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[Alestom]

I just repelled a dark-strangler   -   Beak wolf seige with 5 legendary miners with copper picks...... I know that isnt going to be enough in the very near present. Any tips?

[Lordraymond]

Cage traps are your best friend here, along with copper/silver spinning blades. Most of the lower tier enemies are unarmored and will get torn to pieces by even weak metals. Get a few well armored dwarves with steel or silver for blunt weapons and train them non-stop. Any captured prisoners get sent into an arena for further training.

Unfortunately, no matter how prepared you think you are you'll face widespread failure once Naga and Ferric Elves start to show up as they not only avoid traps but wield iron. If you didn't embark with iron, you'll be in for an especially large challenge as you'll need to import anything better than copper or bronze, if you can get your hands on some tin. Put max imports on all weapons-grade materials that aren't native to your site, and make sure to have a lockdown system just in case your army/traps fail.

As a suggestion for trapavoid enemies, positions your military to fight on top of the trap field. Enemies will get knocked over and thus trigger traps even if they would normally avoid them.

[Neyvn]

Curl up into a corner of your room and start crying...
Its your best defense against watching your fort crumble into nothing...

Seriously though, Marksmen on walls. Build a few of them. Bridge gates with a trench infront of it can protect you most of the time if you can wait out a siege. Training properly, danger rooms don't do it for me, but they may for you. Learn how to split armys, make set rooms that have the main goal of separating sieges away from one another so that your Military can remove them one at a time. OR Find a way to box them in all together and then pin cushion them from above with Marksmen.

Note, The above is without Traps.

[612DwarfAvenue]

I don't know man, Legendary Miners can be pretty bad-ass. Give them some military training in between training up their mining skill, and watch as they stab people in the face with their picks.

[Alestom]

I took Nevyns advice and curled up once my 5 legendary, steel clad, pick wielding dwarves got torn to shreds by 22 frogmen, 15 darkstranglers, 30 beak wolfs and 4 minotaurs......... !!FUN!!


EDIT: holy shit, I thought I was done for. My 5 dwarves killed everything except 5 frogmen and 1 minotaur. I had 80 dwarves who got slaughtered after that and the last surviving one was my mayor, positioned on a hill. The minotaur comes charging at him, he leaps off the edge, falcon punches him in the face and turns his brain into jelly and made the frogmen flee....... Now I just need him to survive until the next migrant wave 

[Mitchewawa]

My greatest trap system is my current Defence map:

- A 20 block long dodge-em trap using a continuous on/off upright-menacing-iron-spikes (each trap using 10 spikes).
- Marksdwarfs above, firing down through fortifications into the dodge-em trap.
- The drop is around 10 z-levels, with upright-menacing-iron-spikes at the sides of the bottom (each using 10). Waiting below are my exotic animals (I'm in a savage desert, take a guess).
- In the middle, another fortification section for my second marksdwarf squad, who fire down at the survivors.
- Survivors from the dodge-em (there have been a few) are sent up stairs, with each level a hatch cover (to prevent the melee squads from charging into the dodge-em).
- The stairs come up to the training room where my melee squads train.

This took around 7 in-game years to set up, and not including soldiers, 600 iron was used. I also keep cage traps out the front to catch some exotic animals.
Unfortunately due to some poor planing 20 dwarfs were killed in a cave-in recently and the fortress is plummeting into a tantrum spiral. One melee squad (the captain of the guard) is hanging out in the dining room to administer justice to any berserkers or tantrumers.

[Chilton]

This is a complex issue. I recommend trying everything.

I like to have (View this like the top is the start)

Bridge (There is a 2z-level Gap under each bridge, which leads to Water. With no escape. A Dorf DIED in each of these Holes.)
Cage Traps
Bridge (Same as before, but ALOT Longer, and with a Spiky Bottom)

Works pretty well.

[Loud Whispers]

Hmph. Well I start off by conscripting pretty much everyone, organising them all into 3 man squads for obvious reasons, and equip them with whatever I can find. Then I move up, and after around 5-10 years, conscript everyone. Even on the first year I usually end up with 40 or so constantly on duty, and constantly sparring. And to top it all off, whatever fighting beasts I can nab to slow down any ambushes/sieges while my army gets prepared.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Never just place marksdwarves on top of walls. Put them behind fortifications standing in a 1-wide hallway, with the fortifications elevated or set back across your dodge-me trap; this will give them total protection from non-elite archers and ensure maximum pain delivery.

Arrows. Lots and lots of arrows. You can't get enough with Fortress Defense. You know that show called Hoarders: Buried Alive? That's what a fortress should look like, except completely full of arrows and coffins.

Ditch the default leather archer armor and create a custom uniform with metal everything, including shields. It's not just paranoia; it's a fashion statement, and that statement is screw all non-Dwarven life under Armok's glare. Build a danger room. Build a pump exercise room, and use it to supply water to your truly huge hospital. Ditch the wooden bows for a material that makes a better hammer for CQB. Breed Dorf Muhreens.

A Dorf Bunker on the surface will slow down, confuse and occasionally drive off sieges - especially if it is full of angry supersoldiers. Stationing sacrificial livestock in pastures on the surface will further delay the unfaithful, and it occasionally trains named unstoppable heavily scarred water buffalo of doom for the glory of Armok.

[Alestom]

K so I survived all that and got back 27 migrants, LUCKLY a caravan came at the same time and had a crap ton of weapons (Mostly spears and axes, spears for taking down the big enemys, axes for taking down the little ones) I equiped 3 spear squads of 3 dwarves in each, then equiped 3 axe squads with 3 dwarves in each. I am training them non stop and the remainder of the dwarves are just keeping my fortress up and running, making cage traps and dodge-em traps and producing the most needed liquid known to dwarf.

[Alestom]

Oh, Im dead, Ferric Elves just came and kicked my ass back to the mountainhome

[JBlak]

You'll kill them all with about 3 squads of danger room trained super soldiers.

[Loud Whispers]

You'll kill them all with about 3 squads of danger room trained super soldiers.

Some people don't use them ;p

[Neyvn]

Oh, Im dead, Ferric Elves just came and kicked my ass back to the mountainhome

Did you huddle into a corner, curled into a ball and call out for your Mother when they came knocking on your doors???

[Alestom]

I don't, I find them to be cheap, I like watching my dwarves change from useless drunks to....Well....Slightly more usefull drunks