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[Vharuck]

I'm trying to learn the ins and outs of the military (pretty sure I know almost everything about the [m]ilitary menu, despite that phrase not holding to logic), so I've scaled down the traps and such for my current fort.  I have three sets of drawbridges, with only one blocking off an entrance, and I plan to not use them if possible.  I have cage traps placed immediately in front of my main entrance, but only so that I can have the snatchers volunteer for gladiatorial combat.  Otherwise I'm relying on my military (who have been kicking ass, mostly because I've also built a danger room for the first time).

But I am building a deep pit that I'll be able to fill with magma.  Finished the designs for the magma-spewing decorations yesterday, so I'm starting construction today.

[Crazy Cow]

Axes. Axes everywhere.

[Psieye]

"The drones of my industrial complex, gathered at the organic harvest chamber."

Translation: all my haulers are marksdwarves (because they don't have anything to do otherwise during siege lockdown). The goblins enter a chamber where they meander through a windy maze all while weathering death from above. A dodge-me trap makes them go back to the start should they succeed in getting through the maze. Once the siege is broken, my haulers have administered medical treatment to those who need it and they've harvested whatever spoils of war I want (including corpses - they're the source of more bone bolts in my cannibalist forts), I wash the chamber out with magma.

[WolfeyS]

Personally the only reason I wimp out and place traps everywhere out front is my military have their hands full killing megabeasts and any denizens of the deep.

[Iren]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Walls and heavily trapped entrance (lots of copper serrated discs), also magma Doomsday Device activated by lever, which will pour magma north and south of the entrance (from gobbos will usually appear), in case of a large scale invasion which sometimes jams the traps and lets some goblins to go through, which are taken care of by the military.

There are also a couple of towers for dorf marksmen in case that goblin archers/crossbowmen harass the citizens and/or cattle from the upper mountain levels.

For now I've been able to fend off several ambushes attacks and 3 sieges, with few casualities.

[WolfeyS]

Dat one catapult probably has saved your fortress!

[Necro910]

I use traps in the beginning, and axedorfs for cleanup.

Once I'm settled in, I close the gates whenever I see a siege/ambush and then release you-know-what. I use the axedorfs to kill any that snuck before the gates lock. I don't release much joy, just enough to get the party going.

[Iren]

Dat one catapult probably has saved your fortress!

Yeah, from stone cluttering 

[Starver]

Let's see, well, this fortress's defences are most obviously physical (designed against even mythical [CONSTRUCTION_DESTROYER:2]-type creatures, although not flyers[1], just yet), but afford the possibility of sneaking rapid-reaction forces in against an enemy, plus (only in a prototypical stage, as of the time this upload was made, but since then significantly finalised) a bridge-be-gone death-drop trap for anyone I get bored with.

Basically, I like going for impregnability and (switch-on-and-offable) isolation, with a side-line in military for dealing with enemies once I actually tire of their presence.  The above map is just a particularly land-grabbing version of said philosophy.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think the situation in the Inn of Drowning (see my sig.) pretty much describes my approach to defenses.

My first turn was all horror--the defenses amounted to a hole in the ground.  We lived in said hole and it was accessible from above and below.
I built a pallisade and a jump-trap--simple double bridge 10-z's up with a few weapon traps and no rails.  Easy goblin disposal, I didn't even have to unpause for ambushes.  They all just exploded.

My second turn I realized the army hadn't had to fight anything in a long long while.  So I built a namesake device--a simple (overly complicated and needlesly automated) drowner.

Which utterly failed to drown all the goblins.  (It got one, I am pretty sure by accident he got sucked into the drainage)

So the military had its shot.

To sum up--make safe at first and gradually remove safety elements until it is just the military and elaborate dwarf devices protecting me.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Spoiler: I blind my enemies with the power of microcline (click to show/hide)

First year saw the 2x2 staircase walled up and roofed over. The first few years my defence was mainly handled by the one tile wide cage trap corridor (the ^^^). After I had a few skilled squads and had some more of the surface structure built up, I controlled the amount of invaders inside with drawbridges, and had my militia take them on in the corridors. As my militia grew in strength (year ~3-4), I would take on bigger and bigger batches of enemies. Some time after the five year mark I deconstructed part of my staircase wall, enabling my dwarves, caravans and any possible invaders to completely bypass the cage corridor.

For the past years I would station my squads in the lower left microcline room and from there charge all ambushes and small sieges, while trying to bait portions of larger sieges inside. At least one such attempt resulted in my legendaries charging straight outside forcing me to commit all my forces. I haven't been counting but I've lost maybe a dozen or so dwarves in combat (standing army 21 + fortress guard, all melee). I've never lost a high master or better. Another twenty or thirty and you'll have an rough count on my civilian casualties (mostly ambushes while building the surface structure).

There are three weapon traps before the lower drawbridge. Enough to mutilate any stray wild life but will get mangled after the first two ambushers to allow my militia to do most of the killing. There are three wooden spike traps preceding the cage corridor, but they act primarily as a failsafe should my militia fail.

There was no real plan while I built the surface structure. It just sort of evolved from a 4x4 roofed stone hut into what it is today, adding a new bridge or a twist in the corridor every few years. It could certainly use a lot more planning. Maybe next time. The few twists in the corridors are to decrease the threat of (elite) ranged units, a job which they've done. Only one of the drawbridges has recently been outfitted with a 2 z-level drop into spike traps, the rest are merely 1 level drops to prevent enemy traffic.

The reason for microcline is that I ran out of grey stone halfway through and didn't bother digging for more.

[Uristocrat]

Cage traps and bottlenecks in early stages. Then I develop armies, and once those are secure I start experimenting with whatever else is handy.

Yeah, I use cage traps in the early game to buy some time.  Then I get rid of them and have a giant dodge-maze designed to be non-lethal for the first drop (and lethal or near-lethal for the second drop when trying to recover from the first).  Otherwise, you cage their leader or something and the whole damn squad of goblins sits there like a bunch of morons.  So now they rush to their leader and fall prey to the traps.  I have drawbridges so that I can send military dwarves down there to kill them personally, rather than letting the traps do everything.  But the maze design ensures that there is absolutely nowhere for the goblins to run.  I *hate* having goblin survivors.

Oh, and I also have a cheap statue surrounded by spike traps to stop the damned trolls that would otherwise spend 20 years kicking down the first dwarven structures they could find.  I'd much rather fight them, but they just stand outside instead of actually invading, which is frustrating.

And then there are the magma death weapons.  I wish magma were slightly more lethal, but at least it's !!FUN!!

[Aldawolf]

I don't make plans. I just make weapons, hope for the best, and conscript every dwarf in my fortress to fight a goblin siege if it arrives.

[slink]

This is my first fortress in 31.x with invaders turned on.  I have an open-air courtyard with a drawbridge gate.  The depot is in the courtyard.  The passageway from there into the fortress just has doors, and a couple of war dogs tied up to give warning if stealthed things get inside.  I operate the drawbridge and doors in such a manner as to use the courtyard as an airlock.  So far I have lost only one pet turkey, and have been seiged for years at a time.  In the year just passed, I added one line of cage traps behind the doors, to catch stray wildlife. 

One time a desert troll attacked while the Dwarven caravan was in the courtyard.  They killed it.  There is a LOT of meat on one of those.    One time a goblin ambush wiped out an Elven caravan.  Almost all of the caged animals died before the area was empty so my Dwarves could go collect the loot, but I did get one jaguar, one macque, and one chipmunk.  I later trapped a fox.  I have these in a small zoo near the lever that controls the drawbridge.  Some goblin child-snatchers spawned inside my courtyard and either ran away from workers or were chased away by caravan guards.

This past year I also began building a mezzanine overlooking the courtyard through fortifications.  Access to it is behind the doors to the passageway.  I have recruited two hunters and a ranger to be archers.  I hope to harvest some goblinite the next time we are under siege.  I need the iron.

[UnHerpers]

I have one of these but using magma rather than water.