[Squirrelloid]

Ok, you *need* growth 3, because you are a blood nation, and you want somewhat sustainable bloodhunting. (Abysia being immune to the -gold scale effect of death scales is ridiculous, since they still lose population, and they want to bloodhunt, so there is absolutely no reason for them to actually take death scales).

Prison of Fire is good, but honestly, push construction/blood early. Really, you want to rush constr 6, mass lanterns, then rush down blood as fast as you can.

Recommended pretenders:
Awake Great Sage: lots of RPs, plus good site searching utility. Your strategy is dependent on research, this guy delivers.
Fountain of Blood: probably sleeping with dom 10 and decent scales. Basically, this is your blood sacrifice strat pretender.
Awake SC: it works, it gives you a high dom for blood sacrifice, and tbh, you don't need totally amazing scales as abysia. (Although they're certainly nice)

I know your national troops are strong early, but they're not *that* strong, so i'm not sure you actually need production scales. See what you need to expand. If you can expand fine with Sloth 3, do so. You're going to want to be using blood-based troops for wars with other players.

Scales:
Heat 3 (required)
Growth 3 (required)
Magic 1 (virtually required), 3 is desirable
Luck 3 is nice
Order 1+ is always nice (positive synergy with luck scale events despite the frequency antisynergy). Can always run turmoil 3, since you aren't gold limited most of the time (and there'll be less opportunity cost from bloodhunting).
Sloth 3 is always preferable unless you need the production - see what you can get away with.

BTW, Lava warriors aren't that good, ignore them.