I don't think removing peasant mobs would instantly cause all wars to be total wars. Looting kills peasants, but not by the thousands per unit that loots. It would take a big army a while to kill a lot of peasants. Coding in a degressive mortality rate would also be easy to code in. "The peasants are hiding and running, the army has already killed all the elderly and has a hard time finding more victims this turn".
For example, first guy loots brutally, kills 100 peasants. Next guy does the same, kills 90. Next does the same, kills 81. Next doe the same, kills 72. Etc. There are other ways to slow down the speed at which an army kills a region than "HA! BITCHES! EAT THIS 20K OF PEASANTS! HAHAHAHAHA!" I mean, this literally just happened on BT. Worked in my character's favor, but OOC, I find the whole thing pretty ridiculous.
Also, regions already recover way, way, way faster than they used to, in the old days. This should equally be taken into consideration.
I don't mind peasant militias existing in some form or another, but I do much rather they be the result of player actions, and not some form of passive defense. In other words, it's the automatic spawning of peasant hordes that I hate. If the horde required some noble being in the region and spending gold and hours to arm those people, it'd be another story.
