Agreed also.

You are confusing things. Faction abilities don't really matter, we are mainly talking about racial traits. Everyone's racial traits need to balanced just in comparison to each other. Yithril's racial trait is just plain awesome. They basically get a better muscle trait for free on all their units. Compare it to the Quendar one which is just 50% resistance to fire and weakness to cold. That's no even technically a bonus.

Another possibility is to make Yithril's  units cost more production.

This. At one point Trogg units cost extra base production and it gave Yithril a unique feel. I strongly want this back.

Ya that's because their faction traits are pretty underwhelming. +1 Level, training tech, and Great Axes. You could easily combine the first two into a single trait, and great axes is nothing to right home about. Doesn't kick in till late game anyway. You could design a much better custom version of Yithril in the editor.

There should also be a unit trait (either ythril exclusive or available after a certain tech) called 'Reckless' : -20 Accuracy -2 Defense, +3 Attack that adds 12 (or it's adjusted equivalent) to unit production.

I'd prefer other races getting slight improvements instead of reducing Trog's bonus. The Quendar one is especially bad and needs a pick up from its current level. Other racials that I find very meh are Wraiths, Altarians (a bit better than the others), Mancers, and Umber. Abilities which I believe are great as is are those of the Amarians, Gilden, and Krax. Tarth's small army bonus is middle-ground between meh and awesome.

The 50% fire resist guys could have +50% cold resist also and still be medium.

Maybe make them into good fire mages by giving them spell pen or magic mana generation or something.

Kongdej has this correct. The magnar racial is fair when you consider they also get slaves. Part of the reason the you would pick a race is based on both their bonus and their bonus unit.  In addition fire protection works against flame blade, which is currently a very prominent way of improving champion offense. It's possible to buff all of them to the point they are as good as ythril, regardless this is an issue.

Personally though I feel their faction traits are subpar if their racial doesn't prevent them from using ranged attacks. Even with added bonuses to defense/hp/etc They would still function more effectively with the ability to train ranged units. Synergy is important, and their design does not have it.

Also I didn't realize that altar's champion units where any good, because their trait certainly isn't. It takes 75% more (of your characters total) exp to reach each subsequent level, so 10% will not even equate to a single bonus level up. Their champions need to be really solid to be worth that shitty racial. 25% Probably wouldn't even be good enough. Also those potential traits are an idiots mistake. Once you realize the level up scheme is exponential you will facepalm your way to better character design, and ask why in gods name did the people at stardock that make traits not communicate with the people that calculated xp.

I agree the racial "blood" selections should have built-in negatives to keep them somewhat balanced in custom race creation.

Not seeing what is particularly over the top about the Ythril +20 weight and +1 attack, though. +1 attack is no big deal, and encumbrance isn't too much of an issue in the current build. Unless you mean it's just the matter of it being on *top* of the Juggernauts thing.

Frankly I think the Krax racial is far better, as an all-win ability with no downside (Fortify Tile + Blind will let relatively low level champions solo most  dangerous, high value, high damage monsters by becoming effectively untouchable)

Maybe I'd be more impressed by the Juggernauts if the standard units that I built and my champions weren't already basically unstoppable to the AI, and the Juggernuats had more value.  As it is, they sound fun, but unnecessary. Hopefully that will change with further polish.

I  think we should balance blood traits, and try to vote for better UI so we can see EXACTLY what races does, when choosing them, not after we created said faction, and the factions sovereign!

I do agree some factions are way better than others (the secret race of capitar... DOH)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej