "Auto Trader" is an advanced piece of dwarven technology that allows for trading at the best possible prices with minimum effort. It involves levers, floodgates, and a nearby source of water.

[CognitiveDissonance]

Ahh entrance way. I've built so many crappy ones, and have restarted a fortress because of that in the past.

If I get my way, I like to have a long, 6-wide hallway, lined with supports/engraved columns. At the end, I put two 2-wide entrances, with doors. This will be under the mountain, to rest of the entrance to the outer world either is lined with gold/platinum, or engraved.

From there, I build another tunnel perpendicular to the main entrance, and put the trade depot in there - preferably, engraving the way there, too.

Then the entrance would have a small 2-tall wall surrounding it, with room for military to be posted at need.
Outside of that, I'd make a 2-Z deep moat, with a drawbridge over it.

On the other side, I'd have a 4-wide hallway lined with weapon and cage traps, for any goblins that want to say hi.

In .28, I'd make crossbowdwarf nests over the entrance wall, but those regretfully don't work now

I've been considering preparing a cave-in for the entrance for the worst case scenario, but haven't figured that one out yet.

[Shiv]

I've been considering preparing a cave-in for the entrance for the worst case scenario, but haven't figured that one out yet.

Supports connected to levers.

[nickbii]

My forts always have a moat. It's usually 3 wide, and crossed by a drawbridge. The Depot is outside of the drawbridge, but sometimes get's it's own moat, keep, and drawbridge for extra security. If I'm feeling nice, and actually want to protect the traders.

But that's not really the entrance. The real entrance is a 3x3 stairway that connects to every level of the fort. Most of my dwarves only go outside to bring things to the Depot, or strip dead people of their possessions.

Nick

[Crowbar]

Up until now, I've gone with a fairly narrow hallway leading to two sets of double doors, one of which is likely hooked up to a lever.  However, I'll be trying a drawbridge for my next fortress.  With spike traps on the bottom!  Should be good for a laugh.

[Folly]

I use a 3-wide entrance, with a wall blocking the exit. Ramps lead up to the wall, and a bridge leads over to another wall and ramps down. Easily sealable doorway without the need to dig a moat down into the tunnels below my fort.

[Greep]

screw the entrance, chaos is more fun.  Okay seriously what I do is make a thin corridor, make a 3x3 room and stuff a barracks there with my soldiers set to train.  This way, soldiers don't get cave adaptation, and all ambushes are noticed without the need to set up a guard dog that a civilian can get killed replacing.

[Coronel_Niel]

A good way to defend is a waterfall, have it on a loop and when your attacked set it up ussing levers. If you want perfect defence, cast obsidian in your entrance at times of emergancy.