Quote Originally Posted by RtG_WTW
Geoff - what's your reasoning behind not including peasants?
I've quite frequently come up against armies filled with peasants making for tedious battles, and have rarely found a use for them myself other than for garrison duty. It also seems that if poor people went to battle in those days it was almost always as some kind of spear armed unit; they would certainly not be sent into battle with pitchforks and the like. Perhaps they could be added for the rebel faction.

So all in all, it's due to their lack of use in a battle line and to force the AI to train more useful units such as low-level spearmen.