I, on the other hand, prefer not to hire additional heroes at all... They usually just get in the way, splitting the main hero's army into weaker units, and giving the enemy experience after their death... I only hire them in exceptional cases, when I need to quickly destroy the enemy's main forces => there's no time to capture mines and resources with the main hero.
Additional heroes don't split the army; they give their units to the main hero. In the first week, the additional hero doubles the main hero's army. This allows you to quickly capture the necessary objects. Auxiliary heroes should not fight at all. They deliver troops from the Castle to the main hero, visit mills, collect resources behind the main hero so that the main hero doesn't waste precious movement points on this, and perform other tasks that are not suitable for the main hero.
However, when I was playing the 3rd mission of the 2nd Campaign, the additional hero, Daleb, captured the last enemy Castle (the one closest to us) after the main hero captured the main enemy Castle. But this is an exception.