[The Panther]

I have found three hunters with SDRs as Mictlan to work quite well. You do not need to waste a hero on patrolling and the accompaning pop loss. Pop loss is not a big deal unless it drops below 5000, in which case your hunters are less efficient.

My current Mictlan strategy is to have 4 of the cheap priests in each province where there is 4500-8000 population. I set the tax rate at zero and let 3 priests with SDRs hunt virgins. More than 8000 pop, I would rather have the income. Less than 5000, the hunters are not as efficient. The fourth priest has a jade knife and sacrifices 4 slaves per month. The ideal population for hunting is exactly 5000.

It is uncommon to have the unrest rise with this, for the Mictlan hunters with the SDR are only 90% efficient. So when they miss finding virgins, the unrest dissapears due to the zero tax rate. Most of the time, I have zero unrest in all of my hunting provinces.

If I need more blood slaves, I just set up shop in a different province instead of putting another commander on hunting and yet another on patrolling.

As you said, you definitely want a cheap castle to protect your vulnerable hunting/sacrificing operations.

If you are hunting in a lower population province, like say below 4000 people, then 4 hunters may well work without patrolling since they find less slaves on average.