Roslyn Gem on Aug 5, 2014 wrote:

I have a small question about the training aspect. I have changed how I did it, prior than trying to train them all up one level when I went up one level, to going slow and waiting until they could level up a single level with a single point.

Then, though I haven't had the chance to try it out, I thought about keeping my first mate to where he can level up with a single point, and do the rest when a single point will get them two levels.

Still, I have only two training tomes, and will be getting a third with a side quest I had accidentally gotten in Skull Island. I wasn't looking forward to doing side quests on this character, as was going to wait until she hit max to begin even looking toward those quests, but I feel as though I must to keep my companions trained.

What in the world did you do, and how can I change my system so that my companions aren't too low and my tomes don't wear out immediately?

I'm sorry no one has answered your question sooner, Roslyn. Welcome to the Message Boards!
What most of us did to level our crew up to maximum level as we quested our way up to 65th level no longer applies very well, so I will address this in parts.
I think you are wise to save your training tomes until your first page of companions are 5 levels behind your level. Waiting until they are 9 levels behind you leaves them too weak to be effective in battle. If you lose a fight, you may want to use some doubloons in the next try, or level your pirate (who always gets in the fray) up with side quests. But we no longer have to buy tomes with gold, and gold is easier to come by now, anyway. Your least desirable companions can easily wait until you are 9 levels ahead of them to get a training tome now that they don't randomly show up in battles; but if you send them brawlin' for experience, they probably will never get that far behind you.
Unless you are leveling very fast in the game, Brawlin' will probably satisfy all your training needs, and you can just bank those training tomes. If you switch your top 3 crew around, you can even get your best units trained with Brawlin'.
Rmember you can buy more training tomes in any tavern from the professor when you get below 10 tomes, but they get more expensive for every level your pirate progresses.

Hi Roslyn, welcome to the message boards.
Any spare buccaneer companions can be trained with up to rank 3 brawling skill which will allow them to bring those training tomes back 25% faster. Train your extra swashbucklers with Plunderer and they will bring back gold up to 25% faster that you can use to buy tomes.
Your idea of keeping your first made at your level is what I did too. And I had my other favorites set up so that they gained a level for each tome, although that was before the update. Getting more tomes from your extra companions will make this process MUCH easier.