How Are You Using Your Second Team?

[CommandDork]

I got to the point where I recruited a second 6-man team. I'm finding that they are very much a rookie crew when compared to my initial 6-man team which progressed the tutorial island and claimed several major sectors of the mainland.

I'm wondering if it's worth continuing with a full second team and leveling them up or just keep going with my initial team as it's starting to get expensive keeping both going (and a lot to manage).

Should my second team be just two or four leader-minded types that are used for simply roaming the map and training militia to reinforce captured sectors? I considered that approach but dont know if it's worth it or not.

I dont want to break up my initial team as they all seem to work well off of each other - they know their roles and, moneywise, they are all very much affordable still. The second team feels very much a work in progress right now, having won maybe two or three battles without help - but they are feeling like a moneysink right now.

I forgot the strategy I use to use in JA2 way back when...

[Karmapowered]

You probably already know this, but it is possible to attack with two squads at the same time :
- send the first squad in on target
- pause
- send the second squad in
- unpause
- close the popup at arrival of the first squad (do not attack, do not retreat)
- wait till second squad arrives, then attack with full force of 2 squads.

I'd highly recommend to use more than one squad on higher difficulties, but that's my play style (and/or preference). I also get to enjoy more interactions between my mercs as they slowly grow into powerhouses watching each other's backs.

I use my second team mostly for militia training, as inventory mules and flankers during combat.

In my opinion, the game allows efficient squad management, with the exception of ammo.

[Cat]

Secondary team gets to camp on the harbour on the 2nd area over and stop enemies from getting past into the other sectors, their job is to just roadblock the enemy squads and intercept any diamond shipments coming that way. This only really works if you already took the entire first mainland, but since the AI isn't smart enough to use a different route, it works shockingly well.

[Cougarific]

Militia training
Repairs
Crafting ammo & explosives

I don't like to bring them into combat just because having twice as many orders to give means encounters take twice as long. Steamrolling with a huge crew is fun, but slow.

[HozzMidnight]

Logistics are killing me. I have plenty of cash to field a second team but I have not primarily due to ammo/parts bottlenecks. My main squad has 1 LMG 2 Snipers and 3 automatic rifles. 3 use 7.62 NATO and 3 use 7.62 WP. Until very recently I did not have enough ammo to supply a separate squad and even now I would have to work up to 6 good sets of back up weapons.

I have taken 3 mines, should be 4 but a quest line is bugged for me. 1 mine is dry, the operating 2 make me about 5k a day profit.

I have 12 mercs currently. 6 in the main squad. 1 militia training team of Buns and Wolf. 1 floating mechanic (really don't need this). 1 floating doctor. 1 explosives merc that loots militia fights and makes ammo. I am still primarily using cheap mercs from the first tab and then I have 3 from the second tab.

[Method Man]

My second squad is defending that big diamond mine in the north because the AI really wants to take it back lol

[['w']]

the game pauses for you on the strategic map, just toggle the option on in gamesettings, you don't have to pause

[Lightning]

I basically baby sit a choke point for all the invading enemies every now and then and in the mean time keep training up all the stats as well

[Graf Erik]

I have two squads, one primary, one secondary team.
Every team has a leader, medic, bomb-guy and repair-guy. And mostly a MG guy and a sniper. (that makes 6).

That way I can train milita, repair stuff, scout and heal some quys while I have still a fully operational attack team to proceed.

And for major assaults I send both teams.

My way to do it:
-Activate pause for strat map in options as mentioned above
-Send team one, but dont confirm. Just check the travel time.
-Send team two, but dont confirm. Just check the travel time.
-Compare travel times and send the slower team first
-Wait an appropriate time, then send second team
-They don't have to show up at excatly the same time. +/- 30 min is totaly fine to deploy them together.

[['w']]

I was thinking of moving two squads along adjacent tiles, maybe with a 3rd one from behind for healing and crafting.

[Kmany]

So far we have been okay with 1 squad.. we had thor training militia for a while in a second squad, but so far there is really no need for a second squad.
I could see that we picked up magic and scully for a second two man team later on, mostly for nostalgia tho.
I play this game coop with a buddy..

[Sejbr]

The game gatekeeps the most important and most enjoyable character to me - Gus. So I've destroyed the whole map with MD, Raven, IMP, Kalyna, Red and Rider (and took him only coz of interactions with Raven). Murdered everything, positioned my team in A19 to block the enemy... and finnaly I could buy myself some legendary mercs (and that's just because I clicked on Gus again, knowing he would tell me to f off... but this time he didn't... really? REALLY? FU game) for that nice showdown (not a single hp loss, "major" went down like a ♥♥♥♥♥. Oh... and reaper just didn't care and wouldn't let me hire him, shadow died or something (dunno, went "missing"). I wouldn't hire sidney and that new one even if I had infinite money. So that left me with Magic, Gus, Scope and Len.

Sad. This game offered so much at the start, but It just turned out to be smoke and mirrors. Don't feel like replaying it. The amount of "JA moments" is so low that I just don't care.

[x_equals_speed]

Technically my second squad was just Ron and all he did was train militia. My third was similar. Two mercs is enough to defend everything on autoresolve forever (exempting one major event) if they're tactical about where they're training.

My fourth squad happened when I realised I'd picked up enough extra no-upkeep characters that they needed something to do so I hired the rest of a squad around them and sent them towards one endgame objective while my main squad went towards another. They started out needing a lot of help to get going, but once they'd won a few missions and got some better equipment they became a lot more self sufficient. I think if I played again I might hire a cheap merc whose job it is to ferry all of the spare guns to a central hub so new mercs can come in properly equipped - my main group has like 600 salvage, I didn't need to salvage every spare gun!

My fifth squad came about in a panic where I hit what felt like a major objective with a tight ten day timelimit that required me to go in five directions at once. It consisted of Len (who gives an xp boost) and the cheapest team I could get to support him since I was worried about burn rate with five squads. They had a really rough time getting going, coming in with pistols against end game threats, they're still not "a good squad" but are decent enough for finishing up quests and exploring sectors I skipped earlier - I don't see them hitting an endgame objective.

As of right now my main squad finished their endgame objective and my second full squad just reached their endgame objective. It looks like they're not high enough level for it, but also I've saved every mortar shell and rocket I've ever picked up and never fired them so Larry is about to have his best day ever.

[deckaio]

Currently around midgame, approx. 10 hours in. My second team is blocking the bridge in the north (Northeast of the refugee-camp). Pretty much every assault/raiding party, as well as diamond-shipments are crossig the sector. They are pretty much in a rest/training/fighting cycle, while my main-team is exploring the map without having to hunt for the shipments or deal with raids.

[mr_oluap]

i use it same way as first squad, makes exploring way faster :)

[Dre G Writer]

My second team is used purely to train my main mercs.

That character that you can create, since it cost no daily money to keep em, I put him in his own crew by himself. and i hire guys with high stats and just have them train my created character while my main crew of 6 play the game.

Gave em high wisedom and leader so he can learn and train fast.

And then, I have one(sometimes more) of my main crew mercs join my created character's crew and have my created character train that one merc while the other 5 handle business.

So basically, like everyone on my main team are gods now with 80-90s in just about all the stats except the specialty ones like mechanical, medical, ect.

Crap took like almost a year in game to achieve this though. It a loooong process and if it wasnt for the unless diamond mine mod, this probably wouldn't be possible. At least not on the scale that i did it with getting almost all the stats up for all my mates.