Faction with Best Militia Units?

[Majorkill93]

Hello everyone, I am about to finish my first campaign as the Teutonics and wanted to try a different approach to the game. I was wondering if there were any factions that were militia focused like the Italians were in the vanilla game. I know in SS Genoa/Venice still have decent militia but they kinda suck. Did this mod remove any good militia until the laters dates? Or are there any factions with solid militia units that could make a city focused expansion viable?

[Majkl]

Rus are good. In city you get Berdiche Axemen - decent shock infantry, Senior Rus Militia - decent spears, Crossbow Militia - quite nice stats and those from kiev look fabolous once armor is upgraded. Also not sure if city level but they get Senior Mounted Militia which is decent medium cavalry with beautiful charge.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Rus are good. In city you get Berdiche Axemen - decent shock infantry, Senior Rus Militia - decent spears, Crossbow Militia - quite nice stats and those from kiev look fabolous once armor is upgraded. Also not sure if city level but they get Senior Mounted Militia which is decent medium cavalry with beautiful charge.

They become outclassed by the Western pike and halberd militia troops though in the later stages, and in the case of the HRE the forlorn hope. Especially combined with crossbows and Mangomels and later canon and arquebuse

Then again I play very defensively and try to avoid fighting in the field, an I rarely use cavalry, I prefer ranged superiority and a solid defence to protect my crossbows/artillery

[Majkl]

They become outclassed by the Western pike and halberd militia troops though in the later stages, and in the case of the HRE the forlorn hope. Especially combined with crossbows and Mangomels and later canon and arquebuse

Then again I play very defensively and try to avoid fighting in the field, an I rarely use cavalry, I prefer ranged superiority and a solid defence to protect my crossbows/artillery

That is right, I just rarely get to such late stages cuz I play mostly early era.

[Majkl]

I would like to make Lithuanian axemen militia class unit so I can train them everywhere. (Lithuanian MVP unit lol) Anyone knows how to do that?

[PerXX]

I would like to make Lithuanian axemen militia class unit so I can train them everywhere. (Lithuanian MVP unit lol) Anyone knows how to do that?

Open your Export_descr_buildings.txt file and search for entries matching Lithuanian Axemen - each building level in both cities and castle will have entries. They should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

recruit_pool "Lithuanian Axemen" 1 0.25 2 0 requires factions { lithuania, } and hidden_resource lithuania
recruit_pool "Lithuanian Axemen" 0 0.13 1 0 requires factions { lithuania, } and hidden_resource poland or hidden_resource hungary or hidden_resource russia

First line means that you can recruit Lithuanian Axemen in Lithuanian native lands, where the recruitment pool will start with 1 available, will replenish by 0.25 per turn, has a max of 2 units recruitable at a time, and they'll start with 0 experience.
Second line means that you can recruit Lithuanian Axemen in Polish, Hungarian and Russian native lands, where the recruitment pool will start with 0 available, will replenish by 0.13 per turn, has a max of 1 unit recruitable at a time, and they'll start with 0 experience.

Since you want Lithuanian Axemen recruitable everywhere, you have two options;
1: simply remove any restrictions and have everywhere act as Lithuanian homelands.
2: have everywhere act as Polish, Hungarian and Russians do in the above example. That would be my personal way to do it, as you would have the Lithuanian Axemen available everywhere, but more readily in your own homelands.

Option 1:
Remove the second line entirely, and the requirement from the first. Should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

recruit_pool "Lithuanian Axemen" 1 0.25 2 0 requires factions { lithuania, }

Option 2:
Change the requirements of the second line from Poland, Hungary and Russia to Not Lithuania. Should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

recruit_pool "Lithuanian Axemen" 1 0.25 2 0 requires factions { lithuania, } and hidden_resource lithuania
recruit_pool "Lithuanian Axemen" 0 0.13 1 0 requires factions { lithuania, } and not hidden_resource lithuania

Keep doing this for each entry you find in the Export_descr_buildings.txt file.
And most importantly - make a backup first, before you start editing!

[Majkl]

Oh, does not seem that hard actually. Thank you!

[Roman Heritage]

I'd guess it depends from the time period in which you're interested playing. Early on, Italian and Russian militias are quite powerful, with the Italian powers fielding large numbers of cheap and useful, relatively well trained spears (which would give you a slight edge on your Western neighbours' less trained and numerous militias and early spear units) plus the possibility of fielding large quantities of good-quality crossbowmen (militas, pavises, etc...). You also get urban militia cavalry, fast and cheap, which could come in handy against skirmishers and light enemy troops. Later on you could field better urban, as I'd guess pikes, halberds, muskeeters and arquebusiers are, indeed, located in cities' barracks (?)

Russians get a similarly good situation. Early on you can field Chude militias (cheap, fast moving javelin troops, quite capable in meleè in the earliest period) and later on berdiches, cavalry militias, senior rus spearmen.

In late period, however, factions such as HRE and France, as Sebaku said, con overwhelm Russians with their higher quality pikes and heavy shock troops. So, it's really up to you. I'd guess the Italians are arguably the best "militia" factions. Their units don't suck, it's just that it takes skill to use them in the right way. They're kind of a double edged sword, they have a nice edge over neighbours, but their relatively low morale and training exposes them to higher quality troops such as the ones mustered in castles.

[Zanze]

A nice benefit of the Russian Militias is that there are a lot of them. Once you get the third or fourth barracks built in a city you can recruit near half a stack just from one pool. Combined with the large expanse that is Russia, it is a neat defensive tool.