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[T-Mick]

I'm looking for some ideas for a unique defense mechanism.  I usually just line every opening and corridor with cages, along with an okayish militia, but come next update, I want to try something new.  Any ideas? 

[Duntada Man]

Pressure plates that cause the room to fill with angry snakes.
You can breed snakes right?

[thegoatgod_pan]

Embark in a cold zone and do not rest until you have a freezing trap that works.  It's the most stylish way to instantly kill a siege.

[TSTwizby]

Build a computer controlled system which automatically casts a gigantic slab of obsidian suspended over the whole map when a lever is pulled. Then have a single wooden support holding it up, which can be surrounded by magma when necessary. Wash, rinse, repeat with each new siege. Alternately, set up tetris in your entrance hall.

[rephikul]

The most interesting defense I have seen are magma land mines / fountains or however you call them.

[Armv]

My preferred method? Your fortress proper/trading depot can only be reached after a very long tunnel. At one point the tunnel descends a number of Z levels. Over these Z-levels? Flood gates. From an infinite water source. You wait until the enemy army has entered the point of no return. Then you flip the lever. Our friendly neighborhood lever does one other thing in addition to the flood gates! The lever lifts a draw bridge, protecting your fort from the water, but it also reveals a hole! The army is pushed down the tunnel and into the hole...

...from there it's your call! It can lead them to an arena, some spikes -- or my prefered method just a ludicrous amount of Z-levels for instanta gibbing. This all takes about as much work as cage traps to set up, but is manual, so allows for more Fun. That and a tantrum can destroy the lever. Magma instant of water for bonus dwarf points!

[Firbozz Pieman]

Try running a fort with limited no military. Rely entirely on traps, and if things get too hot, just wall yourself in, because there still isn't anything that can destroy walls.
Bonus points: Build an entirely self-sufficient fortress that's fully automated, use dfhack to disable pausing, and leave it to its own devices overnight.

[CaptainBadwheel]

Roof over the whole map with magma-safe drawbridges, link them up to a lever. Pump magma on top of drawbridges. Wait for siege.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

I've been trying to weaponize steam with little success. So far the best I've come up with is pushing enemies into burning items with water, which works well enough. Pure steam doesn't seem to cause injuries even when the amount of steam you're making is cranked up to 11.

If you have a flat grassland map and easy access to magma or another source of fire (such as Warlord's bonfire mod or a diabolical contraption requiring a dragon and puppies) then you can weaponize wildfires. Wildfires won't hurt quick-moving targets, but ones that have stalled and made camp will be burned. It also gives the map a nice postapocalyptic wasteland look.

[ASCIt]

Use the mighty power of bovine. The entrance to your fort shall bottle-neck to a 1 tile wide section, in which you will keep a 1x1 pasture containing angry bulls. One thing shall lead to another, and every invader will either end up gored or violated by hormonal cattle.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Use the mighty power of bovine. The entrance to your fort shall bottle-neck to a 1 tile wide section, in which you will keep a 1x1 pasture containing angry bulls. One thing shall lead to another, and every invader will either end up gored or violated by hormonal cattle.

I lol'd.

Ever seen a named water buffalo? I have.

[Clockwise Onions]

Step 1: trap dragon in cage

Step 2: place dragon cage in front of entrance to fort and link to far away lever

Step 3: build fortifications snugly around cage so dragon can't move when released and is forced to remain in the middle of the fortifications

Step 4: build raising drawbridges encompassing entire block of fortifications including diagonals

Step 5: link bridges to one lever/ multiple levers in order to "turn off" or "turn on" defenses and/or protect dragon from elite bow goblins

Step 6: PULL THE LEVER

Step 7: laugh when dragon discovers and instantly toasts goblin ambush

[SRD]

Dragons don't do breath attacks if they don't have a path to the intruder iirc

[Mickey Blue]

Try running a fort with limited no military. Rely entirely on traps, and if things get too hot, just wall yourself in, because there still isn't anything that can destroy walls.
Bonus points: Build an entirely self-sufficient fortress that's fully automated, use dfhack to disable pausing, and leave it to its own devices overnight.

Not for nothing but given how overpowered traps are right now that would be a lot easier than running one with military (whether it is 'more creative' I guess depends on how you lay out your traps.. If its just a mass of traps over a single-tile wide bridge.. Not so much).


As for the OP.. If you want challenge/creative I'd go the other way and say use military only, no walling in, no traps.  If you want more artistic creative I'd design some kind of trap (as opposed to a glut of preset traps), something that doesn't involve magma (seriously that's been done to death).  Maybe pressurized water that blasts the enemy out of your base, or knocks them into a hole filled with spikes, or fill the water with gators, or what have you.

The skies the limit really, but if you want something truly interesting you need to cross off magma chamber and drowning chamber (not that they aren't good educational opportunities, just that they have been done countless times and honestly aren't that complex). 

[steampunkfox]

i have recently devised a way of defending my fortress. this plan is named "raptor box".
you see in every one of my fortresses i put a nice long hallway, least three tiles wide, and then channel ramp down a few levels before i start really digging. 

this is my defense plan:
step one: acquire a large number of raptors. around 20 or so should do. i prefer more.
step two: dig a large room filled with nest boxes at the end of the entryway, on the other side of your entrance.
...
it's a bunch of damned raptors okay? that's the whole plan. you can add in a bridge that separates them from the entryway and then covers your entrance when it goes down... but its a moot point.

because raptors that's why.