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[oneguy]

i need help defending my fort.

i built my only entrence into the shape of a "U" so the advancing hoards must pass through traps before rounding a corner with more traps and finally rounding a final corner to meet face to face a dozen or so angry legged beards....
that was the plan any way. until all my decent warriors got killed off by a forgotten beast leaving me with only a novice marksdwarf and 9 raw recrutes who have dabbling in armor if there lucky...

now i need a safer way to rid myself of goblins before they get close enough to rip my Slightly stubbled munchkins to peaces...

the entrance is 3 tiles wide, ten tiles long (each section) with a trading depot out front (want to move it to a safer place).

i cant dig down around there because the floor immediately below i had hallowed out for farming and livestock but up and out are both possabilities

i have large supplies of copper, silver, wood, stone, and water.

[Fireborn]

If you can move, or afford to lose a 5x5 section on the floor below, a drawbridge makes for solid defense.  (I say 5x5 because I tend to make my inner-cut-off bridges 4x3 raising, so you'd have a 3x3 hole that it'd be best to wall off.)

Archery is a little wonky, but fortifications provide decent function.  Especially if built a floor up from where you wish things to die.  A partol route or burrow to be guarded directly infront of them means even your novice archers will be able to utilize them.

My current fort has ramparts, a full wall of fortifications, a z-level up, and seperated from attackers by a 3 tile wide dry moat.

A screenshot of your actual situation would help with more specifics.

[Qinetix]

Drown them , drown them all.

[celem]

Make everyone a mason and designate a snaking 1 tile wide entrance hallway outside with constructed walls, it means you dont have to move, just lengthen the entrance you have.  It should switchback to and fro and ideally be at least 40 tiles.  Then fill with traps to taste.  You could have a huge animal stockpile and loads of cages for good results.  Every one will remove a goblin or its mount from play guarenteed.  If you have reasonable metal then weapons probably take care of more threat per tile.  Mix these up with lever linked spikes if you have any trapavoid foes (maybe a mod)

If the bad guys dont include ranged units then put your marksdwarf/s on a roof above it and they shoot into the carnage

It cheesy and not the best, but fast to set up.  Clearing it is a nightmare as your idlers climb all over each other....you can make little bridges at the turns that can be opened to help that pathing CF.

Edit: just noted your metals.  Weapon traps...meh, silver might work if you used warhammers/maces as they jam less from what i recall.  copper is probably best in a menacing spike rather than discs, but copper discs could break unarmoured limbs.  If you got a really good smith and can get masterwork/exceptional copper discs consistently then give it a go.

[Dutchling]

Spoiler: spelling nazi (click to show/hide)

It's entrance

[tomas1297]

 I read the title and started chuckling. Then I felt dirty. 

[oneguy]

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/mypredicament.png/

this is my entree... shame on you tomas1297...

the brook is a little bit off screen and i dont have very much room to work with. 

any recommendations would be welcome... also i can feel it in my gut that a siege or ambush is inbound traders just showed up and Ive had 2 snatchers and a theif so time is also limited

[Fireborn]

A difficult situation...  Cage traps are probably your best bet, short term.  Rockfalls are somewhat underpowered from what I've heard.

Moving any operation you can inside.  To make use of the captured goblins, you should get a training arena set up.  Erecting the cage -> d>b>c highlight cages>d highlight cages again to dump everything inside except the goblin.  Live training dummies.  You'll need mechanisms to link a level to the cages.  This'll deconstruct the cage and free the goblin when thrown.

That'll get your military training.  You'll probably still loose a few dwarves when the next batch of dummies comes.

Alternatively, a danger room makes training ludicrously easy...  Like one-two seasons to legendary easy, even with 1 training spear per spear-trap.  (Though, even with training spears it WILL kill unarmored dwarf, pet, or baby.)

You'll want a longer entrance though.  Perhaps with a way to defend your depot...  but that's long term.

[Khris]

Here's my defense system right now, shortly after the third siege. I didn't really plan it from the beginning, it just started to grow and grow, so it's far from being perfect, but it worked pretty well so far.
The area within the walls is only accessible from within the fort.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When getting attacked I first raise the lower-most bridge, forcing the enemies into the winding hallways full of traps. When all my dwarves are safely inside I raise the long bridges further up forcing the remaining enemies into the middle path full of traps where also my siege engine is aiming. There are also rudimentary archery towers.
There are two more draw bridges in the corridor below which can enclose enemies, I then open a floodgate and drown them, however the system is far from perfectly working.

Most traps are cage traps and stonefall traps, also whenever I collect enough weaponry from attackers I build fully armed weapon traps.

Another idea I had was to encircle the main shaft with draw bridges on every level so that I can shut off the main shaft from the rest of the fortress.

PS: And build all important levers in the meeting hall, otherwise it could take too many turns until a lever gets pulled.

[oneguy]

wow  khris that looks like a very good defence system... wish i had enough space to take advantage of it

[Khris]

wow  khris that looks like a very good defence system... wish i had enough space to take advantage of it

thx
the main principle is easy, shut down the main hallway and force enemies through narrow sideways full of traps
it's not ideal in my example since it won't work against flying enemies, so it would be better to have those trapways underground and force flying enemies to enter them
I already have complex systems of drawbridges and floodgates in mind to seperate the main shaft from the fortress and e.g. flooding it to flush invaders right into the caverns, while keeping the fortress running
for my next fortress I'll design first and build afterwards 

[Gearheart]

Put drawbridges at either end of the entrance , wait until the goblins are in, close the drawbridges, then pump water into the sealed room until the threat has been terminated.

[Khris]

Put drawbridges at either end of the entrance , wait until the goblins are in, close the drawbridges, then pump water into the sealed room until the threat has been terminated.

Don't forget to build the water channel leading into that room in a way that enemies can't use it to escape.

[oneguy]

well i did some modifications to my original fort and only using traps and good old dwarven expendability my millitary of 22 warves, only 3 of which are above novice in there preferred weapon skill. managed to fight off 54 gobblins and mounts....

i used khris's design but only managed to get the walls and bridges up before the attack so i used my small 1 tile wide pathway to funnle them in and close it after the first 7 or 8 so my traps could deal with them and be reloaded safely so i could let a few more in. only one  of my dwarves got killed (her name was Faith) the rest got minor injeries like fractured leg or arm cut open and i left enough time between letting waves in that most of them were up and ready for the next round.... now i have 20 some gobblin cages, a freshly dug arena/pit and a whole mess of neked goblins.

i have also moved my  tradeing post inside my fort so i can now protect those damd elves so they can take some of those unused clothes and muntans of rock/bone /shell crafts that with them instead of just getting killed and giveing me a whole caravan of ... wooden armor, cloth, Gnomeblite ect that i then have to get rid of .

thanks for your help...

[ArKFallen]

Good luck, and here's something else you can do:

Make a separate hallway from the entrance and a drawbridge connected to a lever/pressure plate between the main and the new one. This way if gobbos get in you could funnel them away from the main fort, though it needs to connect back eventually. I'd imagine it'd look something like this.

  |
--|
  |

With the drawbridge somewhere in the hyphens. I use this design whenever I accidentally put something under the main entrance and need to renovate for visitors.