For clarity,....

1. Defense of a city that has been colonized is the responsibility of the suzerain (the player who colonized).
2. Troops for that defense are those in the specific city that colonized at the time of the attack.
3. Suppression settings allow you to adjust what troops are used, and percentages for each type, but the default is 100% of all troops.



The defense of a colonized city falls to the suzerain (the player who colonized that city). The player who actually owns and operates that city is not involved nor are his or her troops. The suzerain has the option to change suppression settings to decide how to defend the city. Those setting can be found in the colony report that appears as a popup when you click on the colony icon in the colony list for each of your cities. To be clear, the troops that defend the colony are actually in the suzerain city and (apparently magically) defend from there.

Since defense falls to the suzerain, it would be nice if the suzerain got notice of an attack. There are several tactical implications I am exploring/exploiting but it's a really obnoxious way to indirectly ravage some troops of the suzerain without giving that player notice. I've defended several attacks by players attacking my colonies because I run heavy defense in the suzerain cities. The lack of notice is, to say the least, bugsome.

When in doubt, set the suppression to zero on everything and only change it during an uprising. You have several hours warning before an uprising. At the very least, put things likes cavalry and scouts on zero.