I've been saying this for ages.
Some thought it would get resolved with increased noble density but it won't for awhile at this pace.
I see following problems for militias:
1) They are not that expensive to maintain. Even with 15k militia, you usually pay only 1k gold per week these days. If your city is as large as Oligarch or Perdan and it is your only city, you can garrison 45k CS or so if you give up your income. That would cost 3k or so. Oligarch - if it is your only region - can generate roughly 4k income. Even with 45k CS militia, you can still generate 1k income. So techinically, you can garrison 60k CS. How on earth are you supposed to break a city that has 60k CS and 15k CS mobile? This case is obviously an outlier but even for a small city that can only generate 15k CS, you are already running into a problem. How many realms can field an army large enough to siege a city that has 10k militia - which most cities can actually support - plus your enemy's mobile CS?
2) I think there are several things that can be done
-If upkeep will not be changed - militia's CS needs to be reduced significantly to force people to recruit more to get the same CS
-If upkeep can be changed - it needs to be significantly more expensive. I think it will be a good solution to make militia upkeep or recruit cost to go up exponentially. For example, keeping 5k CS costs 500 gold a week but 10k CS costs 2k gold while 20k costs 4k gold to maintain per week so people can keep them for a short time but they can't keep them indefinitely.
-Increased food consumption
-Negative effect on your city for having too many militia - maybe strongholds can be exempted from this giving something to differentiate them from cities even more.
-Having multiple small militia units vs having large militia units: Not sure if something should be done about this.
-Militias unit type fixed to police only unless they are stationed in stronghold
3) Conclusion - I think militias are currently in an awkward spot. Lack of players is definitely a huge contributing factor as often attacks can't field enough to overcome militias. Until they get completely overhauled, I think there should be tweaks to help people resolve this issue.
P.S : I think someone suggested number of militia to be based on your army's CS. Only being allowed to recruit a portion of your total mobile CS or something.
