[HoneyBadger]

Dominion of 2 is a risk, yes, but if you're careful, it can certainly be playable.

The thing about Dominion 2 is that it only has to last you through a turn or two, unless you're very unlucky and have a close human-run neighbor who happens to have a sneaky Pretender with a high Dom, and she decides to target you, specifically.

In an MP game, I definitely would devote atleast 3 Priest-Kings with jade knives to maintaining my Dominion, in and around my home province, and maybe have a well-guarded spare castle or two with a similar set up close by, just as a fail-safe, for a total of 6 core provinces with temples, but a well-maintained Dominion, even if it's 2, is pretty resilient. The key is to both maintain it, and to spread it out so it can't all collapse at once around you.

Once you've got your blood-economy up and running, concerns about Dominion are going to ease very quickly,

You'll even want other Dominions in outlying provinces you own, because they'll generally be better than yours, and as long as your borders are tight and you keep sacrificing, it'll become steadily harder for enemies to Dominion-Death you.