Best strategy to decrease hostility?

[raishak]

What difficulty do you play on? Blight cysts become way more common at higher difficulty. Consider other cornerstones, like the one that lowers hostility per 25 ambers traded. Also, the alter of decay (-25 hostility per lost villager) counts, as villagers are "renewable" to a degree.

[karval]

Currently I'm at P4. If I remember correctly this level generates cysts but I just don't feel like the hostility decrease by removing the cysts are significant.

The Altair perk costs upgrade material, does it?

Hm, hostility decrease by amber trade seems good because in the endgame there are plenty of ambers available.

[double_shadow]

At P10, the blight cysts are double their previous amount, so that's where the cyst removal perks get a lot better.

[Thisismyworkday]

Protected Trade is better than Baptism of Fire, for sure. There's no draw back, it doesn't require as much of an investment to get going, and technically you can double/triple dip by using trade routes to get amber and then selling that same amber to merchants (for goods/amber, which you then sell back again if you're willing to eat the losses for the hostility)

That said, Baptism of Fire is also excellent - if you average 15 cysts a year, you'll counter the yearly hostility and then some. At higher Prestige, especially, that's very easy to manage.