please change militia to be your troops

[alexman91]

milita should have your sort of units just to give field testing bonuses.
i find it so aggravating that artillery and recon cars are just wasted space being irregular.
all milita soldiers should give field training to your GI units.
there should be an option to upgrade existing milita to new gear too over time as you pass old worn gear down.

[Xxzard]

Breaking things down, you are suggesting the following:

1. Militia should use your unit types and therefore militia should contribute to unit type experience
2. Militia 'wastes space' being irregular
3. Militia should have an option to upgrade to new gear

Section 5.1.9.26. MILITIA TROOPS and section 5.10.1.3. 'MILITIA' of the manual cover the how and some of the why (Vic's reasoning) of how militia works in game for the player. Per the manual:

1. Militia uses your unit types eventually, provided the model is over 30 rounds old (5 Earth years). At the start of the game they are considered to be using basically homemade nonstandard equipment. Bring your own gun. Imagine that your government just recently devised the standard unit types you start with.
2. Militia are basically free units. They draw replacement troops and equipment from a militia pool. They can also deliver some supplies and some replacements to the SHQ. It appears the supplies delivered to the SHQ from militia generally offset militia unit supply usage at least at game start. The one thing I am unsure of (and someone please tell me if they know) is how militia count towards manpower/population - they don't seem to be subtracted from population when recruited as far as I can tell, and they can't be disbanded by the player.
3. As far as I am aware, other than the 5 year old model rule they do not upgrade and you cannot tell them to upgrade.

All that being said, should militia be changed?

In my opinion, no. The whole point I believe Vic was going for is that militia are a distinct, less organized force compared to your regular military. They are free, but low quality, meant to operate close to their home zone/SHQ in mostly defensive actions. Their starting equipment is nonstandard, thus what lessons could be learned from it? If some militant makes a homemade gun or bolts a machine gun on a pickup truck, does that teach a formal military anything? Probably not. I don't think militia 'wastes space', because they give you supply, they have their own replacement pool, and as far as I can tell* they don't even impact your manpower pool. So they are basically free. If you don't want to use them at the front, keep them at home. If you want regular military, recruit regular military.

Should there be an option to convert militia to regular units? Arguably I could see this being an option, but I don't think it would add much. The way militancy works, it exists because there is a perceived lack of regular military. As soon as you have good regular military forces, the militancy goes down, and militia force generation stops. Maybe converting militia to regular could give an experience boost to the created units, but the equipment would still need replacing, and the manpower would still be taken out of circulation and into the military (based on my understanding).

TL;DR, I think Vic designed militia with irregular, non-standard forces in mind. They fill a specific role. I don't think they need to be changed.

Why do you feel you need/want to upgrade militia instead of using regular units? Are you facing a lot of early game pressure? Looking for quicker expansion? Just looking for something to do with any leftover militia units in late game?

[Slippy]

Breaking things down, you are suggesting the following:

1. Militia should use your unit types and therefore militia should contribute to unit type experience
2. Militia 'wastes space' being irregular
3. Militia should have an option to upgrade to new gear

Section 5.1.9.26. MILITIA TROOPS and section 5.10.1.3. 'MILITIA' of the manual cover the how and some of the why (Vic's reasoning) of how militia works in game for the player. Per the manual:

1. Militia uses your unit types eventually, provided the model is over 30 rounds old (5 Earth years). At the start of the game they are considered to be using basically homemade nonstandard equipment. Bring your own gun. Imagine that your government just recently devised the standard unit types you start with.
2. Militia are basically free units. They draw replacement troops and equipment from a militia pool. They can also deliver some supplies and some replacements to the SHQ. It appears the supplies delivered to the SHQ from militia generally offset militia unit supply usage at least at game start. The one thing I am unsure of (and someone please tell me if they know) is how militia count towards manpower/population - they don't seem to be subtracted from population when recruited as far as I can tell, and they can't be disbanded by the player.
3. As far as I am aware, other than the 5 year old model rule they do not upgrade and you cannot tell them to upgrade.

Just to add to the great points made by Xxzard I wrote a guide on Steam with tips and tricks for militia. It is possible to stick regular military units into militia units but its pretty micro intensive and probably not worth it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3172962506

Regarding your question about militia manpower, they currently are created out thin air. This allows for some funky tricks where you can scrap militia units to gain 'free pop' and if your militancy is still high you can keep doing this as they will produce even more militia.

Personally, the main change I would like to see for militia is the ability to disband the units back to the SHQ so we can send them back out as militia reinforcements to under strength units later in the game. If that means we lose the scrapping loophole I would be fine with that.

[solops]

If i recall correctly, new militia units and replacements are created with equipment models two generations older than the most current available.