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[Zambaku]

I'm in a really annoying situation where my fortress is under constant goblin and kobold attacks. Those sneaky bastards wait around outside the map, and as soon as a caravan or migrants arrive they jump out, butchering anything with a beard and then begin to steal. The same happens when I lower my drawbridge, a flood of annoying monsters. I'm down to my last 11 dorfs and I was hoping I could get some to marry and become birth-machines. It's been a few years now and nobody is marrying. Any tips on how to get those bearded knuckleheads in the mood? I've already set out a statue garden and a gathering point.

[existent]

I'm in a really annoying situation where my fortress is under constant goblin and kobold attacks. Those sneaky bastards wait around outside the map, and as soon as a caravan or migrants arrive they jump out, butchering anything with a beard and then begin to steal. The same happens when I lower my drawbridge, a flood of annoying monsters. I'm down to my last 11 dorfs and I was hoping I could get some to marry and become birth-machines. It's been a few years now and nobody is marrying. Any tips on how to get those bearded knuckleheads in the mood? I've already set out a statue garden and a gathering point.

By the time enough breeding happens to even double the population, and then time enough for those kids to grow into adults, there's probably 99 better solutions. (The 100th is going out with a bang).

[assimilateur]

and then time enough for those kids to grow into adults

Not to mention time enough for them to train. Having 100 dwarves with neither military skills nor good equipment is going to be only marginally less useless than having 11 of them.

Way I understand your situation, I'd recommend setting up a shitload of traps, mostly cage ones, just inside your fortress. You may also want to remodel your entrance using temporary walls so that the goblins have to walk as far as possible to reach your guys. Once you have what seems to be enough traps to cage or kill most of them (this should be enough, as they're likely to retreat after losing roughly half of their number), lower your drawbridge.

[existent]

....or just arm the peasantry with whatever you've got and send them in a blind rush at the goblin horde, and pray to Armok for victory.

It's what I'd do.

[wrajjt]

You can usually save immigrants by being sneaky. Build a long tunnel to another part of the map, as far away from the besieging forces as possible. Build a bridge which you can raise or retract in the tunnel, and ofc channel out a moat underneath it. Send a miner across, raise bridge, tell miner to break surface and watch as he gets slaughtered by the goblins, or pull him back across the bridge if you can.

When next immigrants arrive, you lower the drawbridge, and they will make a beeline for the entrance far away from the goblins. Hopefully all of them will make it through. Put some traps in the tunnel aswell, if goblins make it past the bridge.

[Lytha]

Any tips on how to get those bearded knuckleheads in the mood? I've already set out a statue garden and a gathering point.

Drop the statue garden and the meeting hall. Instead, designate a zone of 1x1 squares, and declare this as the one and only meeting point.

Then give the little bearded buggers some free time and let them socialize with each other. Unless the age gap is too large (because they're all from very different immigration waves), they should start to form relationships quite quickly. Give them some more time to solve their religious issues (all married couples worship the same god, so one of the lover relationships has to be converted), and then they should marry and start to pop out even smaller little buggers after about 9 months.

Set your child maximum number to something reasonable though, or you'll be looking at a fortress with 11 adults and 12x5 = 60 children in 12 years. Such fortresses are somewhat annoying to have because of all the little red faces chasing their mothers all over the place.

[numerobis]

Note that dwarves don't fall in love more than once, and that they use foolproof contraception until marriage.  If the dwarves you have already have a lover who happens to be dead, they'll never marry.

[sublight]

Since updating to .31 (.31.13 right now), I can't recall seeing any marriage announcements for my dorfs, although lots of them are lovers. Is there anything new you need to do for them to marry besides provide a meeting point?

[rephikul]

Since updating to .31 (.31.13 right now), I can't recall seeing any marriage announcements for my dorfs, although lots of them are lovers. Is there anything new you need to do for them to marry besides provide a meeting point?

A place for them to hold party.

[Lytha]

Dwarves don't need a place to hold a party for the marriage. They need a place to meet and talk to sort out their religious differences. A 1x1 meeting zone is ideal for that - a huge statue garden or similar nonsense is detrimental for this because they won't actually ever talk in these wide halls.

If they don't have a room to celebrate their wedding, it's even more ideal because there won't be a half a year long wedding party afterwards. Just the announcement that they have married and decided not to have any celebrations.

[varangian]

Perhaps it's because there's something about a dwarf in a uniform or the threat of sudden death causing an upsurge in the hormones but putting dwarves into the militia seems to do it for me. Every squad heads off to their appointed position with a cometary tail of mewling infants in their wake, frequently outnumbering the squad itself. So unlike the OP what I want is dwarves who can figure out that a 'Bring you daughter to work day' is possibly not the best idea when the work involves a two-headed horror bent on mayhem.

[celem]

This is why your military should be men.

Its nothing sexist, it just helps prevent tantrum spirals.

Since theres rarely enough men for a good military force (yer bound to lose a couple who end up being vital elsewhere due to skills), I tend to make marksdwarves female, as long as you make sure they wont run out of ammo (or keep them behind fortifications) its all groovy

On the note of the OP......I cant get mine in the mood either, realisticaly given how long it takes the little runts to mature vs how long you are likely to play the fortress......infants aint much use, 90% of my population tends to be made up of migrants

[varangian]

This is why your military should be men.

I'm shocked, this is an equal opportunities fortress. Besides what with the long hair and beards and mayor Urist McClinton's 'Don't ask, don't tell' decree it became impossible to tell what genders have actually been recruited into a given squad. At least until their clothes rot off and possibly not even then.

[celem]

heh indeed...but a danger room and women is a bad move, seperate squads at the least and train them in another fashion...that or kick out when they give birth

[JarinArenos]

Perhaps it's because there's something about a dwarf in a uniform or the threat of sudden death causing an upsurge in the hormones but putting dwarves into the militia seems to do it for me. Every squad heads off to their appointed position with a cometary tail of mewling infants in their wake, frequently outnumbering the squad itself. So unlike the OP what I want is dwarves who can figure out that a 'Bring you daughter to work day' is possibly not the best idea when the work involves a two-headed horror bent on mayhem.

I'm fairly certain you can define a burrow as "inside the fortress in safe areas" and assign the children to it. This may also fix Danger Room issues.