Sure, if I have the resources to spit up my champions, yea I usually send them in different directions.

Generally.. early on I grab up a few champions.. and if I've got the mana.. I Imbue Champion on almost all of t hem.

I've noticed that Casters truly rule-all in combat.. as long as they've got mana. Gods, 'Infernal' (inferno?) with even just 1 or 2 fire-shard resources becomes a severely massacring spell. (anyone else notice that the fire-based ones tend to always do the most damage/highest boots before pure-sorcery ones that get a boost from EVERY shard?)

By about mid-game.. once I have unlocked most of the magic-equipment.. I have most champions moving between 5-7 easy.

base 2 or 3. traveling boots (though they seem to vanish from the shop early on). Scout or other cloak. ring of endurance, amulet of movement (or whatever it's called), Ranger backpack and then mount.

can add up to like a +5 or 6 movement easily.. depending on if the champions can USE all of the items (I've noticed some times female champions can't use the +move boots or the +move cloaks for some reason. never explained

Oh, don't forget the scout cloak (+1 move, +1 visual range) and the Ranger pack (I think also +1 move +1 vis range) tend to help. add in the eagle-eye ring.. and that's adding +3 minimum. 

Hell.. I've actually got the 'mounted pioneers' who I sometimes use as scouts. move 7.. vis range is I think 4 or 5. REALLY helps to get them to those remote double-shard locations

I tend to build parties around my dynasty.

Start off with just my sov, add eventually his/her wife/husband. Add a thief and an any explorers I come across.

Once my first child is of age I start doing the same with them, and so on. It gets you and your kids upto amazing levels of power and you dont have to pay upkeep for any exploring units.

Also this way I can pretty much fight an entire war with nothing but one of my exploration parties. There's a caster in each one so it's just a case of throw out a cyclone to break the stack and mopup the now incredibly weak mini-stacks.

just wanted to point out that in 1.1 you now get prestige bonuses in your cities with champions and sovereigns in them that have high charisma values.  You can see the bonus on the city breakdown screen if you click on prestige.  Not saying its always best to station everyone in a city now, but another choice to consider.  

Awesome.  I had no idea.  Now Myrtle the merchant Str 8 Int 8 Dex 8 Con 8 Char 16 actually has a use!