If Tarth gets to longbows+ lvl 3 fortress, they pretty much win.   Double First Strike is massive, esp with training yard+barracks, and troops are cheap to build also.

I've only gotten Tarth as a random AI opponent once... partly since I was glued to them for the first several weeks of playing, as I love their archers so so much.

More recently, I've been playing modded games with a focus on melee, but for classic XP rate, 9x6 stacks of archers with Rams' Horn Longbows are made of win and awesome.

The game I played on a huge map had Tarth as one of the stronger performers. They wiped out Yithril before I ever saw them, and were at #2 when I finished the game. This was at easy difficulty, however, as I was trying to learn the game.

Will see what happens on higher settings.

There's not really a good way to balance the blood trait for both early game and end game.  +10/+10 is basically an I win bonus in the start of the game, when you can't have more than 4 units in an army anyway, but the current bonus becomes irrelevant by the end game.  What if the bonus scaled per unit in the army?  Say it starts at +8/+8 for a single unit, then goes down by 1/1 per extra unit in the stack, until there's no bonus for a full 9-man army?  Not sure if the code would allow for something like this, though.

I find the Tarth AI to be harder to beat, because their archery / mage units will consistently target the weakest units, they get double strike, and they are more fond of elemental damage (e.g. mages with fire sticks).

I like this suggestion! Mechanics like that really would make me feel like I'm playing a sneaky, hit-and-run guerilla race. Then my little stacks of 3 could wear away at more powerful stacks, the way guerrilla units can. Currently, since you can't escape from combat without an "escape" scroll, there is no such thing as hit-and-run, and the guerrilla feel is kind of muted.

All the Blood traits have always bugged me as underdeveloped and unbalanced. Umbars + attack in groups over 5 is a ridiculous ability, as even early game its easy to have an army of 5 and that + swarm is a lot of damage. In fact once you have a decent fortress you can just forget about the ability.

Basically I think that each race needs a base bonus and a ability that increases per level. Quendar actually fits this as they get fire resistance and the ability to do increasing fire damage per level. Gilden also is great as they get 1 hp per level and base spell resistance.

An example of a blood trait that seems terrible and shallow is Altair's experience bonus and rush. Its great to increase levels quickly but the leveling system just feels so shallow with only hp and  accuracy gained. Its why the veteran trait is so bad for units, the single level for most races is only a single hp and slower leveling from that point on.

Always thought assassins should have an escape ability, only for themselves though, not for the whole army. But a Tarth only trait (Like Altairs awful potential) seems like an interesting idea.

yes, i like the escape idea to give Tarth the ability to pick off a few units at a time.  should that replace the double-strike ability?

Giving Tarth an escape ability was the first thing that came to mind when trying to make them "hit and run", but that ability either seems incredibly strong (units would almost never die if they could escape), or weak (giving it 1 or 2 turn casting time seems like it would be worthless. Units would be killed by the time it went off, or not be able to do any damage before they escaped, which is the whole point of hit and run). Conveniently enough, one of the upcoming major changes to decrease damage may make this a more viable option. But until then, giving them a chance to survive seems like the best way to let Tarth units do damage against superior forces and live to tell the tale.

I posted some ideas for faction abilities in another thread, too. These would be unlocked during research. Might as well include them all in one place.

Unique Building: Ranger's Guild - All outposts connected with the city have their upgrade costs halved. City receives an additional ranged defender.

Traits: Ambusher (unit gains an additional first turn in forest, mountain, or swamp tiles), Ranger (unit cannot miss), Survivor (when killed, unit may act one last time).

I don't think that's true. The idea would be that instead of having all your units in single stacks of doom, you split them up into hit-and-run groups. So say your max army stack is 9. Instead of sticking all your guys into a stack of 9, you split them up into 3 armies of 3. You attack a large, dangerous stack with your first group of 3, deal a bit of damage, then flee the combat. Next you send in your second group, wear them down again, and flee some more. Finally, you send in your last stack (which might have a hero or something who you want to get the exp) and take down the already-wounded enemies for lots of exp.

Too bad this can't work with the auto-merge that occurs if you move two armies on the same tile when their total stack size is equal to or less than your maximum army size...

How about, instead of Tarth's blood trait only kicking in if you have 3 units or less, it is whenever the unit count of your army is lower than the count of the opposing army? I think that would still fit the Tarth idea of a motley crew of ex-gadiators and slaves beating on larger forces, and it would be something that remains useful for much of the game.

I actually really like Tarth's trait. Because it encourages small groups, it completely changes how the Tarth play, and makes them feel very unique. A Tarth game's strategy is very different from every other race, and that is exactly what traits should do.

(NOTE: The commentary below specifically discusses the +3/+3 trait of Tarth, NOT the Tarth race. I only realized I should point that out after I had finished writing below.)

Not to be devil's advocate, but I steamroll every game as Tarth, BECAUSE of its racial +3/+3. Using a custom Tarth of Quick + Lucky + Master Archers, and creating Archer units using just the Tier 2 bows and giving them Quick + Finesse (a mere 16 additional production,) you're looking at groups of archers with 23 initiative and 18 additional attack at the smallest squad size. Squads that can fire a double volley off before anything but high level monsters have a turn (which in this case, is 96 attack.) This is BEFORE you account for wargs , initiative increasing magical equipment, or for creating them from a location with the +initiative per essence spell (Aura of Grace, IIRC.) The stats only get more bonkers if you start accounting for Charge or Bloodlust, or even swapping Master Archers for alternative super weapons like the Athican Longsword or Dual Great Axes.

Now, I'm not saying the trait is perfect, but with the exception of ONE game (I play on a minimum of Challenging, depending on how much b.s. I want to deal with when land-grabbing against the AI,) where Ironeers sent seven full armies of 9 units against me, I can't remember a game where the above scenario didn't play out entirely in my favor. In fact, if an enemy army has 6 or less units in it, I can generally expect to take no damage, killing off the large movement units off first, ranged second before they get an attack off, and melee stragglers last - well before they make it into range. At 7+ units, I have to prioritize, but the fact that it usually takes 8-9 units to even damage me should state something about the power of this trait.