I will elaborate on a few points mentioned here:
1) Initially Oligarch had around 40k militia which held off anything
2) Then we gained more nobles, lowered the militia to 12k and used the rest of the gold to field mobile army.
3) Our noble count reached same as Sirion and we were winning battles even in the open field
4) Sirion's allies entered beating us back and we lost some nobles because of it and raised militia back to 20k or so with a 10k mobile force
5) Everytime we left the city, because Commonyr and Greatbridge were hateful now, we faced 5-6k peasant militia. This caused us to lose more nobles as we were stuck in the city mostly
6) More militia, less mobile again and then about 3 occurances of peasant militia?
In summary, Oligarch for the half of its time didn't fully rely on militia but on mobile force. There were several issues overall though:
1) Peasant militia is overpowered and its effects too easy to repair before the enemy brings the next wave of attack
2) There was too much magic used against Oligarch.
3) The spawning of peasant militia upon arrival due to hateful ruins everything for smaller realms. You get stuck in your own regions.
The archer opening siege is one I don't see as an abuse though. Ranged attacks make sense. It's a strategy Zakky and I fleshed out at the time after tye fall of Taselak, so in that sense I helped defeat Oligarch I fear.
Oligarch as a single realm can field 40k militia no problem. One the one hand it makes sense that the largest city is nearly impossible to take, but on the other hand militia is powerful and has little downsides.
I would support initiatives like increasing the rate at which militia walks away for instance, to strengthen the idea of them being more temporary.
I would also once more beg that the peasant militia rising up due to hateful to be removed and peasant militia called by rulers to be weakened somehow.
