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I agree with Jazzepi, except once you get into the mid game you should have switched to demonbred from apprentices, since they have more uses. I prefer to take an N-4 bless and give shrouds to the apprentices if they get sick, rather than spend a turn forging boots in advance. Only my warlocks get boots.

A pop-5000 province will give better results if you leave taxes at 20 or 0, I think. The extra slave income makes up for the small gold income you get from auto-taxing. Watch out for gold mines and gem sites though, don't hunt there.

And hire scouts to walk back and forth, if possible, not regular commanders. There's less chance of sneaking units losing slaves in events or attacks when your slave bus is sneaking. I hire two for each blood hunting province, so there is always one coming and one going. Depending on magic scales and luck, it's possible that you could get slave overflow with just two hunters, if you're running just one scout bus per blood hunting province.

Warlocks are good for blood hunting too, if you don't have anything else useful for them to do the current month, maybe because you're casting a couple of huge summons that eat up all your slaves for the turn.

Once you're at blood-7 you should be casting Curse of Blood for Vampire Lords, especially if you're playing CBM, and they can hunt too.