1. Splitting. It's done like this: troops are taken from the main hero, he attacks someone (who won't immediately destroy him) and runs away. After that, he redeploys in the desired castle (not necessarily the starting one), acquires, for example, a book or a spell that doubles mana, or something else, troops are delivered to him in a chain, and he continues playing.
2. The main hero takes a secondary castle on his last turn. (Furthermore: very often, but this is not directly related to the topic: a tavern is bought, the hero redeploys in it and either runs to return troops, or to recapture something, or simply to grab resources and scout the territory). The main hero gains speed, and on the next day, a guild and a book are bought. Problems: you need to build a tavern, a guild, and a market at the same time, and also set up a town guard. And if the secondary castle is your starting castle, then you really want to manage to build a Wyvern Tower in the first week. Well, and the main problem is resources, primarily wood!, and also gold.
So, in general, I agree with you; I also almost never manage to equip a Swamp creature with a book in the first week...

Орден Феникса – харизматический :) лидер