Yes, but the further you go, the more expensive it becomes to buy heroes in the tavern. How much money do they give you on a difficult setting? 2500? And a hero in the tavern on the third mission costs 9500. Honestly, the second hero is more of a nice bonus. You can do without him, and with my strategy, I often have to use him to escape from enemies rather than do anything useful. To avoid worrying about gathering resources, you need to level up the "Steal" skill.

Although scouting and gathering resources are probably useful on some single-player maps.