evening the odds when teammates leave

I was in a 4v4 arabia game last night where 2 team mates left earlier due to a cuman opponent who sneaked a few vills behind their bases and built rams.

it was a 4 v 2 for the rest of the match and frankly, my team mate and I were doing really well and cleared out 3 bases and their forward push (opponents retreated and rebuilt).

we held them back for close to 2 hrs. they raided us with knights and hussars but we managed to kill them and push their bases more and more despite it being a 4 v 2. being Khmer helped a lot during the raids and farms everywhere. but eventually we lost as they had set up a strong trade route and was spamming lots and lots of paladins and other gold units (italian crossbowmen etc)

as I reflected on that game, the issue for us was that our 400 pop combined could never take on their 800 pop combined. we had the units but we could never build up a strong trade route and even if we tried, it would be at the expense of our total army count.

I'm thinking whether it would be helpful for the game to allocate more pop space to players who stay in the game, to make up for team mates who leave. that way, building up a sizeable trade route while keeping the army count high and reasonable to defend and push, or for that matter to raid even.

what are your thoughts?