With the removal of crush through, I wonder if it'd be more productive to replace the Heavy Menavlion perk with a Greatsword perk:
Perk 1
Greatsword: Greatly reduced range for a much faster weapon
Long Menavlion: Essentially a swingable pike, increased vulnerability at point blank range
Improved Armor: Increased survivability. A solid option for newer players
I do agree that the pila should be removed since it's the only worthwhile perk worth taking. IMO, it should be restricted to the recruit so as to not overlap with his role as a zero cost cavalry counter.
Greatsword? For Byzantian empire units? Why not adding bardiche or even chinesse firestaffs afterall
No offence, but you arent really into history, arent you
And no, dont say "its not a historical game so lets go full fantasy", Mount and Blade games were always semi historical-accurate game with channged names of real-life nations back then (Swadia - HRE, Rhodocks - Venetia, Nords = Nords, Vaegirs - Russian Tsardom, etc)
If i would go with close-ranged 2h weapon for empire, only 2 options are viable for this roman theme - bastard sword (lowly used by byzantians)
and 2h axe (not used by romans but used by Russian and Scandinavian mercenaries in Byzantia), and i dont like both of them
IMO empire dont need a close range shock troop with axes, swords etc, as we can see Khuzaits living without that on MP and doing very well right now, biggest problem in Empire is low flexibilty of menavliaton, he has literally 3(!) types of menavlion that barely different, and no any good sidearm for close range fight
Contributing, empire recruit also kinda sucks in close range (3 types of sword, no axes/maces/2h compared to other light inf) and Legionere has worst sword/bastard sword of all heavy infantry, it just makes Empire worst close ranged faction
Compared to them, Khuzait doesnt has shock infantry, but they have default (!) maces on rabble and archer, VERY good longsword and heavy mace perks for spear infantry (which also are much cheaper then legioners) and OP glaive for Khan'sguard