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Don't be afraid to take on food penalties. To get those highest scores, you need to try to go to every non-empty nodes in all expeditions. It takes a lot of practice.
And you can get perks from campfire stories too, and more with one of the shops. But no perk now from treasure.
Spending research has changed, but it's kind of the same as before. If you think you will struggle for science in future expeditions to complete two trees, don't unlock research papers after starter expeditions. Otherwise it's probably a good idea...
Just make sure you have a plan of which future expeditions you will go to and which resource/tokens you are going for and have the perks required for those treasures/expeditions.
The expert players look at all the bonus from treasures and try to get some synergy together with captain bonus, campfire stories and treasure bonus. Like with Captain Victor/Maria, an obvious strategy is to try to get more Encounter tokens and try to boost them, there are a few treasures for that (check the treasure guide) and you can try to design a insight spender to get you up to 4 or maybe even 5 Encounter tokens per insight.
Check the wiki for all the perks available from Entourage Halls so you can get a better idea of where you can get the perks you require. And the shop list too.
http://renownedexplorers.gamepedia.com/Entourage
Basically stack, stack, stack is mostly my tactic on captain perks. I am not always one of the highest scorers but I tend to think I do well enough :)
Concerning Crew stories. Harry is a very, very good crew member in gold resource crews. His crew card gives status on collect for every beguiler/rogue roll he succeeds on (fairly sure those are the requirements) and will enable you to get merchants and specialists without much effort, which will boost your gold output even more .
Also Maria's crew story gives either campaign on friendly or encounter tokens on devious and thus could be a good addition if you focus mainly on friendly or devious battles ;)
Concerning Treasures. Which perk to pick is always difficult to choose in my opinion. It depends entirely on your strategy, though generally +25% renown from ---- is often a good one to choose.
Hope this helps somewhat and isn't stuff you already knew/did :)
I find the 'grants 1 science token when an engineer(insert other skills here) succeeds on the wheel' from the observations science path very important. It's not on engineer spins, it's on every spin an engineer makes. You can buy the wrench at the first shop and before you enter a node you can move the wrench to the person that will be making the spin to make them a lvl1 engineer for that check, granting the bonus token.
It's a lot of micromanagement but it makes a huge difference if you're gaining bonus tokens every time you're spinning. it adds up over the course of the game and allows important science progress on heavy status or gold based runs.
Don't be afraid to put a lot of low level skills on a person just for the bonus tokens to spins.
Other than that, it's what others (better players than I) have said. Stack, Stack, Stack.
Then when you come to look at a set of options for bonuses, you have enough basic information to make informed choices: is a token buff better than X tokens on every roll? Well, if you know you'll get a total of about 220 tokens after the bonus, and only 40 rolls on that character/perk type/whatever, you can immediately see what kind of figures you get as an end result.
So my advice is: pen, paper and calculator nearby and put down significant things into permenant notes.
Other than that, always try pushing your boundaries. If you think you might be able to survive a 4 star expedition with only starter gear if you play a particular team, try it! Even if you fail, you'll get a much better feel for how you need to tweak the options to survive when it comes to trying it next time.
When that team option appears again, you'll know the minimum gold you need to have ready to use for buying stuff by the forth expedition.
So I understand the fundamental ideas for getting a high score...or at least I think I do. But somewhere I'm lacking on the execution, because I'm not getting the kind of snowballing that other players seem to get routinely. So I'm going to throw out a bunch of targeted questions where I might be able to improve.
1) Spending campaign. Assuming there's not a specific strategy with your crew (like playing Charles and needing specialists,) what's the general MO on using your greens? Do you focus on increasing skills, or getting basic helpers for just your primary resource? Is it better to get a third helper for your primary or one each in the other two?
2) Spending gold. I've generally been focused on trying to get level 2 defense items and low-end skill trinkets first, hopefully filling out my complement of these after the second mission. I'll then target higher-end trinkets, if any, that I need, and then focus on improving the defensive gear and maybe buying some offense as money permits. Is that a horrible approach? Will I do better (enough) on wheel rolls by improving weapons?
3) Spending research. I've seen it mentioned in a few places not to target the first two research trees, but that seems like strange advice to me when they're generally helpful, and the other four tend to be very targeted. The +50% renown from completing Observations is just as good as any of the three lower trees. Plus, I'm not comfortable going into missions with only 9 supplies. (See below.)
4) Supplies and penalties. Advice on the forums seems to favor the idea of "complete the map, and penalties be damned." But at some point the penalties become overbearing. How much effort should be made in increasing supply counts or gaining them/trading them during the mission? Am I just so terrible at encounters that I should be able to win no matter what?
5) Crew selection. I only recently acquired More to Explore, so I'm still learning and acquiring the campfire cards. Obviously they need to factor into crew selection. But my primary consideration so far has been picking members who have skills that will support the mission path I intend to follow. Unfortunately, sometimes that leads to having multiple glass cannons, or three people with the same Friendly attack that a boss ends up being immune to or not having any real firepower in battle. What are your primary considerations for picking the crew to go with your captain?
Yes, I realize those are long and involved questions, but I have plenty of others I could ask. I *suspect* those are the ones that will garner the most overall improvement, though.
Thanks in advance.
Assuming you're not doing something specific, get specialists that have skills relevant to where you're going and then helpers for your primary resource. Buying a couple of students no matter what your plan is won't hurt (ideally you want to buy your first student before taking the paper in Observations that gives one, not always viable though.)
Depends on the type of rolls you're expecting to meet. For example, if you're going areas with a lot of Engineer/Naturalist checks you'll see the best return by getting more speech defence. Athlete checks you want Defence. Rogue checks you want grit/attack power, Beguiler/Diplomat you want Speech Power, so on so forth.
Originally Observations wasn't a 50% closer so the advice was not to rush to close it due to that. I still stand by that though if you're not doing a science-based run - the later trees have better papers for food, buff/generation of special tokens, shop/entourage hall unlocks etc tend to be more useful than for example +2 study when spending in Berlin.
Science-based runs go nuts, you'll have enough science to do whatever you want tree wise.
Generally you shouldn't need to hold onto much resolve - maybe hold onto 3 so you have a buffer for battle errors/failed wheels but otherwise it's doing nothing to help you score - trade away for food wherever you can. Penalties - judge if what you'll potentially gain from moving without supplies will outweigh having a harder time in combat/adventure wheel spins.
Difficulty matters a bit here as well - I heavily advise against stacking many penalties on Impossible for example.
Crewwise just pick whatever has skills for where you're going or have good campfire cards that support your plan. I don't normally worry about having 3 people with the same friendly attack - if you come across an immune mob you get to play roll the dice with your Devious attacks (Spyglass from New Orleans can help here.)
1) Basically been doing that, except I have a tendency to dump campaign into the off-focus helpers.
2) That's very interesting. Are the rolls always consistent, or does the game mix them up a little bit? Sometimes speech, sometimes speech defense, i.e.
3) Are shop/entourage locks (beyond the one-per-mission) that great? I guess I'm coming from a world where you're not going to be able to spent into everything, so it seems trivial to care, but obviously there's value in the entourage camps and lecture halls. How critical are NO and Sydney?
4) Basically been doing that, but I still get the sense that other players are a lot more extreme than I am there.
5) Basically been doing that, but nice to have the confirmation there isn't an extra meta layer I'm not seeing.
And if there's nothing glaring here to improve my game, then what am I not doing?
It varies according to how much my team is capable of getting status, but I'd always recommend the first and third specialists in the beginning shop so that you're earning tokens on every encounter - there's a lot of encounters in the game, and unlike wheel-roll required ones, they guarantee a token for every encounter (or you've lost, so moot point then anyway).
After that, helpers are the way to start off. The other specialists are great and all, but if you can't guarantee tokens from them, they're a very expensive use of status, and every helper will get you a lot in the end.
General rule I recommend is to focus on specialists for gaining as many guaranteed tokens as you can while also building up helpers. You need both to earn well - otherwise you're getting some tokens not worth the expense or not getting enough tokens.
Another recommendation I'd give is simple enough, but no one seems to do it: after the 3rd/4th expedition, your token generation strategy should be up and running. This means that helpers are far more important than specialists at this stage! It's a pretty simple calculation when you take is as is: if you're getting 80+ tokens on an expedition, 1-3 of a resource = 80-240 of that resource; and the more you get, the better the returns.
Specialists, on the other hand: if you're getting tokens per a particular node type, most expeditions have - at most - 5-6. So that's 5-6 tokens worth, which, at base rate is 10-15 = 50-90 of that resource.
If it's a specialist that gives you 1/2 extra on every roll with one crew member who has X perk levels, that's a lot more - but has the restriction that A) they have to succeed the roll and B) only crew members with the relevant perks will get it, so if they can only do the athlete rolls on 1 expeditions, you're sudenly down to 2-3 times you get the +1/+2, even ignoring success rates.
That's relying a lot on luck - so definately don't get specialists in this manner if you aren't 100% certain that you'll actually be doing enough rolls with that crew member to make it worthwhile.
For an ideal setup, you'll get all the helpers of your main resource asap. Of course, that A) isn't possible, at least near the start and B) isn't practical - you need enough income of all the different resources initially. I recommend aiming for your starting island to be whichever of Saxon or Celtic you plan to NOT be your main resource. Apart from a few specific treasures an playing styles, taking your main resource as your first port of call is a bad move - that train will get rolling later, and at the start, you need as much of the resources as you can to maximise your early profits.
I wouldn't generally recommend Viking Landing as it has a really poor amount of tokens and experience compared to Celtic or Saxon currently - again, there's a few exceptions, but these mainly rely on specific Treasures or perks only possible to get in Viking Landing, whereas the general approach for experience or tokens is still better on the other two islands.
I would also take care about which shops you unlock in what order: Contantinople is generally a good option for the first set of unlocks, as it offers specialists meant for early-use that only require 4 levels to gain the benefits of.
San Fransisco/New Orleans, on the other hand, is massively expensive - firstly, because the Specialists cost an absolute fortune, and secondly because, frankly, they're second rate specialists. Gaining a small bit of a different resource can be useful - but the actual gains you'll make are pretty pathetic if you're actually trying to get something specific with it: it takes 3-4 tokens to even begin to draw close to the standard basic token's bonus - and those bonuses will never scale up, unlike the basic tokens designed for it - so generally, you're better off buying a specialist elsewhere that will get you more of those basic tokens.
They have a wider variety of perks on offer, but that's about it. The second tab's specialists are entirely based around encounter tokens - which are only useful if playing a team designed for getting them. Spending a valuable 300 status (plus upgrade cost) for them is a bad move unless the crew is designed for them: Encounters won't increase in worth with the same helpers that your basic token get - meaning you've just wasted all the status buying them or have to ignore upgrading the basic tokens to get more out of them - not to say journalists and traders aren't worth getting, just they're only about 1/4 of the worth of the lobbyists/merchants (and that's a good guide on when to purchase them)
"So," says the status-heavy crew player, "shouldn't I get San Fransisco/New Orleans?" Well... maybe. But the first set of unlocks, you'll have got Constantinople for cheaper options. The Second set of unlocks is the main time you can focus-spend to maximise your end-results to best effect. Meaning that this is the absolutely the wrong time to spend a fortune on a status-sink with little to no returns: 1100 status, nevermind the upgrade costs gets you a lot more helpers that will help you more with every token. Don't touch San Fransisco/New Orleans unless you are focused entirely on journalists/traders AND already have all the ones from Moscow (and Constantinople)!
If and when you unlock San Fransisco/New Orleans, it'll tend to be through the Engineering research tree - which is fine, it's got some useful small things for a gold-based team in the item shop (and the other available shops are the main reason to get that paper anyway), and some status/science teams may want the extra perks it offers. But it is extremely rare that it's worth unlocking it outside of the Engineering research tree, simply because all the other options are much better.
The African insight shops earn you vastly more resources, and let you top-up on not one, but two resources. Not to mention that, if you're a gold-focused team, you'll have got it through Engineering anyway, if you're a science team- well, why would a science team need anything from there (unless getting Engineering research papers anyway); and if you're a status team you should be focused on buying every single lobbyist/journalist and relevant specialists; or else bolstering the resources you have little of by getting the cheaper helpers/specialists for them.
Sydney is great, but the option to get it using the Engineering Research paper is usually far better for anyone who might want it - and even if not, if you really need the gear, you can alo get it last.
San Fransisco is a black hole for status. I cannot say this enough. :P
As for the final unlock, Rio is absolutely fantastic IF you'll have the relevant perks high enough to be getting the +2 per roll options. The second tab is a bit hit and miss - if you're lucky, you get the one that boosts the basic tokens. They were mildly nerfed recently, but they're still far beyond the earnings from encounter tokens unless you have a crew designed entirely for encounter tokens - in which case, it's hit and miss if you get them or the basic token Specialist.
That said though, Sydney is also fantastic - the perks and items available there are phenominal, and if you'll be getting better returns by going there (let alone the perks you may need to pass the hard high-end skill checks at the end), so much the better - but either way it's a bit of a sacrifice. It seems slightly unfair that gold/science teams will get Sydney for free if they unlock the Engineering Research tree, since that means they can get both Rio and Sydney, but that's how it stands at present.
The Beijing unlock from Psychology is definately the most underwhelming of the three options. It's better than it used to be with the recent increases in big token availability that make investing into the big tokens more viable as a strategy; but it's still not really comparable to Rio/Sydney.
On the whole, you won't really notice a vast difference if you skimp on getting the second - or possibly even the third level gear - certainly at least on the second expedition. +3/+7 more attack/speech is pretty negligible. I would generally recommend one of three options:
Archaeologist: Speech Defense
- Athlete: Armour
- Beguiler: Speech Power
- Diplomat: Speech Power
- Engineer: Speech Defense
- Naturalist: Speech Defense
- Quick Thinker: Grit
- Rogue: Attack Power
- Survivalist: Grit
- Tactician: Armour
They do all use the other stat associated with them at times (eg. Rogue: Grit), but these are the main stats worth focusing on for a general approach – they get more rolls than the secondary ones. Each expedition tends to theme the encounters in a particular manner which is worth focusing on, and you’ll get an overlap of skills between one expedition and another because of it, even if they use different perks. Eg. Caribbean and Emerged – both have a gold and science focus, but Caribbean uses Naturalist while Emerged leans towards both Naturalist and Archeaology, and both use Survivalist rolls.Even if other aspects don’t line up in a route you’re planning on, it’ about finding the parts that do so that you can take advantage of them – or else by having the gold to switch out items back an forth to suit each individual expedition.
Research - target the token-earning ones after the 1st expedition. You will need to focus which trees you'll unlock for your main resource from early on, mind you, so there's three immediate options -
This is generally a good idea anyway as it allows you to aim for the +50% renown from Observations later - and if you're going full-science, just get the whole tree (or as much as posible) for the study income.
However, you may not want to spend too much science there. For status, you're looking at the first and second papers of the left branch - both the insight and the tokens per encounter. For an insight focus (probably science, but possibley gold too), you want the starting right-hand paper and the second left-most paper - and the bonus status and lobbyist will hardly hurt either (again, buy lobbyists you intend to get before buying that paper)
It is a tricky balance though - if you're going history, your science is likely be very limited, meaning you can only really afford a little and want to save the rest for Psyche OR Anthro OR Engineering, depending on your team. With a lot of care you might manage to complete 3 research trees, but it'll be pushing it.
If you're thinking of the third method (or have spare science you want to use), it can be worth getting just 1 or 2 papers of history/obs to take advantage of what they offer, whether that's unlocking the HIstory tree (often worth doing even without spending anything else on History makes the entourage shops quite a bit cheaper for low-status runs).
Another option is to unlock Observations - partly in mind to finishing it later, and partly so that you have a science perk which can push your team's starting capabilities up hugely: it's the only place you can 100% guarantee to get any science perk, meaning you can always use it to bolster your perk tree levels up by choosing ones you can't get elsewhere - and even 1 perk can be enough to pass a lot of checks in the second expedition, especially if you use on on a crew member with high speech def (all three of the science perk trees use speech def to increase some of their rolls); not to mention that if you can get one more research paper, you can be getting +1 study token on every successful roll that crew member takes.
It's a mix of both I'm afraid. I can 100% guarantee that if you have a lot of difficulty finishing the boss on the first island after exploring the whole thing, you aren't going to be getting through the game as it stands with that team or strategy anyway.
After the first expedition, it gets a bit harder to judge. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend going to nodes with a single gold/research/status icon and nothing else unless they are already going along the route you mean to travel anyway. There are exceptions, of course - if you're doing the Halloween unlock you'll want to visit the relevant nodes, or if getting the Clear Crystal treasure on The Emerged Island; and possibly on Lost Island as the rewards from those are significantly higher than other expeditions (although you're always pressed for supplies on Lost Island anyway, so possibly still might want to avoid them).
However, in any other cases, those single resource nodes without an encounter or wheel-check, etc aren't worth it - the average is 1-2 tokens - some give more with the right perks, etc or the like, but as a general rule, they aren't worth wasting supplies to get.
After that, it's largely about maximising the ground you can cover for a few supplies as possible - making use of free travel routes (cost 0 paths) and avoiding the high cost routes (2-3 supply cost routes) will help a lot - and checking all the nodes you reveal each time you move can hep greatly.
Next is to consider what the main things you want are on that expedition - any particular encounters or treasures that are a priority for you. Obviously, some won't always spawn, but if you plan to circle round or criss-cross the map to uncover most of it, even if you don't visit every node; you'll usually end up better off for it. Basically - each node you can see, prioritise whether or not it's vital to visit it - if it is, plan your route towards it, allowing for some node routes that may get in the way or the like as much as possible.
Sometimes you may find yourself running low on supplies anyway - then you have to make the choice whether or not it's worth the risk. Bear in mind the gear you have, and whether your crew is going to find the end-boss (or other epic battle!) tough according to their stats: if you've got a team with great armour, but the boss uses speech attacks, you'll be far less resiliant to taking supply penalties, so it may be better to cut your losses in those situations.
If you have gear at a reasonable level for the expedition (see below) and a crew who have strong attacks/defence for the boss you're facing (or good AoE, crowd-control skills, etc to match that boss) then you can probably push it a bit further.
Another way to judge the penalties is whether or not they effect your main damage-dealing skills and defence that the boss (and/or minions) target. If you're doing well with penalties, you can shrug off more than 10 if those stats aren't going to be used in the main encounters. On the other hand, if one of your main stats is effected, you may need to turn-tail and run for the boss ASAP or risk losing to them.
Three things worth considering. A) The main, and most difficult epic encounters on the expedition, and how well-suited your team is to deal with them. Firstly, assuming you're using a non-scout team: your defences will need to be decent on at least one character.
So you can look at the base stats of each crew member to begin with - those with 10 or less in a defence skill at the start will be particularly vulnerable to those attacks - if the expedition you're going on mainly focuses on those attacks, you probably want to upgrade the armour/speech defence. That's one way to mitigate damage.
Another is grit - though that's only really possible to use a lot with a Scout - Grit gives a chance to dodge any attacks completely - and all the Girt defence items (Boots) also give a proportionally higher amount of armour/speech def than the armour or speech defence items give for the other one - meaning that scouts will mitigate all damage reasonably well, either by dodging, or just taking moderate damage, whether it's speech or attack. That doesn't mean that they aren't better suited to dealing with one damage type or another, but their defence items are nice for being suited to all damage equally.
So... how much to aim for? With tactical approaches, you should be able to mitigate the damage off your crew well - either body-blocking, terrain-blocking or minimising the tiles they can attack from can minimise the damage they can do to you: it's always better to force them to approach one at a time than all at once - and if all your crew can hit them without opening up the flank, so much the better.
If you can sucessfully manage it, you can make do with only 0-20 in a defence stat up to the 4th expedition. On the downside, sometimes the map generation for encounters will screw you over.
I recommend not getting more than 1 defence item for your weakest crew members' who are below 10 armour/speech defence during the second expedition - depending primarily on the boss/epic encounter's attacks. If that also happens to be the same stat as you'll use the following expedition, so much the better - and if not, it might be better to hold out for a higher grade item of the next tier up.
For the 3 star expeditions, you'll probably want at least one crew member (non-scout) with Good defence gear, and at least 1 crew member with at least Good offence gear. Personally, I find it's more useful to have one extremely high-power damage-dealer than it is to have three mediocre damage dealers; but other people differ on this.
4 Stars you're looking at Master gear - or, if you can afford it, going to Adventurer gear: if you an get adventurer gear, so much the better, a you won't need to upgrade it again for the 5th expedition (unless you have so much gold that it doesn't matter anymore). On which ubject, Adventurer gear minimum for anyone taking damage in 5 star areas. Legendary defence gear isn't necessary at all, though the stat-boost can really help any crew member whos doing a lot of adventure wheel spins, and, again, if you can afford it, so much the better.
As for offence, it's similar, though again, I'd always prioritise having 1 really high tier offence item over 3 moderate ones - and it's worth considering, if you have the option, sydney or New Orleans offensive gear: if they are mainly only doing the one attack type (for New Orleans books) or hitting enemies in one particular emotion (Sydney), a gain of 25% on any damage dealt is a godsend - and when those shops are available early, an upgrade to the 400 gold master versions can easily last you through the rest of the expeditions without problems as a good base-level offencive gear - when possible, that's the only upgrade I do until the 5 star expeditions so I can use all my money on maximising trinket's effects with perks, etc.
However, if you're borderline between not having the money to upgrade properly, but are worried that you won't make it through the expedition, it's worth looking at trinkets. First and foremost, any that give you relevant perks for the entourage specialists you have can be very helpful, and failing that, many boost your basic stats enough to get you through the worst of it.
A worthy mention is also the Lucky Charm and War Drums - they're cheap, and comparitively eaasy to get quite early with just a little cash (upgrade costs and 150) and these will allow a crew member to start in either excited or encouraged emotions to absolutely maximise their stats in combat These are only for combat - the stats aren't boosted for skill checks or wheel rolls, but it does make a big difference having the right buffs on your healer/damage dealer at the start - it can make the difference between one-shotting an enemy and having them left with enough health to hit you again next round - and not to mention that those bonuses stack beautifully with the bonus from New Orleans' books or Sydney gloves.
I'm also going to add a bit on combat things that can help tactically and which aren't always known:
Combat Stuff:
You ony need one character to be tough enough... technically. This is because the AI targeting systems are actually incredably simple, even if they aren't so simple to get round and manipulate. They work on a points-based system. Of the available targets (your crew), whoever has the highest point value to that enemy will be attacked. If they use AoEs, they will prioritise the two highest-point crew members first, if they have the option, and all three if they can.
That's point 1 - if they can, they will go for their priority target, heedless of positioning or damage to themselves. The few enemies that run away during encounters do so because it's part of a scripted choice, and is usually extremely predictable. Which means you can ensure that they only hit the toughest member of the team with use of positioning and timing your attacks/heals correctly.
If you want them to stop hitting your healer, for example, have the healer heal before the other crew member attacks. This is because when healing, they steal a chunk of the 'aggro points' that other crew member has accrued. Moving your healer last is a sure-fire way to make them a priority target.
Equally - whoever attacks them first in a round will get the majority of the aggro points that can be accrued that turn (unless healed). So if you want them to hit a tank character, attack with the tank character first.
However, for all that, those are only ways of manipulating aggro points earned that encounter round - they may still have priority target on someone from a previous round which adds up to more - but from the starting round, if two people have both attacked the same enemy, that enemy will prioritise whoever hit them first in the latest round (excluding special skills).
So, special skills: there are some skills that're neutral - Bia's Sudden Attack and Phillipe/Emilia's Amnesia Darts both work in this manner. These do not generate any aggro points at all in that round. That doesn't mean that those crew members won't be targeted, but it does mean that they won't earn any aggro in that round - so if someone else hits with a non-neutral skill, the other person is far more likely to get their attention.
Then there are the aggro-skills - any that specifiy that enemies will target the crew member using it. It doesn't guarentee aggro, however, no matter what it says. A great way to get your healer killed is to use an aggro skill and THEN have the healer heal them. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe what the aggro skills do is clear the existing aggro points and then apply a high amount of aggro points - which is why healers can still steal aggro at that point - since healing steals their aggro points, the aggro skill still can't keep up.
After that, there's positioning - if they can only reach one crew member, that's the only one they'll ever attack - sometimes just giving them an option between killing your vital crew member and bouncing off your tank is enough (when following the other aggro advice) to keep them alive.
Of course, for all that, it's never 100% predictable, or else you can't do much about it, but generally if you try to minimise the risks with positioning and moods (and running away for a round if necessary!) you can go a long way.
Oh, and in an all-scout or if every crew member has 4+ mobility, there's only a few fights that are even dangerous thanks to be able to run faster than they can catch up. Of coursse, those few that are you need to be prepared for.
Generally I always go with team synergy. The campfire cards are great and all, but if the team won't survive the encounters, they're not going to help much. The suggested team members for each captain are usually a good place to start from - and a lot of the characters share the same abilities (although with different perks through level ups) with another character - if you find you're struggling with one of these, you might want to try the alternative to see if it fits the team better.
There's various other team designs you can go for with encounters in mind - healer/damage dealer/tank or doubling up on healers so they do damage too and can chain heal, an all-scout sniping/hit-and-run, a high damage single-target and a pair of high-damage AoEs so you can clear out targets fast, Anna/Earl paralyse team, Victor/JP for an Aggressive/Friendly team for rapid attitude changes, Charles and Harry for AoE enrage followed by the cone shot, Agatha/Yvonne mass debuffing... etc. There's a lot of combos out there.
I recommend having at least one thing to deal with physical damage and one thing to deal with speech - be it just good defences all round and a healer or a mass terror/sadden debuff - or just the speed to position yourself favourably to clear out swarms. Dealing with the swarms is all about prepared teams - either you want to be hitting and killing an enemy with every single attack or spreading enough damage mitigation (in all it's many forms) that you'll survive and still beat them all.
Dealing with bosses and both offloading and receiving high damage is about gear, supply debuffs (or lack thereof), and tactics, in general, though there are crew members better suited for it too.
It's worth considering negative emotion skills instead of having a pure healer too - if you minimise their damage, you can make do with most teams (though admittedly, when all your team have only Inspire as a heal, it can get tricky).
For generally good team members for most situations in encounters, I suggest Yvonne and Charles - they have a mix of self-healing and debuffs. Also Agatha for lots of AoE debuffs. Hatice/Harry for lots of ranged damage and speed; Hildegard or Maria for focused fire, Kwame or Emilia as healers and excite buffers... the list goes on, but it's worth considering how all the the crew can use their abilities together with the various bonuses from equipment or research papers (the Psych one that gives emotions an extra effect!) make a big difference too.
Phew. Lots in there, hope something in it's helpful :P
I've specifically avoided those specialists like the plague because they don't help my skills, but in hindsight, 100 status for a guaranteed ~5 tokens per map is not a bad deal at all. 100 gold outright, or +2 per gold token? Yeah, probably not getting 50+ right away...and if you are, then the answer should be "both."