The militia is a volunteer force of people within your regime who arm themselves to defend their homes. The player does not need to concern themselves with the material to arm/supply militia (they are presumed to have private backers) but must ensure they arent cut off from the players logistic network.

The players militia forces are generally low quality troops and even on a tech 3 start will (probably) be outclassed by the early unit models the player can produce and outclassed by most threats. This makes them generally poor for offensive operations. Militia units are also a weird mismatch of units, often containing a bit of everything. Over time surviving militia units will slowly upgrade themselves with older models of 'regular' troops but they will always be behind the curve.
Each zone has a militancy score. In a regular 1 zone, tech 3, militia only start the players capital zone will always start with 100 militancy (the max). The higher the militancy score the more militia forces the zone will form, which is also based on population size. However militancy quickly drops as the player builds more and more regular troops. This means that militia forces which have taken losses will not be able to be replenished, leaving you with weird broken units (or worse - motorised militia with not enough trucks!).
In the above screenshot (taken from a turn 1 save) we can see that although I am over the maximum size I have 300 militia manpower which can be deployed should my militia take losses, although I only have 100 equipment available. I might also see increases to my max in the early turns based on events or profiles.
The above screenshot was taken on a game around turn 40 and we can see that I am way over the maximum size with no hope of replacing all the casualties suffered. As such I have many militia units with missing elements from their battalions.
Militia troops do not take from your SHQ stocks and act as extra bodies for exploring and fighting (poorly). Very early on they might contain types of units you are not able to produce yet (RPGs & Artillery Guns for example). Early on they will be decent on the defence if you let them dig in and can support early battles. They are also probably the only motorised units you will have in the early turns, making them the only units able to quickly respond to threats.
While the 'Fist' profile can provide extra bonuses and you can play a number of stragems to raise militancy, it is not usually worth it to raise militancy. This is because it will always go down when you build regular (better) military forces. However, most leaders will like the militia profile so if you have event decisions linked to the militia it is usually a good idea to go along with it, regardless if the militia consists of 1 man and his rusty bolt action rifle.

Regardless of what happens militia forces that are 'in the field' will NOT disappear as long as they have sub units in them, no matter how low militancy goes. For more in depth info take a look at the manual section 5.10.1.3. MILITIA

The rest of this guide looks at ways you can support and use your militia forces later into the game. I have tried to order this in terms of 'complexity/micro management'.

The most obvious uses for militia forces later into the game is to use them for garrison duty. Garrison duty is simply moving the units on top of the zones city hex and leaving them there. This provides several immediate benefits and can be done with militia units of any size, although larger is better.

It also goes without saying but you can also use militia to sit on important hexes that boarder minor/non aligned territory so you don't lose them to some wandering space cows.
Any troops (regular and militia) stationed on a city hex will help reduce unrest over time based on the number of troops present vs the population of the zone. This is regardless of how 'good' the troops are. Freeing up your professional well equipped (and possibly paid) troops to do something they are better suited for is always a good idea.

The number of troops in a city hex are also used for certain event decisions, such as 'dispersing' protests and dealing with other social disturbances/criminal activity. These always have a chance to kill some troops present. Better your militia forces than your GR grade infantry.
In the above screenshot you can see having 2000 militia troops helped reduce unrest by a few points.
None really. It frees up manpower to be elsewhere and the militia do the job for free. Obviously if the garrison is actually needed to face a serious threat you might run into issues but for quiet zones far from the front it is a no brainier.

Ranged attacks are primarily carried out by artillery units. A ranged attack allows a unit to attack with its ranged units on a nearby hex (usually adjacent) with the idea to bombard the enemy without getting attacked back. Using artillery in ranged attacks is usually a good idea as it might reduce the targets moral, readiness, entrenchment or even outright kill them. This will soften them up for a more conventional attack.
A lot of militia forces (especially the motorised units) contain 1 or 2 units of artillery. While poor in quality it has a few useful qualities. Firstly you do not have to pay for the ammunition (and regular artillery consumes a lot of ammo), which means every turn the militia can pound away. Secondly it does not remove the militia units entrenchment, meaning that should the target decide to attack the guns normally they will face a heavily entrenched militia unit. Thirdly, this will provide recon in the hex, making an actual assault easier. This is a useful way for militia forces to contribute in a battle without taking a lot of casualties, and might be your only source of artillery in the early game.

Sadly I do not have a screenshot of it - but one my improvised militia artillery guns splatted an AI sentinel. If i had gone in for a normal attack I would have probably lost most of the militia unit.
However the above is a good example of the potential effectiveness of militia artillery. With just 50 guns my militia smashed the readiness of the target, removed nearly all their entrenchment and hurt their moral, all without removing my entrenchment or readiness. You wont always see such good results but militia artillery is pretty much a free hit.
Ranged attacks do require to hit the target to have a decent effect (even if its not a kill) and militia artillery is woefully under powered due to ranged attacks suffering a major hit to their calibre size. This means its largely useless against hard targets and well protected soft targets. Doing a ranged attack also means the unit cannot be used for any further moving/attacking during the turn. There is also a small impact on your logistics, in the previous screenshot I used around 50 ammo per 10 guns which means my logistic network needs to ship 250 ammo to the units.

Every military unit you own can be scrapped to recoup some of the resources (50%) that were used to create it, as well as returning the manpower and whatever was in the unit inventory (food, ammo, fuel etc) Scrapping is usually used when you have a bunch of older vehicle models lying around in the SHQ that you no longer have any use for. With regular units you only recoup a small portion of what you originally spent and the manpower return isnt a real return, you already had the manpower!
However with militia forces you do not pay for initial construction of the units and (perhaps most importantly) the manpower isn't taken out of your zone population, it is generated out of thin air.

引用自 Future Slippy：

In recent beta update 1.26m it looks like this 'exploit' has been closed somewhat, with militia recruits now being taken from the zone population.

Free resources! Albeit in small quantities. You can scrap any militia unit to return some metals and all of the units inventory which might be important if you are critically low on your own fuel/ammo supplies. These 'new' resources will end up in the zone inventory which should feed back to your SHQ inventory if the zone does not need them. Scrapping under strength militia forces also stops the annoying 'SHQ couldn't deliver reinforcements' message and means the replenish troops menu will only show under strength regular units (meaning its easier to see how much you need to produce).

It is also one of the few ways to actually remove your militia units from the game (without ramming them into tanks) as militia units cannot be disbanded like regular units.

However the main reason to scrap militia forces is the free population. Any veteran Shadow Empire player will tell you the main bottleneck to success is population. When you scrap a unit the manpower will go back to zone population if in a zone with a city hex. This means they can be recruited as workers, colonists or recruits, all of which might be more useful than an under strength ineffectual militia unit.

If you want to be extra gamey about it, if you scrap militia forces while being under your max limit/have high militancy you will get more militia forces in subsequent turns to scrap again.

Scrapping militia units in this way for free population is possibly an unintended exploit so if it gets patched out, or militia troops are drawn from the population of the zone, I will update.

No free garrison troops, if you want to garrison city hexes you will need to use regular troops which will cost manpower/need equipping. If your militancy is low you won't get replacement militia units. It is also a bit exploity/gamey and requires a bit of micro. Scrapping also means you lose the experience of the militia troops and will lose any unit feats inside the unit itself.
Step 1: Find a militia unit you wish to scrap, click on it and click on one of the sub units on the bottom UI.
Step 2: On the right hand side you will see the only options are to 'scrap' or 'mass scrap'. Scrap will only effect the unit (and you can fine tune the amount to scrap) while mass scrap gives you the option to scrap only in the unit or the whole SHQ (with no fine tuning). Select the option you want and click scrap/mass scrap.
In the above screenshot I am only going to scrap the 400 Rifle Militia in this unit, but I could do all 4000 in my military. I chose to do the 400.
As per the above the zone gained some items and my zone population increased by 400.

You will need to repeat the steps for each sub unit type in the militia unit/in your militia army but you can quickly work your way through it. It is best to ensure the units are within 'green' supply range as well.

Here is an example of the exploit. In the first screenshot you can see I have removed all of my militia units on turn 1. In the second screenshot you can see on turn 2 a good chunk of them have returned (about half of the original total).

Whenever your units finish the turn under strength (according to their TOE) the SHQ they are assigned to will try and replace them with sub units within the SHQ between turns. However regular troops cannot reinforce militia units and vice versa. As you cannot manually produce militia troops you are completely reliant on your zones supplying new militia sub units, which might never happen if you are over your max or have low militancy. This leads to under strength militia units which give warnings on the SHQ screen and also makes the 'replacement troops' UI misleading.

However as stated before, militia units in the field will never disappear unless killed or manually removed. We can use this to our benefit by moving under strength militia units back to the SHQ location and transferring the remaining sub units back to the SHQ (as we cannot disband militia units). In subsequent turns the SHQ will use these sub units to automatically reinforce militia units still in the field.

引用自 Future Slippy：

In beta patch 1.26m you can now disband militia formations, allowing you automatically send back units to be automatically reassigned at the SHQ to remaining units in the field. This is now the same as regular units.

In my eyes this is how the militia system should work as it makes more sense to consolidate units down rather than scrap them for free resources.

Anyway the benefits are pretty straight forward. Less overall militia units on the field but the ones that are on the field are at full strength and have reinforcements waiting in the SHQ. Sub units sat in the SHQ are also used for decision events that need troops (within that city hex) and can reduce unrest in that city hex.
Its frustratingly micro intensive. With regular troops you can disband them and (assuming they are on your logistic network) should make their way back to the SHQ without further input. Militia units cannot be disbanded so we have to use the 'transfer' system which only works when the unit is directly on top of the SHQ. 'Disbanding' units will also remove any unit feats and militia sub units will only reinforce militia units with the same culture. Sub units do retain their XP/veterancy level though.
Once you get the hang of this it is pretty easy to do as long you remember to keep moving units if they require multiple turns to reach the SHQ.
Step 1: Find the unit you wish return to the SHQ.
Step 2: Move them back to your SHQ. If they are on a road/rail and you have enough remaining logistic points you might be able to strategic move them all or most of the way back.
Step 3: Make sure you have you unit selected and on the right hand side of the UI click on transfer/BG. You should see a screen like this:
Step 4: Make sure the militia unit is the selected 'source unit list' on the left and the SHQ is the 'target unit list' on the right. Use the sliders to transfer units over to the SHQ. You do not have to transfer all of the units over if you dont want to, but if you dont you will need to leave at least 3 sub units in the militia unit.
Step 5: Click on transfer. The militia unit should now be removed and sub units should be in the SHQ.
In my example I now have the 400 Rifle Militia, 100 MG Militia and the 100 RPG Militia (I already had 100 in the SHQ, hence 200) now in my SHQ. On the next turn they will be shipped out as replacements to any militia unit that requires them.
1 turn on we can see that 100 of the Rifle Militia have already found a new unit, as well as the 100 MG Militia.

You can also use this same method to transfer militia units from 1 unit to another if they are on the same hex. Just remember you either need to have the source unit completely empty at the end of it, or have at least 3 sub units left. Avoid the battlegroup button!

Up until now we have played by the games rules which tells you that militia forces can only be reinforced with militia units and regular forces can be reinforced with regular units, and this is mostly true. Automatic reinforcement done via your SHQ will only follow that rule.

However, using the transfer method we can transfer regular sub units over into the militia units as long as that specific militias unit TOE is obeyed. We are NOT creating a battle group.

引用自 Future Slippy：

As of beta patch 1.26m this exploit has been closed.

Your regular troops will vastly increase the power of any militia unit it reinforces and continue to follow the same XP rules as regular troops (meaning they can reach a higher level than militia troops can, despite the naming conventions). It also can be used as a method to replace missing trucks from militia units to get them back up to full speed.

Perhaps most importantly, according to my testing, you no longer have to provide their supplies from your SHQ stockpiles. That means food, fuel, and ammo will all be supplied from outside your stocks. This could be a huge saving when it comes to fuel and ammo guzzlers like high calibre artillery or tanks. While you are limited to the TOE of the militia unit this does allow you to make sizeable 'battlegroup like' units without suffering from the associated penalties with battlegroups.

If anyone wants to test this further regarding the supply situation and gets different results, please let me know. I quickly tested food SHQ output between turns and it was lower which I suspected was because I embedded regular troops into militia units. This method of sticking regular troops into militia units might again be an exploit, although being able to add missing trucks in is quite handy.

It's really micro intensive. You need to set the transfers up and then keep an eye on any casualties as other regular troops won't be used to replace any regular troop losses within the militia unit. In fact if you do get casualties and have militia forces back at the SHQ, the SHQ might send those as replacements requiring you set up the whole unit again.

Regardless of how effective 'battlegroup like' units might be, they do still miss out on the OHQ bonuses you would get with a proper formation such as postures and OHQ combat rolls.

Just follow the steps for transferring sub units we used previously. If you want to check the TOE of a militia unit (or any unit) select the unit and click on unit admin on the right.

On the left is an example of a militia units TOE which I could replace the artillery with a much more powerful gun or replace the militia buggy with either a light tank or buggy of my own design.

Below you can see a small militia unit in which I have replaced one of the rifle sub units with a regular design.

Hopefully this guide has helped show you there are some uses to militia troops other than throwing them into the meat grinder!

I am hopeful that Vic might change the militia rules to allow us to disband under strength militia units for use in reinforcing other militia units (even if it means removing the scrapping rule) but until that day I will just keep transferring them away.