Currently there is no real AI in the game.

Armies start with a few people and late game with some thousands (how many exactly yet to see).

Granted still doesn't negate the logic of every city having a standard defensive militia. I mean one of the frustrating parts of most TBS is garrisoning and geting caught with your pants down buy some one that slips through and takes an undefended city. Which while it does add to the tactical aspect of the game is lets face it really unbeleivable.

And while I really dislike the "Beleivability" arguement when it comes to games. In this case I think some kind of standard city defense force would really add to the immersion of this game. I can forsee a few ways to accomplish that.

1. Five or Ten percent of the population rallies when you city is attacked. These would be the most basic of the basic units.

2. Garrison Building: This building which takes up 1 or 2 tiles will add 5 or 10 Basic defenders when ever this city is attacked.

3. Armory Building: This building stores weapons which you can make and add to it's warehouse. When the city is attacked and number of population equal to the number of weapons stored will arm up and sally forth.

Lets face it almost every TBS has some kind of City/Planet defense upgrades. Also by allowing population to Defend a city it adds another little tactical caveat. Defending population that is killed is subtracted from your city. This opens up a few possibilities like attacking you opponents cities just to reduce their size. Slow seiges that eventually deplete a cities population through Attrition. yadda yadda. Like any good mechanic it has an upside and a downside for both the defender and attacker.

Okay ... so each City has a permanent "militia" value. For all intents and purposes these militia are "slave soldiers" only they cannot gain experience points ... ever. Factions with the "Egalitarian" trait have slightly stronger militia ... being "draftee soldier" quality.

Draftees have 8 HP, while Slaves have 5 HP.

All militia Start out equipped with Clubs.

There are two Upgradable Buildings for Militia. One is the "Spear Shop" and the other is the "Bow Shop".

If you have only one, then 50% are upgraded and 50% still have clubs. If you have both, then half are spears and half are bows.

You can build a "Public Training Yard" which costs 4 Space, and upgrades the level of your Militia to "regular" or 10 HP.

Militia automatically appear when the city is attacked, and 1 appears for every 10 population of the city. They disappear after the tactical battle is over. Militia only appear in tactical battles that include the city. Only your own race is determined when calculating militia ... so if your city is half your race and half another race, you will only receive half militia.

I see the odd peasant or soldier defending a city 'hamlet'.

I generally kill the sovereigns off very quickly... I crash the odd time (though removing Auto-save helps stability) and then start again. They were not joking when they said the beta's not fun, its dull too. I personally think from what I've seen, a working 'challenging' game is on for early autumn (and I hope no sooner).