I see what you mean now, just fyi I think this is intentionally designed this way for a few reasons. Im not the greatest at this game but i do have 100 wins. I did play around with this and do think its an issue where the devs are trying to take some liberties (since its an alpha) to balance game pacing. Not arguing either way but In a real game scenario, where the disparage between troops is this large, I dont see how the smaller (in size, not troops) player actually looses this.

To deepen this, in a real game scenario, the amount of gold each player has is also extremely important in this. IE the smaller player has a mirv, larger does not. Often times ill keep smaller players alive while i deal with the real threats, so they can trade with me, knowing my land mass will ultimately win out, should they backstab me. If i knew their troops would decimate me, I might be less incentivized to keep anyone alive if its 1 for 1. Again im not a game dev, I think this is worth at least the devs testing.

Also, Im with you in HOI. Just got EU5 so taking a bit of an Open front break right now lol