has anyone ever successfully used militia?

[professorspatula]

Generally I use them as frontline fodder. I throw them into the enemy whilst my proper troops maneouvre around to pin the enemy in. They're also great for soaking up enemy archer fire. Place them ahead of your army in loose formation and let the enemy waste their arrows. Militia Hoplites and levy pikemen are much more useful than town militia and watch though. They're ideal for being the frontline fodder and holding the line as the enemy infantry finds it harder to break through their long pointy spears. The thing with militia is you're not really worried about their casualties, so you can send them on suicidal missions and not really care. And any units that survive a tough ordeal, well you kind of feel pride in them at the end of the battle. Sometimes I even 'retire' them (eg, disband them back into the populace) but mostly I just send them to get slaughtered again. Finally, militia have their uses in settlement defence. They're usually the first units to be placed in any breach in the wall, and placed on guard mode, they often hold the enemy off long enough for your decent units to get into position.

I actually play a minor modded version of RTW, whereby all units get a moderate boost to their morale, and the kill-rate is toned down. This really makes militia units much more valuable as although they're just as bad at killing, they can hold out for longer. In vanilla RTW, they're just as likely to rout immediately as they are die in seconds. Regardless, the thing with militia is, they're garrison units first, soldiers second. Their use is limited, but still important.

[Hellenic_Hoplite]

yeah I remember playing as carthage once I had all my inner cities guarded by 4 town watch and 4 units of slingers (because those units have chaep upkeep) and one of them got attacked by the scipii, they had about 6 or 7 units of hastati but somehow I ended up actually winning, I couldent belive it, although it was a very close fight (my last unit was on the walls fighting to the death LOL)

[Severous]

I dont use town watch.

Peaseants I use a lot. They are the most cost effective garrison troops and can be used to move population around between regions. They have uses in battle but as the weakest unit dont expect or demand much from them.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

I like your tip on using town watch as front-line 'fodder' to absorb the initial blows and to entice enemy archers to use some of their ammo on them. Sounds to me like a great way to keep your primary troops fresh before being sent into the fray. I'll have to try this. Thanks!

[SSJVegetaTrunks]

Just make sure the town watch don't rout, or it will plummet the moral of your main force.

[Musashi]

Erf... n/m... posted in the wrong forum somehow...

[Laman]

I use them mostly as garrisons (even though peasants are technically better if they aren't going to fight at all), though Militia Hoplites are used in battle, they are decent. What I feel about the various militias:
Roman Town Watch: Looks good visually, crap in battle
Carthaginian Equivalent: As above -minus the visual part
Militia Hoplites: Decent in battle, though levy pikes or standard hoplites are preferred.
Eastern Inf (if one counts them as militia): Better then their reputation, in my game with Parthia they have shown to be good General killers, they get losses but they kill generals better then phalanx units (that get confused by the big bad cavalry charging into their front and drop their big spears and try to use their puny daggers).
Warband (wouldn't really count them as militia either): Good unit actually unless one overestimates its capabilities.
Well that was all militia units and units that one could regard as militias (ie from first level barracks).

[455trt43trg]

I sometimes use militia as fodder, sometimes that even works.

[germanpeon]

I personally think the Hellenistic factions that get Miltia Hoplites are imbalanced for the simple fact that they are phalanxes and have good stats, as if the phalanx wasnt enough for such a low tier unit. I use peasants only to move population to other provinces so I can upgrade them, when I run out of things to build.