In this situation, the mace will have more damage. If they have the same bonus from the characteristic. Regarding the improvement, you can go to the blacksmith and see how much the damage will increase with one improvement on both the sword and the mace. Essentially, in this situation, these weapons are the same + - 1 - 2 damage, but this is not the damage indicator that is worth worrying about. In this situation, the decisive factor will be the enchantment you place on them. Selecting a weapon based only on damage that is ±2 is not a good idea. If you don’t take into account enchantments, I select a weapon based on what kind of attack animation it has, its base speed, what kind of rune attack it has. As for the comparison of crushing and cutting weapons, you do not take into account the fact that a mace with damage can increase its penetration of balance, but a sword does not. I would advise at the initial stages of the game to choose a weapon from a blacksmith that you can buy, for example a rusty sword, and enchant it until you get something good, regardless of +2 damage, it has a base damage or -2 compared to other weapons, it also has a good rune attack that requires only 50 concentration and it makes 2 hits in 1 attack, which allows you to restore twice as much concentration. If you have a spell to restore concentration or a stone to restore concentration in it or in the torch if you take it in your second hand. In addition, it is cheap, which allows you to carry out enchantments in large quantities. With such a sword, I closed all the content that is now, even though it is rank 1. Therefore, in general, you shouldn’t bother and you need to choose any weapon that suits you and your playing style. Excalibur has been created
It doesn’t matter if you take a sword or a mace,just take it and enchant it until you get something out of it that you need for your build.