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[Girlinhat]

Sounds like you make the entire embark into your fort, and the grass a mere courtyard.

[Lemunde]

My current fort is protected by a passageway with an array of 2x5 spiked wooden/glass ball traps. They're more effective than you might think. Also don't be afraid to trade for metal. 4 or 5 bars of steel per trade may not sound like much but after a couple of years you'll have enough for 10 weapons. Leather armor and steel weapons are enough for an adequate squad. I've taken out FBs with less.

[Girlinhat]

7 bars of steel is enough for a very well-established soldier.  Since you can order steel, iron, pig iron, and flux from trade (assuming your civ has iron and flux) then you can buy 5-7 bars of steel, along with a good 4-5 pieces of ore and flux.  It's not the fastest way to prosperity, but it can provide you a few well-clad soldiers without too much hassle.

[Skivverus]

Sounds like you make the entire embark into your fort, and the grass a mere courtyard.

If the embark is small enough (2x2 definitely qualifies as "small enough", for example), then yes.

Also, don't forget the non-bar sources of metal (maybe we should call it "caravanite"?) - sure, it takes an extra block of charcoal to make it usable, but oddly enough, caravans bring that too (albeit in similarly unprocessed form).

[Ultimuh]

I just channel deep chasms by the entrance to my forts.
When pulling the lever to the bridge at just the right moment, you can harvest the metals from your dead foes. 

[Savolainen5]

I just channel deep chasms by the entrance to my forts.
When pulling the lever to the bridge at just the right moment, you can harvest the metals from your dead foes. 

I have the same, (though I haven't started using 31.19 yet) and I play FD.  The fact that I have 5 besieging races at once means I have a helluva lotta metal.  I got so sick of it all that I just dfliquid'd it, and now it's tons of globs that I don't have to see, keh heh...

[blue emu]

I just channel deep chasms by the entrance to my forts.
When pulling the lever to the bridge at just the right moment, you can harvest the metals from your dead foes. 

That's the point of my intended Dodge-Em trap, except that no lever-pulling exact timing is required. It's a narrow 1-tile-wide walkway leading across a walled-in 10-Z-level deep pit. The walkway is covered with weapon traps... using whatever junk weapons I can scrounge up.

It doesn't matter that I'm just loading the weapon traps with worthless wooden training weapons... I don't expect to hurt anyone with the weapon traps. I expect to force them to dodge, which topples them off the walkway into the 10-Z-level deep pit. The walls around the pit are there to ensure that the opponents always dodge into the pit, not across it (to safety).

[Shogger]

I just have 20 or so crossbowmen who double as hunters roaming the countryside. The bones from their kills get processed into more bone bolts. I also have traps set up to catch wild animals which double as protection/early warning from ambushing squads. If I get a real siege, I simply retreat behind my walls, pull up the bridge, and fire at them from the safety of my fortifications. A little boring, since I like to have melee dwarves, but effective nonetheless.

I'm sure you could melt down goblinite to get your metal, if you desperately needed it. Or even just steal their weapons for quick cheap equipment.

[janglur]

Stonefall traps are crappy, but cheap and easy to mass produce.  Put it behind better defenses, but in front of your military.
Wood is not bad for gear.  If you have featherwood or alder, make shields from it.  If glumprong, make spiked balls for traps.

Bone armor is crap, but it's arguably better than copper, and definitely beats leather.  Shell is identical.  It can help, for certain.

Cloaks.  Lots of cloaks.

If you have obsidian, USE IT!  Those swords are decently comparable to steel.

And if you have access to lots of wood, glass can make some traps if used for blunt weapons.  Edged glass items are bugged, tho, and may be better than steel, or worse than cheese.

If you have magma but no metal, remember you can melt down almost anything.  Mass buy anything remotely metal from the caravans and melt it down.  Take your silver, melt it down!  Take your gold, your aluminum, melt it down!  Melt it down!  Melt it down!

And lastly, war animals.  Lots of war animals.  Lots and unholy fucking lots of war animals.




BONUS:  Using Stupid Dwarf Tricks like dodge-fall traps and other AI-abusing traps will pave an easy road for you.  But in all cases, flyers are... a problem.

[Wavey54]

Also, training crossbow-dwarves and building archery towers is a decent way to defend your entrance, just make sure you have a ceiling to avoid fliers.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Use scheduling and rotating squads to ensure that the watchtowers are always manned by marksdwarves.

[Mantonio]

Replace the wooden training spears in your traps with wooden menacing spikes. Guaranteed to be more effective. Especially if you assign ten to each trap.

[Dutchling]

Just build a drowning chamber

[MarcAFK]

Steal the armour off the traders escorts.

[Torgan]

Cage traps, remove the gear off the caged goblins and equip that.  Then release the goblins for some training of your newly equipped recruits.