As I don’t see any attempt from the devs to conceptionally rework the militia line. But it needs an overhaul. The current base design just doesn’t work out.
Halb/Siege Counter
It’s actually quite close to that already. All it would need is maybe a miniscule Speed Buff and taking reduced damage from Siege units. There are a lot of Civs notoriouls weak to heavy Siege like Britons or Armenians which would greatly benefit from that in the lategame, not falling off there from one simple and common move they currently have basically no answer against.
Timing Master
Basically the opposite of what it is today. It’s even thinkable of removing the line upgrades entirely and upgrade them automatically when reaching the next age like Serjeants do. One of the safest ways to get the line to a healthy state as in return the sheer power of the later upgrades can actually be reduced in return.
Synergetic Trash
Atm there is no Trach unit synergizing with the militia. It’s its own army comp. Which makes it notoriously difficult to balance. We could either add a specific trash unit that synergizes with it (an anti-archer unit that fires fast but with low damage) or rework the Skirmisher. Which would actually benefit the entire game at this stage, cause Skirms have the tendency to be either totally dominant or useless in a matchup because their “same type counter” design with the specification of basically “absorbing” the opponent power units “power”. With less armor and more dps against archers, possibly even reducing the damage output against (not fully upgraded) cavalry and infantry the unit would be in a way healthier spot.
Raid/Ressource Utility
An Infantry unit could generate ressources when attacking enemy structures - instead of having bonus damage. That’s what Siege is for. Walls and Buildings are supposed to keep armys without Siege Support out of the base - it’s a basic strategic component which allows for different strategic approaches which make the games generally more diverse and entertaining than mirror strats. General hitting walls with army can be seen as a bad play. With the ressource generation the Infantry would need to be dealt with - meaning the opponent would at some point have to make Army and show it’s hands. It could be seen as a semi-counter strat to a lot of FC strats,
Build/Repair Utility
There is a variety of different options here. It could reach from making towers / castles over siege units (siege towers/rams) even to “field fortifications” which can hold back enemy armies. This would add a strategic or even micro feature to the unit it currently lacks to be utilized to be leveraged to an advantage.
Meat Shield
Atm the unit is like a glass cannon. Hard hitting for it’s cost but quite low HP for a gold melee unit. Which is also one cause why it can feel oprressive in certain situations (goth spam) or completely useless in most cases when the opponent already has a healthy army count. With more health in exchange for lower Attack the unit would be in a way healthier spot and could be utilized more effectively as an addition to any ranged/siege army.
Survivor/Team Player
This is kinda similar to the meat shield but with a tweak. Atm the individual units go down too fast and are really hard to keep alive. Also they don’t give as much value when kept alive as fast or ranged units. The basic idea is here to “share” the damage taken across your army of militias so individual units just don’t go down as easily - and a small HP regen that then adds the value for keeping the units alive. Making it both easier and more revarding to care for the unit. Requiring a lot of skill and attention for a unit that atm is basically just patrolled in to get value out, but revarding that attention, similar or even more than the current power units. Witht his feature the “slow melee” status of the militias could be kept and the unit would still be in a healthy spot. Instead of the current blunt “speed creep” we witness all across the game.