2nd squad

[Jaz]

When would be a good time to add a second squad and get them training? I have taken and fortified the starting island and just raided the diamond mine in the northern most point of the map. My positive income is around $2k and im sitting on $40k in the bank. Should i wait for my second mine or use the second squad _for_ the second mine?

[Ichthyic]

as soon as you can afford them. earlier is better, since you will want them to gain levels. use your mine income to dictate how many mercs you can afford. money for supplies and whatnot can come from the things you find (diamond/saphire chips on enemies for example), and robbing diamond deliveries from the enemies. keep a dozen diamond chips for quest items (mostly in fleatown) and the rest is cash for you.

eventually you will want to have 3 squads even. or more. a squad doesn't have to be a full 6 person squad. 4 is usually sufficient, and you can split off scouts to bolster defense in a town (don't rely on your trained militia, they're pretty crap, always bolster with at least one merc if it is an important town, or is on a regular enemy route). using single units to explore is useful as well. you may eventually even want the full 15 units you can hire. there are 3 or 4 decent units you can get in game that have zero maintenance, so that will help.

[sooshon]

really up to you and your budget. it is also completely optional, i've personally just done the whole game with a main squad of 6, a squad of 2 that did nothing but train militia and mule items towards my front-most port as needed, and larry as a squad of 1 crafting ammo and explosives; even the highest difficulty was doable like this, i didn't really want to micromanage splitting supplies and gear between squads but it's completely open ended and up to you how you wanna approach it.

[stretch]

There are a few 'free' mercs in the game. I use those guys and add any I get to my training team. That has always been sufficient for my needs. Obviously once you know the game this sort of thing is easy to do.
If you wish to get a second team then I suggest just getting a couple of cheap mercs with as high a leadership as you can, have the training perk on one of those and use them to train militia teams on important locations that your main team takes out.

For simplicity I would not be over-complicating your first run with multiple teams doing stuff.

Quest XP only happens once and if you are spreading that XP over many teams you are going to hit the tougher combat with a lot of useless teams instead of having one great team.
XP is fixed and is split evenly over everybody in your team who completes that event. combat or quest. Big teams will level up far slower than a lone wolf.