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[Kravick]

Since iron is much harder to get now, I am having trouble fending off sieges that happen early.  If I am lucky a siege won't happen until the 5th year and I've already got a decently trained, but poorly geared military by then.  Usually marksdwarves will get a few lucky hits in and I'll be able to melt down the goblinite and get a better equipped military going.  My recent embark was on a map I really liked.  Great topographical features.  As usual, though, no iron.  I've never embarked on a location that has both tin and copper either so bronze has never been an option thus far.  The location had copper, but the goblin siege that showed up in year 2 was all equipped in full iron.  Naturally the traps I had set up were completely ineffective (copper weapon traps vs iron = LOLnope!) and when my military went up against the siege they got completely slaughtered.  They weren't very well trained at this point.

I did have a few cage traps but they filled up and the siege kept coming.  The stone fall traps didn't do anything but barely injure a couple.  Weapon traps, completely ineffective.

What are my options?  Strategies welcome!

[Lord Braindead]

Try to remodel your traps to a dodge-it trap. Just dig a nice, deep shaft (15 z-levels should result in 100% fatality) on the sides of the trap hallway and you are done. The goblins will try to dodge your traps when they are activated, fall off the edge and gravity will do the rest. Just make sure that the hallway is long enough or you might have some survivors. My current setup is 10 tiles long with 5 weapons per trap and only one attacker managed to arrive at the other side so far.
Weapon loadout for the traps doesnt really matter since you only need to attack the goblins, not actually injure them with the trap. Trainingweapons will are sufficient. Just make sure that you dont put to much weapons into each trap or you risk that the goblins dodge along the hallway and thus teleport to the other side without a scratch. A trap with 10 serrated disks or spiked balls attacks 30 times per activation which means that the gobbo will dodge up to 30 tiles.

[Ieb]

In embark areas with a steady supply of water available, a brook or better, lake or ocean, you could make a drowning corridor as well. Long enough to get goblins in and seal it properly, after that just pull a lever and let the water flood in.

Works on most creatures in your standard vanilla Dwarf Fort. There aren't a lot of creatures able to breathe underwater AND walk on dry land for gobbos to bring 'em as war animals. At least I can't remember any that fit all the requirements.

The dodge trap is good if you want to create gobbo bones though. I recall there's something about falling from that high and blowing apart to several giblets that makes the bodies properly decompose to craftable bones.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

It kind of sounds like you're already doing this, but combined arms work wonders.  A chokepoint with overhead archers won't kill the goblins, but it'll leave them in a lot of pain-- easy picking for your melee dwarves.  Even with bone bolts against iron armor.

Copper and silver don't make the best edged weapons, but they make great blunt weapons.  If you're having a lot of trouble with early melee dwarves, you might consider warhammers for them (instead of whatever edged weapon you're having trouble with).  In the long term, I prefer edged weapons against goblins, but strategy really has to depend on the map, and there's nothing wrong with developing your strategy in stages.  This goes for weapon traps too-- a line of silver gigantic spiked balls will do wonders for thinning out the herd.

Alternatively, you could just say, "Screw the military," and go for an early cage trap defense.  On my current map, that's what I'm doing (but really, it's because I need a lot of caged goblins for something I'm working on).  All I had metal-wise was nickel, but I got my first forge and smelter up early, and a single furnace operator/blacksmith was more than capable of keeping up with the need for cages (I have over one thousand cages now, about half of them full).  If you don't need to save the goblins like I do, a mass pit works wonders for freeing up cages.  Remember, after you capture them, goblins will just try to leave via the map edge, so if you haven't got the military to kill them, you could always just let them go.

[Matheld]

I always bring iron bars on embark and request more from my liason.

[Khym Chanur]

You can reduce the advanced worldgen parameter "mineral scarcity" to make worlds where iron easier to find.

[Kravick]

You can reduce the advanced worldgen parameter "mineral scarcity" to make worlds where iron easier to find.

I've tried this (even lowered it as low as 500 once).  Ever since Toady changed the embark map locator from showing type of stone to "shallow metals" "deep metals" etc, I have never found a site that has iron.  Never.   

I knew exactly what type of stone to look for before, now I can't even find limestone, where iron is always in abundance.  Trust me, I've spent a lot of time trying to find iron since the update.  I can never find it any more.

[Kattel]

i allways seem to find it. make sure its shallow metalS and deep metalS to ensure there's multiple kinds.

also i allways....allways use a doge-em traps as my initial defense. in infallible if done right. and if extrapolated for later sieges can actually be your main late game defense.

[Tevish Szat]

Cage traps are an easy and cheap way to have an early defense.  a nice field of them will thin the ranks of the enemy and, thanks to a small bug, may stop the advance of the rest, leaving them in a position to be perforated by marksdwarves -- who do just fine with bone crossbows and bone bolts if you put them behind fortifications so they don't charge into melee.

If you build enough cage traps, you can defeat entire sieges with them alone, but somehow I don't think that's your ideal condition.

[Mushroo]

There's no shame in simply raising the drawbridge and waiting out the siege. Once your military is Legendary, drop the bridge and give them a big surprise!

[Necro910]

MAGMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"Dodge-This!"

"DROWN THE PIGS!"

"ARCHERS! TO THE FRONT!"

"WARDOGS, CHARRGEEEE"

[CapnUrist]

I tend to combine dodge-me trap lines with dogbombs as a secondary defense early on (bring 10 dogs with you on embark, 2 male and 8 female, and let them breed freely, as they mature train the adults to wardogs and place them all in a cage connected to a pressure plate along the corridor the invaders will use. Can easily have 50 animals in the cage by the end of the second year). I like winding dodge-me's better than straight lines; makes for smaller pits and more weapon traps within an area, and later on you can place marksdwarf roosts above to rain death from all sides.

[lobstercow42]

You can just do what I do! Make Cave Crocodiles domestic and prone to rage:100! Lots of !!FUN!!

Plus you get plenty of eggs

[Saint]

Draw bridge over a gap until you can effectivly deal with them, that is if your forts are like mine and completely self sustainable.

[Roraborialisforealis]

I always bring iron bars on embark and request more from my liason.

Dude. Carry limonite and calcitite. MUCH Better Hombre.