Combat Overcrowding: Numerical Diminishing Returns

In vanilla, numbers are everything. Bring one extra regiment to an even fight and you can flip it into a one-sided massacre. Whoever is bigger wins, and the battle snowballs from there.

When your army is much wider than the enemy’s, your troops start getting in each other’s way. Every regiment still fights, but the crowded side hits weaker. EU4’s flanking range handled this by keeping regiments out of the fight entirely; this mod keeps them all in and cuts their combat power instead. The wider you stretch past the enemy, the harder the penalty.

The larger side takes the penalty. The smaller side always fights at full strength.

Your "frontage" is how many regiments are fighting or trying to fight. When one side’s frontage is wider than the other’s, the bigger side loses combat power. The more you outstretch the enemy, the bigger the penalty.

Penalties only kick in once you outnumber the enemy’s frontage by 25%. That threshold grows by 5% each age, as better drill, command, and communication let armies coordinate larger formations. By the Age of Revolutions you can push 50% wider before penalties start.

Maximum penalties by unit type (they scale up to these caps):

• Heavy Infantry: up to -80% combat power
• Light Infantry: up to -65% combat power
• Heavy Cavalry: up to -65% combat power
• Light Cavalry: up to -50% combat power
• Artillery: up to -25% combat power
• Auxiliary: up to -80% combat power

As of 1.2.0, light units take smaller penalties so they stay useful.

• Only the bigger side is penalized. The smaller force always fights at full strength.
• Even battles start with no penalty and stay competitive. As regiments rout, the gap opens gradually instead of collapsing into instant slaughter.
• More troops still help, but each extra regiment adds less than the last.
• Small, well-led armies punch above their weight.
• Discipline, morale, and combat ability matter more than raw numbers.

Overcrowding = 1 – (smaller frontage × age multiplier / larger frontage)

Each unit’s penalty = its max rate × overcrowding. If the result is zero or less, there’s no penalty.

Age multipliers:

• Age of Traditions: 1.25x
• Age of Renaissance: 1.30x
• Age of Discovery: 1.35x
• Age of Reformation: 1.40x
• Age of Absolutism: 1.45x
• Age of Revolutions: 1.50x

Example: 10 frontage vs 5 frontage in the Age of Traditions.
Overcrowding = 1 – (5 × 1.25 / 10) = 0.375
The larger side loses 37.5% of each unit’s max penalty: -30% infantry, -24.4% cavalry, -9.4% artillery.

• War Momentum