I also like the idea of militias within the population - if the game admins chose to allow that - then our poor villagers could really defend themselves - those pickaxes could do some damage to the horses...
... it is even possible to have levels or particular "specialties" (farmers, stone miners, iron miners, wood choppers) within the population who are automatically called on when certain players or alliances decide to bully on an individual player or just in the course of war.
Sometimes I have found certain alliances have designated players who deliberately go after players outside the 2X range to take the honor loss in exchange for position in the alliance or special treatment like not making donations to the alliance treasury as an example. This is to decimate and discourage that opponent who may be viewed as a future threat as opposed to a current threat - or to settle old grudges...that is where the term, "to gang up" came from. So to allow villagers to leave their posts in a "being attacked" mode, it would give the defender another option.
farmers for example might not be as "strong" as an iron miner; wood choppers may perform better against archers who are ranged further away from the attack, or good at going after the battering rams and catapults.
The coded percentages of villager losses in pillage attacks and the recent upgrades based on fort levels has helped, but having villagers fight back on field battles, and fort sieges would go a long way in making this a more interesting game... it could be employed in the so-called, "random" barbarian attacks as well.
The coding is almost endless, and it would really add something to the battle simulators as well. Yes, it is work, but I have purchased small diamond packs in the past, and would do so with this feature...
yes, I do like that option if it were available.