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[BuGGaTon]

I discovered recently that much of my confusion when starting a new fort comes from having too many dwarves for my current projects.  I don't want to alter the game in any way.  What's the earliest I should expect ambushes and sieges given a fortress that is, at first, refusing to make high wealth items in order to keep migration levels low and enemy attacks lower? 

The only issue with this plan is if (when) I want to build huge magma pumpstacks there'll be the problem of massive wealth creation from the iron pipes and enormous iron corkscrews.  Are there any workarounds for these issues?

[ltprifti]

build a bunch of traps and have a military so it doesn't matter?

[shlorf]

Yeah offense is the best defense, concentrate on making enough armor and weapons for 20 dwarfs, the first ambushes often bring only one squad you will outnumber them 2:1, even recruits will pickup kills. The wounded mean training for your doctors, and the ones who recover can become decent fighters in a few years of training and fighting. Add more recruits to their squads and the drills will start doing something.
Add in a line of 3x3 cage traps as your last line of defense and you don't have to worry about anything until you reach a population of over 80 and the sieges begin. The first sieges will often be really weak too.
Wall of the caverns or if you want access make gates of raising drawbridges (building destroyers can't destroy a raised bridge). Make a burrow that includes all safe areas of your fort and make a civilian alert for it that will keep civilians from running outside in times of trouble.
Don't worry about high numbers of idlers, a 150 dwarf fort can be supplied by a few legendary brewers and growers easily. Just make sure you disable the important labors on any new migrants so that they don't ruin your food production or lower your armor/weapon quality accidentally.
My current fort was defended by only 10 melee and 5 ranged soldiers for most of the time, they were only in iron armor too, as my map has no flux.

[BuGGaTon]

I know how to defend an early fort.  That's not my concern.  You've both attempted to answer a question I didn't ask XD

Whilst that's much appretiated I'll clarify what I was actually asking as I can see that my original post might be misleading:

I stated that I had no desire to attain large amounts of dwarves and creating a military does just that as the wealth from the equipment hugely boosts how many migrants one receives.  Advice concerning wealth amounts and migrant sizes along with wealth amounts and siege/MB/FB/ambush potential would be what I'm after ^^

[ltprifti]

build a mote around your fortress will keep both migrants and ambushers from reaching your fort, and i assume ambushers would kill the migrants, then differnt ambushers will kill eachother

[BuGGaTon]

Please, no assumptions on the specific use of the information I'm requesting.  That you're trying to help is much appretiated, so please don't think I'm being rude.  I know how to defend a fort.  I don't want to stop migrant waves.  This was my adjusted request and it stands:

Advice concerning wealth amounts and migrant sizes along with wealth amounts and siege/MB/FB/ambush potential.
=======================

I'm not interested in any other information.  Assume that I either already know it, or it's irrelevant to my situation, presently

[shlorf]

Hmm, if you just set the pop cap really low? You can always change it higher up later.

[Sutremaine]

It'll be a couple of years before you're attacked by anything if you keep wealth and population low (say, less than 50,000 and 20 respectively). If you're refusing to alter even the init options, then you'll lose control of the population but not fortress wealth. Take the dwarves you don't have any use for and give them dry pumps to work so all their stats don't decay.

[forsaken1111]

Take the dwarves you don't have any use for and give them dry pumps to work so all their stats don't decay. so they won't have super lots of babies.

[Di]

The only issue with this plan is if (when) I want to build huge magma pumpstacks there'll be the problem of massive wealth creation from the iron pipes and enormous iron corkscrews.  Are there any workarounds for these issues?

How about using wooden pumps made by unskilled carpenters, and operated by dwarves? That's low wealth boost and hight amount of magma related accidents should have some impact on migration. 
Maybe nethercaps could be acceptable wealth gain.
On the general note, you just need to create only the most crappy stuff. Sieges and titans wont start before hight population. Ambushes and and FB can.
If you want to keep gobbos and migrants out for sure you'll have to go to init.txt
As for time before first attack, it's defined not only by your actions in fort but by the world situation as well. I had something around 3-5 years of peace in one fort with 140 dwellers.