City militia equipment

I'm not sure. I do know that in the campaign, when I researched the tech granting Boreal Blades, my militia was equipped with them, so it might be that Boreal Blades are set as a militia weapon upgrade for some reason.

This is a question I asked myself several times now. How come our militia wields club while we have the weaponsmith tech researched, while when we attack any AI city and their sovereign had any weapon tech researched their militia instantly upgrade and fight with longswords and boreal blades.

The same question arises looking at the defense of their militia while our militia stays at 0 defense. I've seen AI militia from a city with 4, 6, 15 defense... where does it come from? Is there any way to make it available for our troops?

The player gets this as well for his own militia, but of course you'll need the tech. Only weapons gets upgraded by better techs, it never gets armor or anything else.

^Right, the defense values you saw on the militia were likely some combination of attacking a fortress settlement that has walls of some sort plus the militia using defend.

This is silly, the militia equipment should scale with tech.

Yeah, don't quite understand the design choice myself (glass cannon militia). If I were to speculate it's because it slows down the game and quite possibly, the AI wouldn't be able to take cities if they were buffed hardcore with armor and/or more units.

Good news - Sean's Master's Affliction mod takes a different approach. City improvements add both quality and quantity of defenders. Totally different feel than vanilla. I personally like it. Because the defenders are static, meaning the AI can't take 'em out and do something stupid with 'em, it leaves each city feeling like a true bastion of power, not like a minor speed bump. It slows down the steamroll signficantly. Just my humble opinion of course.

There should be of course separate line of techs and/or improvements, that upgrade militia. Something like City militia-City watch-City guard line, adding better armour and weaponry and chars, that would be great. Still, militia could retain some weaknesses compared to regular units (init? accuracy?), but it would greatly improve cities as true bastions of power, as mentioned.

Some factions could even get some of these militia techs from the beginning (e.g. Defensive trait?). Maybe on higher difficulties all AIs would get the first one for free, to prevent early rush?

It would even sharpen the strategic choice: should I focus on offensive regular techs or turtle militia techs?

Nah, I don't think militia are weakness compared to regular, they are fighting for thier home, so they should be stronger than regular units...

Historically, militia was usually weaker especially when morale was concerned, because they were not professional, battle hardened soldiers, but locals hastily armed to defend their homes. Morale was very important in any kind of battle (shame it's not simulated in FE). 

But their armaments should definitely evolve, primitive settlements had spear-armed guards, medieval cities had paid guardsmen with armor and halberds and today's policemen have handguns or even assault rifles in more dangerous parts of the world (I saw policemen with AK47s in Egypt).

Militias do scale with tech, but only with weapon tech (if theirs have Boreal blades, it means they have the tech for it). They don't gain armor. You can also "upgrade" them via fortress upgrades (mainly init) and town grocer (HP boost). Def could come from defending bonus, or passive bonuses from other units (like shieldwall).

Melee Militias weapons: Club -> Axe -> Fire Axe -> Warhammer -> Greatsword (I think...?) -> Boreal Blade

Archers don't upgrade their weapon.

I think the militia should even change based on the type of town

Fortress--should be using the best weapon and armor that has been researched.

Town and conclave--should or could be one or two notches below.

Concalve might using mage rather than archer. LOL

Keep in mind that militias aren't meant as your only defense. If you're fighting an army, you're expected to have one of your own defending, if you don't you're meant to lose. The militias give you an extra advantage on top of your defending garrison, allowing you to have more than 9 units to defend a city. It is already exceedingly difficult to fight that as it is, there's no need to make militias stronger... what you guys need is some units.

There are limited if you had all 9 army, you can't get all of them in garrison battle, it's not that advantage but if you had few number of army or few hero, maybe that could be advantage but full army do not gave advantage but more harm than good last time I check in .913 beta but right now I don't know, maybe rule is still apply that you can't had all troop in garrison battle map...

That was changed a while ago, you can have more than 9 when defending a city.

 I've started to encounter militia with maces, but that was after boreal blades. How they appeared so early in the game (I only had 2 first military techs at the time - spears and leather armor) is still a mystery.

By the way, militia is most definitely bugged. I had an umberdoth attacking my city with sov+3 units, battle overview said, I will have 6 units (4 of my army + 2 militia) but the militia did not show up.

Today in my current game some wondering mobs attacked one of the new cities I built after takign out one of the AI. I played the battle out manually and was pleasantly surprised when my 2 militia units actually managed to kill on of the enemies fairly quickly. Then in the second round one of the enemies dodged and I was again surprised when my unit hit them with a back-swing. So I zoomed in and noticed they were wielding fire axes. Those two managed to kill all 4 attackers and saved the city.

I do, however, wish the militia units would increase their squad size and armor as those techs are unlocked instead of only updating their weapons.

Some people had reported that militia who had fought a previous battle disappear and stop spawning in any other battles that turn or shortly after.

Militia should follow tech, but only the cheapest of equipment options. Like spears rather than swords.

Yep militia seems to only appear for on battle if two successive battles are fought on the same turn.

Actually solved the mystery of defense on enemy militia, depending on difficulty all AI units get free traits including Ironskin, which i'm ok with actually.

I agree that depending on the type of city, defense should change (mages instead of archers), more basic defense for fortresses (like one more milita archer). Also agree that weapons should be upgraded as soon as a new military/magic tech is available.