Each era have an milita unit tied to a technology, which is an upgrade from the previous one.
All militia unit get +3 combat strength when standing district tiles.
Militia units are created when a city comes under siege, the number of militia that can be created seems to based on population and army size. A city can't have more militia than population, thus cities with 0 population need regular armies to defend it. No more militia can be create than your army size, basically the militias belong to their own hidden army. Thus with an army size of 4, a city with a population greater than 4 will still only get 4 militias to defend it.
With the militarist affinity, a culture can raise militia armies from cities at only a population cost.
While a city is under siege, the defending militia will be slowly destroyed, one unit at a time and how quicky this progress go is according to the game tied to the stability of the city, thus cities with high stability may resist sieges for longer.
A unit standing behind fortification gain +6 combat strength, generally something that apply to militia given they exist to defend cities during sieges.
Anyway about the milita units themself, they are for each era:
Notice a trend, from ancient to early modern the militia is a melee unit and increase in strength by 7 with each upgrade. Only industrial break with trend with the conscript being a gunner unit with a strength upgrade of 9, overall a much greater improvement compared to previous militia upgrades.
Now we could ask how militia compare to regular militiary units of their era as well as the era behind, like is a militia unit in the next era stronger than the military units of the previous era.
To start with we could try to find a case which follow the militia line in terms of upgrade path, the closest would be the melee line with both share the same class as militia as well have an upgrade in every era. This line is made up of warriors, swordsmen, great swordsmen, halberdiers and line infantry and if we take the strength difference, melee - militia we get this:
Ancient: 4
Classical: 5
Medieval: 8
Early Modern: 7
Industrial: 4
Notice the trend of the difference in terms of strength increase up to medieval, but decline after that and reach back to similar strength difference in industrial as it was in ancient. However consider that militia can get +3 from staying at a district tile as well as +6 from defending behind fortification, with +9 combat strength they can always hold of a melee unit of their era. Also this trend don't show that while militia don't increase in cost, the melee units do, going from 90 industry and 1 population in ancient to 2.5k industry and 4 population in industrial, so in terms of cost militia become more and more effective as a defence.
Now how do militia compared to the strongest unit of the previous era, well it look like this if we take the strength difference of the strongest unit - militia of next era:
Classical: Chariot vs Citizens = 2
Medieval: Horsemen vs Peasants = -1
Early Modern: Knights vs Draftees = 2
Industrial: Musketeers vs Conscripts = 3
As can be seen the militia unit is nearly always weaker than the strongest unit of the previous era but never with much and just the +3 combat bonus from defending on districts would be enough to turn the advantage to the militia in all cases except industrial in which it would be equal. This indicate that scientist who can research one era ahead may find it a very good idea to quickly rush to the next militia upgrade as any aggressor is going to face a strong and cheap unit defending the cities.
Good notes. I had made the suggestion in Victor affinities that maybe militant cultures could have as a passive the bonus that their militia always spawn at their current era. You can't skip the technology but at least you aren't left behind at quite the same rate against technology cultures.
It is an interesting suggestion to give militarist culture access to militia of their current era without needing tech, on other hand that could make the conscript rush with industrial militarists even more potent than it is now.
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