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[Angel Of Death]

Well. I just got sieged. And the siegers tore through my military as if they were made of butter. I've got 2 entrance traps (pit to magma, repeating spikes over a volcano) but they don't seem to work too well.

[Girlinhat]

Just the two traps?  Yeah, there's your problem.  Bulk up!  Dwarf up!  10,000 traps should be sufficient!  Go big man, these aren't pansy elves, these are vicious greenskins, come to rip your children from your mothers arms and rape your fortress!  Defend it like you mean it!

[Angel Of Death]

Just the two traps?  Yeah, there's your problem.  Bulk up!  Dwarf up!  10,000 traps should be sufficient!  Go big man, these aren't pansy elves, these are vicious greenskins, come to rip your children from your mothers arms and rape your fortress!  Defend it like you mean it!

Hey, these traps CAN work. I've had them wipe out entire sieges. It's just that after 2 of them come, they don't seem to want to enter.

[Mitchewawa]

If they idle outside of your fortress, you're not really missing anything by turtleing inside until they decide to step on your traps now, eh?

If the answer is 'I am missing something' then you're not doing something right.

[zehive]

magma

[Tevish Szat]

You can rely on one or two traps if they're really, REALLY good ones like Project Fuck the World.  Otherwise, you have a few choices other than military might
1) Giant trap swarm: a cluster of around 100 (a 10x10 square) Cage and/or 10x Serrated Disk weapon traps that must be passed over to access your fortress.  Each trap will eliminate an invader, either by trapping it or reducing it to chunky salsa, and then (probably -- the disks only *might* jam) be rendered ineffective.  In practice, the Disks are better as the losses will make survivors run, but are VASTLY more expensive and time consuming to set up.
2) Unavoidable Deadly Trap: Wall up or use pressure plates in such a way that invaders are forced to pass by/fed to a captive forgotten beast or otherwise isolated from anything they could possibly hurt.  Basically, the "one good trap".  Drowning chambers and magma chambers are awesome for this.  Bridges used to be this, but they've been nerfed and atomsmashing as a defense is a step cheaper even than cage traps, IMO
3) Pathing Cheap-shot: Force goblins to path back and forth across a long hall of repeating upright spikes, or something like that.  Distinct from the above in that it's not abjectly lethal, but abuses invader logic to become lethal.  Unless your Unavoidable Deadly Trap involved magma, this is probably dorfier.
4) Time: Be able to seal the gates and wait the siege out.  It can take over a year if they chain sieges, but they WILL give up and let you out after a while.  Consider this the last resort if your other defenses have failed to neutralize the siege, but never don't have this as an option

[Kattel]

i like dodge-em traps preceding a nice hallway of death. Usually 3x10 or so) i usually always then have a gate of some sort with permanent sentries. should the hall look like being breached (midway point is reached) the sentries are recalled and the gate lowered/raised and we turtle it out whilst building some kind of 'fuck off' device.

[Angel Of Death]

My traps work fine. I realised this when they eliminated an entire siege with the pull of a lever

Now, I need help with a military. Internal threats are the biggest threats when you're immortal to the outside.

[geail]

Now, I need help with a military. Internal threats are the biggest threats when you're immortal to the outside.

If by internal threats you mean angry nobles, having a masterwork prison set up works wonders.  I have mine set up so all cells are a 3x3 room, gold chain the the middle, gold door set to internal, gold table, gold chair, masterwork bed. 2x1 food stock pile, 2x1 drink stockpile, all well engraved.  I have one forger who I swear violates production orders just so he can live the good life for a couple months per year.

If by internal threats you mean Forgotten Beasts remember 2 man training squads and spears tend to be your friends.  Also you can seal your fortress in emergency with hatches/grates.  The former prevents any nasty fluid from entering your fortress when closed; the latter allows you to pour magma down your stairwell, hopefully roasting the beast.

[Kofthefens]

It can take over a year if they chain sieges, but they WILL give up and let you out after a while.  Consider this the last resort if your other defenses have failed to neutralize the siege, but never don't have this as an option

Once I did this. 10 years of neverending siege, so I just decided to abandon it

[khearn]

Well. I just got sieged. And the siegers tore through my military as if they were made of butter. I've got 2 entrance traps (pit to magma, repeating spikes over a volcano) but they don't seem to work too well.

Yeah, even a masterwork ☼Butter Breastplate☼ isn't very effective. I'd suggest investing in better stuff.

How many troops do you have, and what kind of armor/weapons? Skills?

[Loud Whispers]

Use bait animals.

And by bait animals, I mean every single animal in your fortress you have not slaughtered for their delicious *Prepared Brain*.

Or better yet, use swarms of bait war animals (and a few hunting ones to absorb flying bolts). This is unlikely to kill any sieges, but it's extremely satisfying watching the body parts fly everywhere.

[JDF117]

  Things that can be controlled from inside your fortress with levers can be quite useful. For example, you could make a drawbridge covering the entrance into your fortress and have 3x3 drawbridges in a grid pattern outside your 'entrance' drawbridge. Then, pull up your main drawbridge, (With a lever) creating a 'wall' (Be sure to make the bridge raising and not retracting), and when they begin waiting in front of your fortress, pull the levers that control the small raising drawbridges and make it rain goblins. Be warned, however, that this does not work against certain special monsters like

 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Titans and Megabeasts

(You don't have to read the text, you'll generally know the monsters when you see them.)

, who will not move and will deconstruct the bridges.

 You could also force your enemies to go through a long hallway, which can easily be constructed out of wood or stone. You can then fill the hallway with goodies of your choosing ranging from simple traps to rather dwarven things like freezing your enemies or casting them in obsidian.

  Marksdwarves may provide you with a more satisfactory (read: gory and excessive) military experience, but I generally don't use them. There is also an exploit called a 'danger room' that can be found on the wiki, but it might not be as personally enjoyable as using soldiers normally.

[CaptainBadwheel]

Yeah it sucks when the loiter in the far corners of the map and don't want to step on your traps. I had a couple squads do that to me and sit there until a bronze colossus showed up an pulverized them. This last siege I actually sent out my heavy infantry to deal with them thinking it would be cleaner then my mixed corkscrew/spinning disc/giant axe 10weap traps (goblin/troll puree) it was, barely, I think I actually found some of their corpses and they didn't end up clogging the fortifications on my archer nest above the gate (I typically get parts landing 3-4 Z levels up the mountain).
As for the loiterers My advice is to train marksdwarves and build fortified towers at key locations or just carve out the inside of a hill and fortify it connecting it by way of tunnel to the fortress. You can avoid having the marksdwarves mix it up with the enemy archers by building a narrow raising drawbridge between two sets of fortifications (to keep them from getting crushed) and raising the drawbridge when archers are present. Also helps avoid fireballs setting the inside of your fortress on fire. Stupid Dragon.

[Azure]

Have squads of marksdwarves filled with your useless hobos (Read: Lye Maker/Hauler) spend a few months shooting at wildlife to get to rank 6-8 or so then put the squad on 2 training. This'll keep them from rusting and make a slight improvement. These are your tasty reserves.

Your fort should have inward facing fortifications around the entrance and other key points These will keep them safe during the attacks.(have the entrance to the firing galleries well defended)[Inward because if they face outward your hobos will shoot at melee gobbos while the grand master bowgobbo picks off your marksdwarves.]

Melee squads should be a mix of hammer/spear/axe/ and sword if you want the utility. This'll cover your bases for Damage type needs. Train them on wildlife/prisoners until they are in the 4-6ish range.(Higher skill in a weapon seems to correlate to a higher chance of sparring) Afterward put them in squads of two so they can spar until legendary. Then use them as teachers to teach the second generation of melee hobos.