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[E. Albright]

I'm not sure whether I've got any modernized militia near your front line (vs. militia that spawned as modern-ish b/c I've maintained high militancy this game longer than I probably ever have before - my capital spawned a 2.4k unit last turn and I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Volunteerism freespawn [Spoiler: it was]), but yeah, I've only scrapped units entirely in the forlorn hope zones getting overrun by Hornstein. Which is nice b/c of how strapped for PP I've been this whole game, and how oversized my borders are; not needing to spend PP to get new (or "new") units has been very welcome, and militia works okay fighting freefolk and wildlife as long as they're not default models.

Take your depleted militia unit (or painfully archaic militia unit) back to your SHQ. Open its unit admin page and look at the TOE to see what it can take - be aware that "militia buggies" fill a light armor slot, unless that got fixed recently. If you've got some utter trash you want gone, scrap those subunits, taking care to not empty the unit. Hire whatever replacement units you want to second to your militia, then open unit transfer, select SHQ as the donor and the militia as the recipient. Transfer all appropriate regular-army reinforcements into the militia unit. This is a one-way street, mind you; you can transfer them back into the SHQ or other militia units, but those subunits will now always be militia troops. And viola, your militia unit is modernized even if it still can't benefit from OHQ leadership or postures.

If you were tricky about it, you could do militia replacement in the field by sending regulars out in "replacement" units and transferring reinforcements out of them, then reinforcing the "training" unit. That's a bit more annoying b/c you can't just recruit arbitrary models into a non-SHQ unit, and you can't take non-SHQ units down to 2 or 1 power - they need to be 3+ or disbanded. Still, if you're using the unit as a long-term training brigade, that's probably a decent safety measure to make sure you don't accidentally disband it.

[Edit: you'd asked about how the engine picks militia models. I'll offer up the 2.4k (Volunteerism extra) unit I got last turn as a lone data point. I wanna say all five models in it are from w/in the first 30 turns. Weight is towards older models, but the longer the game goes, the more that shifts. Oh, and I just realized my labels are confusing. V1 & V2 are Mk. I of those design lines, and V3 & V4 are their replacements, but that was the order the models were made in.]

[Il Palazzo]

Hmm. Too much work for too little benefit, imo. I think I'll pass. But thanks for explaining. I did not realise you could manually transfer regular reinforcements to militia units like that.

[E. Albright]

One other thing to consider is that some of the militia TOEs you see are rather interesting and would be hard or impossible to duplicate even with very aggressive unit customization. I've got a militia unit I'm wanting to modernize that's something like 2 Light Armor, 1 Armor, 3 motorcycles, and then like 9 motorized infantry. The former vassal zone that Hornstein is probably gonna overrun in 1-2 turns generated a lot of units mixing armored transports and light/medium armor (that melted like butter once they were out of supplies, natch). Etc.

[Karlito]

Huh, that's a neat trick. Maybe I'll make some militia's that can actually fight the wildlife.

[E. Albright]

On the one hand, it's very satisfying to see troglodoids getting their what-for. On the other, they're attacking modern anti-armor troops in highly defensible terrain at 1-to-4.5 odds, so they'd better be getting blown to bits.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Il Palazzo]

i must have my turn
i have become addicted to my morning review of the frontline engagements
where is my turn

We good here?

[Karlito]

I had a weird day yesterday. Sorry for the delay

[E. Albright]

The AI seems better about threat assessment with air assets than with its ground forces. It's been losing a steady trickle of tanks and infantry trying to bluster past the two Planning Workgroups we set up to process their illegal immigration efforts, but as soon as we assigned just a couple of inexperienced, poorly-equipped Overhead Projectors to hand out in-flight customs & immigration paperwork to their encroaching aircraft, we haven't even seen those try to cross the border again.

[Il Palazzo]

Wait, they're using some aircraft other than the starting recon planes?

[E. Albright]

I can't tell for sure since I've got pretty crappy recon on them; all I've been able to see is the names when they attack in the history since my satrapies are kinda desperate, rag-tag affairs holding out on what I can buy from merchants and produce from one recycling asset and private industry. Hornstein is very aggressively building airfields, though, and have been using aircraft to attack unprotected infantry. If I have a turn where I can spare the points to throw enough spies into their zones to get a look (dubious since I haven't felt like I have the PP to justify a Secret Service council), I'll report back more precisely.

Oh, and one last note on the manual militia replacement thing: if you're replacing vehicles, but the model you're ditching isn't too obsolete, manually handing them off to the militia can be a fairly practical option that may end up being more cost-effective than just scrapping them. My militia is happily replacing their basically-useless Irregular Armor with Mk. I assault guns right now, and swapping Militia Buggies and Militia Tanks (or whatever those are called) for Mk. I light armor as well.

[Salmeuk]

just wanted to say, I'm down for a game 2 once you wrap this up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

assuming y'all are still interested a year from now when this game finally ends

I was dealt a beautiful hand and played all my cards in the first round, losing to the bluff of a mere computer. i want digital revenge

[Il Palazzo]

Certainly. These games are more fun than I thought they'd be.
And, I'm thinking, if this round will be anything like the previous one, it shouldn't take all that long to finish. In that one, once hostilities started, the conclusion was reached rapidly.
Although there seems to be an unspoken agreement here not to rush things.

[E. Albright]

The existence of third players & major AIs both make caution seem advisable.

Metal scarcity also kinda makes me nervous about going on a total war footing.

[Il Palazzo]

New beta patch is out. Nothing terribly relevant to our game, by my reckoning.

[E. Albright]

5 turns ago it would have made a noticeable difference for Richenau. Hornstein flattened the militia there b/c the zone is cut off from any SHQ and I wasn't willing to shell out 20 (maybe 30? I can't remember if there's a cumulative increased cost for additional SHQs) PP just to slow down their inevitable conquest. With the changes to let zone governors supply local units, Hornstein would have had to fight at least as much against what was there as against a normal minor - possibly more since they had my out-of-date equipment. I'm really glad to see that change - it makes zones a lot more autonomous and reduces the degree to which overcentralization of command in SE gets silly.

But yeah, I don't think there will be any *balance* changes.