Quote Originally Posted by p_nutter
Garrison duty is an interesting idea. But since you need 100 men to prevent a bandit attack, I would need 100 1-man peasant units, in a minimum of 7 stacks.
100 men isn't needed to prevent bandit attacks if the loyalty is high enough.
1-man garrisions is the best garrisions (lowest maintenance cost) and occationally I've been running provinces for decades without any garrision at all (not prefered though, as rebellions due to cut-off shiplines makes you immidiatly lose the provinces).
Bandit attacks is a kind of rebellion, not some special type with other rules.

And yeah it's probably one of your peasants, depleted units only show up as merc if disbanded and the comp never disbands his troops.