Survival Guide - Dust Settles: Militia

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

Training Militia:

You will train militia through the Defense page by entering the number of people you want to train in the text box under "Train". Your only limit to training militia will be the number of available people that you have. You can train as many militia as you want at a time, just remember that once these people are trained as militia, they cannot be used for any other purpose in your camp and must be fed one more unit of food apiece than your current rations. If you need to you can relieve your militia using the text box in the table beside the Train box.

Below the militia information and train/relieve boxes, you will see the Militia training queue. When you have no militia in training, you will see a table like that in the first image. Once you have assigned militia for training, you will see a table similar to the one below, reminding you how many you have assigned for training and how much longer they have before their training is over. Your people only have to train for 3 days to become militia since they are only really learning some basics about using close combat weaponry and certain things to look for to guard the camp against special ops attacks. You can cancel this training at any time during the three days, but you will have to start their training over if you want to reassign them.

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Feeding and Paying Militia:

Militia will require one more meal each day than your standard rations. They are doing a great service for your camp and need a great deal of energy to keep their senses sharp as they keep their eyes on your camp. Once you hit the 1,000 turn mark, militia are another of your overall population who will need to be paid. For protecting your camp from being raped by an army or special ops raid, the least you can do is pay them and feed them well.

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Militia Functions:

Militia will be your last line of defense against army and your primary means of defense against special ops. Whenever an army attacks your camp, they will first be engaged by whatever army you have stationed around your camp to act as defense. If the attacking army proves too much for these forces and are able to get to and through the wall, then your militia will meet them. These units will be armed with whatever short-ranged weapons were in storage when the battle started and will fight to the death, if necessary, to keep population and structural losses to a minimum. These units can be especially effective against invading forces carrying ranged weapons, since their attack is now only 1/4 its normal, and an ideally diminished army since your army should have made at least some dent in their forces.

Having militia staged in guard posts is important as well. This will provide you a bit of added defense bonus in normal army battles, but will be one of your primary defenses against invasions by special ops. The more guard posts that you can build and fill up to 100%, the better defense they will provide.

Your final form of defense against special ops is the extra militia that you keep that are not staged in guard posts. The militia in your guard posts will help to defend your camp, but when a camp with almost 15,000 units of used (thus walled-in ideally) land only needs around 94 staged guard posts, you are going to offer a poor defense against a strong special ops attack if you rely only on the total needed to stage the posts. The more you have of these the better your defense will be. Arming them with stronger weapons will also improve their ability to defend your camp. Overall, being able to match their special ops man-for-man with armed militia will provide you a very powerful defense against the invading forces, especially when combined with a good morale and 100% coverage in both guard posts and light posts.

As well as these standard defenses, your militia will be the ones responsible for building defensive structures. Whether you want to surround your camp with trenches or SAM sites, you will need militia to set up and even man these structures. Only 10% of your militia will ever work on defensive structures and only if there are enough people and supplies to complete at least 1 each day. If your militia are building a structure with a circumference limit, and they could complete more than your limit will allow in a day, they will not build anything that turn. In order to finish the amount needed, you will need to set an assignment limitation. When your camp is attacked, your militia will man your antitank cannons or your AA guns and SAM sites (depending on the attack type) until all weapons are active or until you run out of militia.

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Improvements:

You can improve your militia for battle by keeping your morale high and by arming them well. Since your militia are in the end civilians, the camp's morale will affect them greatly. If your morale is low, they will not be as sharp while on duty, leading to possible distractions and less defense provided. Higher morale will provide for more alert militia and better defenses. Weapons, of course, will make a major difference in the militia's attack power. Each weapon will provide its own attack and defense boosts for the individual militia unit carrying the weapon. Having more units assigned with higher weaponry will provide a better overall attack and defense status for your militia.

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Limitations:

There are a few things that you must keep in mind with militia. First you will have to remember that your militia have extra costs associated with them. They will require more food than the average civilian and, like any other member of your population with an assignment, will require payment for their services. This is something you will need to keep in mind when you decide to assign free population for training. Keeping militia around is important, but the costs can be a hindrance if not accounted for.

You will also want to remember the fact that training militia will separate them from the rest of your civilian population as units only for defense. You will no longer be able to use them for any other task around your camp. You should be sure that you can spare the people you are assigning for training before you commit them.

Also remember that training takes 3 days before your civilians become militia. If you are trying to rebuild or boost your defenses before logging out you should make sure that you can use all three of those turns so that you will actually have usable militia when you log out. If you log out or if you are attacked before their training is over, these units will never actually become "militia" and will not be used for camp defense

Finally, your militia will only be able to use close combat weapons that are left in your storage. These are the weapons that are not assigned to your army through either the Attack or the Defense page. If you do not have enough, or even any weapons in storage, your remaining militia will fight with whatever makeshift weapons they happen to find. You will lose any weapons that your militia are carrying into battle if they are killed. If your militia are defending against special ops, the weapons will not be lost.

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