Because in Pendor, if you have a critical mass of archers, you can win any battle. Thats why i say that Perisno is more balanced, you have a greater assortment of infantry units that can counter arrow fire. There are some strong infantry, sure, but they are time and resource heavy if you wanna keep them alive. (Sallying out to face your army while they themselves have a garrision worth of archers, not switching into melee weapons while their loaded bows will drop you the moment you lower your shield to strike, does not help that they actively try to move further away from you) The mod knows of cheap it is. (So, why bother having village recruits in the first place?) The 'Strong' meta of the mod really is either archers or horse-archers, and the AI knows this. In Pendor, recruits snap like twigs trying to fight lower tier bandits, the mod basically incentivises you to only hire mercenaries. Giants can soak up huge amounts of damage, leaf-bomb throwers can decimate enemy formations and dwarven crossbowmen can rapid-fire for a short burst.
In my honest opinion, i think Perisno is slightly more balanced than Pendor, simply because it gives you more options to deal with battle/sieges in terms of what units you can use but also because some units are not entirely worthless.
