I decided that peasants armed with pitchforks are lame, so I changed the model to scots pike miltia to make them pikemen. And changed their damage stat to 1. defense skill to 0. And added pike bonuses from scots pike miltia.

They do take heavy casualties but ultimately win vs mailed knights on VH mode. I remember reading about how common peasants armed with nothing but pikes would easily defeat the highly trained, armed, armored knights. So I figure that's "balanced".

Armored Sergeants take around 20 casualties before causing the peasants to rout. Before I had peasant defense skill at 1, and they would defeat the Armored Sergeants every battle. Considering how abymsal the peasants stats are, that seems embarassing. Later units chew right through.

Maybe I should make them a bit stronger vs cav and weaker vs infantry somehow.