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Is 40k true to its fluff, where almost every world is gathering huge tithes of humans and shipping them off for the guard? What I'm trying to say, is that are the majority of the average humans in the IG or just still at home, working on their agri world or mines or whatnot. And do the average citizens know what an ork is? Or a tyranid? Do they see and fight xenos every day, or have they barely heard of them?

So really, how much is the average majority of citizens exposed to the war?

Most are at home, working the argi-worlds, the manufactorums, and the like.

keeping also in ind that most citizens only know that Xenos exists in a simple way: it's not human, it's a Xeno. It sorta look like a human, it's a mutant: Hate them both!

As for exposure to war, I would say that most never saw a war, but on some worlds, let's say Hive worlds, gang warfare is current news, so they would still be used to firefights and the like.

Most humans don't see war in their lifetimes. Think of all the hive planets that go hundreds or thousands of years between seeing any incursions, if they ever do.

All world's provide the tithe but that doesn't mean they all see war regularly.

I'd posit that the majority of the Imperium's worlds are peaceful to varying degrees, suffering only the odd incursion or pirate raid (or internal conflict). If they were all constantly at war then the Imperium wouldn't work. Trade wouldn't occur, supplies, men, equipment etc couldn't get where it needs to go. The fact the Imperium is still standing, it's bureaucracy and logistics still running means that most worlds must be at peace.

Being the setting for a wargame of course we don't hear about all those worlds. We only get to see the craptastic, war torn ones.

The 'average citizen' is in the dark. He knows the Emperor existis ( in some form) and he may know there are xenos. He won't know what they look like, that there are different types etc. He certainly doesn't know about Chaos, or even how warp travel actually works (ie: you travel through a literal hell dimension).

Exceptions apply of course. Certain worlds may come under frequent ork or eldar pirate raids. Some have small scale necron incursions occurring like clockwork. Cadian's are more familiar with Chaos than most. To those on Armageddon orks are a daily fact of life.Those are the special cases though.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

Even if there aren't armed conflicts, remember that love is a battlefield, or so they said in the 80s.

At one point in one of the Eisenhorn books we are outright told that most humans live their whole lives on worlds without war. If you take BL as canon...

With a million worlds I think it might be a bit extreme to say they've all been touched by war. However, I think the Imperium is interested in keeping its citizens in a war/siege mentality even if they never see an alien.

There is only War is not a contradictory statement to most imperial citizens never seeing those wars.

Every race is at war constantly. And those wars are on a scale that is unimaginable. There is also a massive home front, constantly providing men and material for those wars.

I imagine most of the worlds in Ultramar are relatively peaceful.

Most planets still have their own governments that only pay respect to the overlord planetary governors representing the Administratum.

Necropolis mentioned inter hive wars between Vervunhive and its neighbors. It isn't the massive, planetary invasions that plague some planets, but war is as common on "peaceful" worlds as it is in the real world. There will always be conflict among humans, without an outside factor like Xenos to unite them.

As for Xenos, the ones most humans would be familiar with are Orks. Orks are everywhere, so they would be pretty common knowledge among citizenry. Maybe only "propaganda" versions of the Xenos, but they know of them.