While 1.1 has issued in some nice changes, it seems most of the playable characters and factions are still unbalanced.

When I pick all the AI to play against, certain ones regularly seem to dominate (and others get squashed by the other AI).
Of course, I am coming from the perspective that all opponents should start equitably, so if you disagree then this is not a thread for you!! 

DEREK/BRAD - I've previously proposed volunteering to freely work on this (https://forums.elementalgame.com/393334/ and https://forums.elementalgame.com/393334/#2774920, and I'll do so again here, say for ver 1.1b, etc, and to do the work again for the Devs to make them balance as part of an update. 

I'm particularly pleased to see the reduction on the number of spellbooks that they start with, for all but mighty Procipinee.
But there are still other issues raised before, such as 
  1) Verga having a ‘talent’ for his History, not a profession
  2) Some of the characters having equipment unavailable in design - Queen's staff, Axe, Dagger, etc.
  3) Verga starting with a stat above what is generally permitted, e.g. 18.
  4) THREE start with the Organized trait - a trait squashed for its abusability!!
  5) There is a duplication of backgrounds (FOUR with royalty, TWO Warriors)
  6) Many of the traits (especially newer ones like Green Thumb and Tracker) and disadvantages are not used

While I expect they are as they are due to the book series, I do think they can be rebalanced such that:
  1) They all are archetypes, specialists in their own way (not necessarily Max/min)
  2) Use all professions, talents, weaknesses, and starting technology (tech start is nearly evenly spread)
  3) All these characters should cost (about) the same - whether its 50 or more.
And optionally:
  4) All are exceptional in some way (e.g. Verga's Strength of 18)

Of course, some people might value certain traits more or less than what Elemental values them, but that is subjective (e.g. is Str as valuable for Procipinee as it is for Verga, etc) so I'm just considering given point value.

By fixing the imbalance it will enable two things: 
  1)  At standard difficulty all the opponents are fairly equal, just different styles, magics, emphasis, etc. If you want a challenge you can push the difficulty up on the world or that faction, or poissibly for a set of opponents (e.g. the Empires). As it currently stands, some are more of a challenge than another and if you want to equalize them you have fiddle the difficulties around, which seems a counter intuitive design to me. 
  2)  Randomization of opponents and factions - e.g. Procipinee of the Yithril.  This randomization would make for more variety (e.g. Civ 4), although it may need some slight rewriting to conversation text (have not explored this).

SO, you may ask, whats the imbalance?
See below:
   - column 1 is number of stat points above 50  x 3 points per stat point (e.g. Relias is 11 above 50 {i.e. all 6 total 61}).
   - column 2 is magic (books) * 5
   - column 3 is Talents less weaknesses (discounting Verga's "naturalism", as it replaces a roughly equally powerful range of backgrounds. Giving Organized 10, as it was in 1.0?)
   - column 4 is Equipment (for equipment not normally available, using apparent rule of 1 gilder per point of defence, and 2.5 gilder per point of offence, rounded up (So Markinn's/Carrodus's axe is pricey, but hey its metal and one-handed and ahead of its time!)

Relias               33   +  10  +  10  +  3  =  56
Procipinee      15   +  20  +  15  +  2  =  52       (in earlier versions she was really unbalanced, so this is good at least!)
Carrodus         15   +  10  +  10  +  5  =  50  
Irane               33   +  10  +    3  +  3  =   49 
Markinn           27   +  10  +  17  +  3  =  57   
Ceresa             9     +  15  +    3  +  3  =   30  
Karavox          18   +  10  +  10  + 2  =   40  
Magnar III     6     +  15   + -6  +  4  =   19  
Verga               36   +  5    +  -6   + 3  =   38  
Kul-al-Kulan   18   +  10  + 20  + 3  =    51 

* Dagger (5 dam) is better than staff (5 dam) as it has accuracy, speed, dodge bonuses, so will count as 3 rather than 2 (i.e. like an Axe at 7 dam).

One of my first intuitions was maybe they ARE balanced, but by the faction that they all start with:

Altar: Resourceful (3) + Wanderlust (2) = +5
Capitar: Educated (2) + Industrious (3) + Entrepreneurs (2) = +7
Gilden: Master Smiths (5) + Civics (2) = +7
Pariden: Civilized (1) + Influential (1) + Adepts (2) = +4
Tarth: Egalitarian (1) + Brave (2) + Great Warriors (8) + Weathered Warriors (2) = +13
Kraxis: Educated (2) + Habitation (2) + Siege Masters (3) = +7
Magnar: Educated (2) + Influential(2) + Cartographers (2) = +6
Resoln: Death Worship (2) + Adepts (2) = +4
Umber: Industrious (3) + Darkling Ambassadors (2) - 2 Uneducated = +3
Yithril: Great Warriors (8) + War Machine (2) - Superstitious (2) - Arrogant (1) = +7

Combined with their natural homeland, we get a total of:

Relias              56 + 5 = 61
Procipinee     52 + 4 = 56   
Carrodus        50 + 7 = 57
Irane              49  + 13 = 62
Markinn          57 + 7 = 64
Ceresa            30  +4 = 34
Karavox         40  + 7 = 47
Magnar III    19  + 6 = 25
Verga              38  + 7 = 45
Kul-al-Kulan  51 +3 = 54

So while it can be said they are all within a 45 - 64 range (except poor Magnar), thats a huge range!
And of course players can mix and match on a pure points basis.

I'd propose specific characters/factions, but these might be invalidated by other changes in 1.11  (e.g. doubling spell costs, etc)! 
Of course, another related issue is whether all the abilities have the right valuation- as changing that is another fixing route!!

And for those about to suggest it, I consider balance issues as important as crash, etc, issues, to be an update more than a mod.