So since Beta 3 is all about faction differentiation I will give some feedback on it. Yes I am aware they aren't anywhere near done but I can give feedback on what they have released so far. From what I have seen so far most factions get a play style trait and some sort of equipment or spell trait. The problems I can see are that a lot of the traits don't actually change play style much and some are much better then others. A lot of these traits could really be reorganized so that factions are more customizable, a lot of abilities that are completely unrelated are thrown together into one trait just so a certain race can have both. I suggest doubling the amount of points factions get and making some traits cost 1 and others 2. This will make traits much easier to balance because it's very hard make each trait equally valuable especially when half them simply give equipment.
Let's start with the ones that are closest to being finished.
Magmar A-
Blood: 25% fire resistance
Slavelords: Razing a city grants your capital half it's population. Killing a humanoid gives nearest city 1 pop. Grants cheap slave units.
FleshTome: Grants several spells and scar-stones.
Magmar seems oriented to run a tall but aggressive empire. Slavelords is still the most interesting trait in the game by far. It allows a completely unique play style, we need more traits like it. However their blood ability is kinda weak and you can't really plan around it. Flesh Tome is a nice combo with slaves but why does it contain candlecloak and scarstones? You could probably bundle the stone with the fire resistance into a whole new trait and add a proper blood trait that increases with level, you could also add a weakness to cold. Then you could add the spells from Flesh Tome that are designed for use with slaves to Slavelords.
Gilden B-
Blood: +1 hitpoint per level, + 30 spell resistance, tactical spells cost %50 more.
Mastersmiths: Equipment costs half normal production, half resources to upgrade. Grants Golem Shield.
Lightplate: Replaces chainmail with lightplate.
Great Hammers: Grants player several unique heavy weapons.
I can't say I see where your are going with Gilden other then they use a lot of equipment. They get Golems and cool equipment but their playstyle is still generic. Mastersmiths allows them to build heavy units quickly which means their strategy will pretty much be to grab resources so they can spam heavy equipment units. Maybe think of adding another trait that deals with their need for resources. Also I imagine Mastersmiths grants you Golems but it doesn't actually say so. I haven't tested it myself but it seems weird to give them all this heavy equipment but no extra encumbrance, maybe Great Hammers could boost encumbrance. Here is an ideas for additional trait that would work nicely with Mastersmiths.
Earthworkers: +10% metal and crystal production. Allows you to upgrade Mines to Deepmines, which have upkeep but produce more metal.
Yithril D
Blood: +20 Weight
Training: Grants Training tech.
Warriorcaste: Units are produced at 2nd level.
Great Axes: Unlocks several unique axes.
No Range: Cannot build ranged units.
Yithril has also been changed quite a bit as well. Great Axes is pretty generic. Warriorcaste seems a little off to me, a level mostly translates into a hitpoint bonus. This won't change play style much as it is really a percentage bonus. This trait seems to encourage players to pump out lots of troops and use quantity over quality, which is not how I see Trogs. Yithril seems designed to rush quickly at the start and overwhelm enemies, other then that they will play normally. They could really use some spicing up. It seems to me that with the removal of Umber the Trogs have become more generic because they used to be mini giants. I would like to see their blood ability increasing their base unit cost but granting +1 attack and hit point per level, as well as the encumbrance boost. No range seems kinda gimmicky to me. I would rather they received a research penalty, especially to civics, or something. They could counteract this with an ability that allows them to gain research through destroying enemy improvements, units, and taking cities.
It seems like you deviated from the original purpose of blood traits, which was to replace racial stat differences. Magmar, Altar, Krax, Tarth, and Yithril all have weird abilities that don't really even change stats much. Every blood ability should change base stats and have a per level component. Other effects like defense boosts when below a certain amount of health should be normal traits not racial ones. Also a lot of traits don't change play style much like Heroic, Defensive, and Warriorcaste. I know these races haven't really been worked on yet but still it would be good to keep in mind when designing new traits that the trait should change the way you play the game not just give percentage bonuses. In another thread I have some examples. Also while there is a lot of good content in the new faction traits they seem really unorganized. Please don't add things that should be two separate traits into one thing thing for convenience, it will really hurt our ability to create custom factions. Increasing the given faction points and making some traits cost 2 points would help with this.
