Do you guys explore with anyone other than your Sov?

Yes. Sometimes the Sovereign is busy somewhere else and the map won't explore itself.

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

I usually have a soverign or hero with 4 MP and then a smaller mobile army with 3MP kind of shadowing him, lagging behind.  The 4MP guy does most of the exploring and then when he find something too tough he merges in with the 3MP stack to take it out.  After you research the first equipment tech you can get these 4MP scout type guys and those are awesome for exploring.

Finally, once you get RETURN you can use your soverign and go deep into uknown territory.

Also I never station anyone in my cities except for administrators or famers.  They all stand right on the border of the city's sight range to expand the visibility of the city.

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

When the monster spawns bug out, I send the cheapest peasants on autoexplore around the country-side.

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

don't want to reveal my arena strategy here, but i send all champions out on exploring missions except the ones that give +10% production or +20% food.  this message will self-destruct.

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.

As I replace my Peasant town guardians, they get sent off on their "long walk".

Set them on auto explore and let them wander until they are killed.

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.  

good info!  Thanks guys.  

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