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[Hyndis]

Make the entrance to your fort only 1 Z level high.

A low ceiling forces all fliers down to ground level where they can be chopped up with axes just fine.

Build roofs to enforce this.

[Quietust]

3. No, traps don't work on demons/FB/Titans

Many titans do not have the trap_avoid flag.  I've captured quite a few in cage traps.  In particular, cage traps are absolutely required to deal with the inevitable early Bronze Colossus.  I always get those, they get damaged but not killed by a dozen strikes by steel discs, and can thoroughly mash up a steel-equipped military.  A single cage trap will neutralize one, though.

Bronze colossuses are megabeasts, not titans. Titans are randomly generated above-ground variants of forgotten beasts, and they always have [TRAPAVOID] (generated a test world with max titans, and all 214 of them had trapavoid).

[buzz killington]

The sieges will eventually leave on their own, and the Titans will eventually be neutralized by a single marksdwarf in the caravan.

Sad, yet true

[Gus Smedstad]

Bronze colossuses are megabeasts, not titans.

I wasn't aware of the distinction.  I thought the terms were interchangeable.

I can vouch that dragons are not immune to traps.  I've had a single dual-steel-disc trap kill one.

For completely underground forts, flying threats are not significantly different than ordinary titans and the like.  They still have to move through the same corridors.  You can get the same effect from above-ground installations by completely sealing them off, no doors or other entrances of any kind except the main corridor of death.  This means to build the roofs, you need an external access to the roof, like an outside ramp.  Your dwarfs will be exposed while building the roof, but once it's built, they're completely invulnerable.

Windmills cannot be made invulnerable this way, because if the central tile has roof over it, it stops functioning.  You can however wall windmills off from surface threats.

I typically go with two entranceways.  A  3-wide, 16 tile long corridor with 5 rows of steel disc traps and 4 rows of cage traps, and a longer, winding 1-tile passage that exits into the start of the main corridor.  The narrow corridor typically has a macro pit trap (10-20 stories), with a retracting bridge activated by pressure plate.  The main entrance has a retractable bridge.  If it's retracted, invaders must navigate the narrow passage and then the main passage.  The main entrance bridge is retractable rather than a drawbridge because invaders will reach the far side of the bridge after passing through the narrow corridor.

I've yet to encounter a flying surface threat that cannot be either trapped or killed.  Sub-surface Forgotten Beasts are often both.  For those, I build a roach motel - a passageway that has ramps at either end, and retractable bridges sealing the ramps.  Building destroyers will not destroy bridges from underneath, so once it's in the passage the the bridges seal the ramps, it can't get out.  You then do what you want with it at your leisure, i.e. cave-in, magma, coax it into an arena, whatever.

Roach motels are kind of cheaty, but the fact that the beast cannot be killed (short of cave-in or magma) is also kind of cheaty, so I don't feel the least bit bad about using them.

 - Gus

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Make the entrance to your fort only 1 Z level high.

A low ceiling forces all fliers down to ground level where they can be chopped up with axes just fine.

Build roofs to enforce this.

That doesn't help against fliers with trapavoid-- the axe traps won't activate.

Or did you mean the failtastic military that this fort design aims to negate the need for?

[Hyndis]

Make the entrance to your fort only 1 Z level high.

A low ceiling forces all fliers down to ground level where they can be chopped up with axes just fine.

Build roofs to enforce this.

That doesn't help against fliers with trapavoid-- the axe traps won't activate.

Or did you mean the failtastic military that this fort design aims to negate the need for?

Remotely triggered spike traps will work, but I prefer to get up close and personal with angry, drunken beards wielding axes and hammers.

Either way a low ceiling forces the fliers to the ground where they can be butchered just like any other goblin.

[Flaede]

Military? Better plan - note that hatches (and bridges) cannot be destroyed from below.
The entrance should be an UP ramp, into a sealed tunnel (built or carved, I do not care), then build a bridge overtop of it.
it is open when the bridge lever sets it to be "up" (The opposite of a drawbridge, really).
For added protection, at the far end of the sealed tunnel, have fortifications and then ballistas behind that.  Ballistas aren't military, they work just fine. since the entrance is an up ramp, you can even set up a ballista bolt catcher behind it for recycling.

[de5me7]

i caught a dragon in a cage trap with not extra stunts. Flying forgotton beasts and titans however always bypass my traps. I can confirm they wont attack hatches above them but will attack any destoryable structure in their vancinity if they are not chasing somehting else, and anything that blocks their way to something they want to kill.

[Bronze Dog]

I think I've got an idea: If I remember correctly, buildings can't be destroyed from underneath. Make your entrances shaped so that anyone coming in must first climb up through a hatch cover or a space that can be covered with a bridge. When the building destroyer comes along, lock the hatch or extend the bridge over the entrance path. Of course, for a flying destroyer, you'll need to pave some non-'building' roofs so that these entrances are the only path in.

[Kanddak]

I build emergency quarantine gates by perching natural stone walls on supports above fort entrances. A lever pull will drop the wall into the entrance and completely seal it.

[deoxy]

I build emergency quarantine gates by perching natural stone walls on supports above fort entrances. A lever pull will drop the wall into the entrance and completely seal it.

Nice, but one-use only.

I personally like the "1 z-level high long hallway with spike traps on repeat" method.

[NFossil]

I heard from somewhere that fliers can't destroy buildings while flying. Can anyone confirm?

[Cotes]

I heard from somewhere that fliers can't destroy buildings while flying. Can anyone confirm?

That would be pretty realistic at least. You can't really tackle or pull down anything even moderately heavy and maintain stability in flight... Then again, any creature that can take down a stone bridge shouldn't be able to fly in the first place.

But anyway, if this isn't already in the game I think it should be implemented.