I picked up Darkest Dungeon on a Steam sale in 2023. This document contains loosely organized planning, notes, and thoughts. There are no plot spoilers, because I haven't played the game yet. I did look up nonspoiler tips and included some info from those results.
Basic rules of thumb for curio interactions are:holy water on anything religious, bandages on anything that might give you a nasty cut, antivenom on anything poisonous, medicinal herbs on anything edible or plant related, keys on anything locked, shovels to smash and dig. Some might screw you over though, so pay attention to what does what.
Always bring food, shovels, and torches. 8 food/torches on a short mission with 2-3 shovels, 12 on a medium mission with 3 shovels, two stacks of food and torches on a long mission with 3-4 shovels.
Upgrading the Stagecoach, Blacksmith, and Guild should be priorities in your town. You need a steady supply of fresh heroes, along with the means to upgrade them. Sanitarium is good for removing bad quirks, locking good ones, and removing diseases. Past that, stress relief buildings are okay, but you don't have much priority to upgrade them. The trinket cart lady and the survivalist I always forget about even existing, so upgrading them isn't really worth it.
For the Crimson Court you can enable the Flagellant and the Districts, while leaving the actual Crimson Court itself disabled(assuming the Switch is the same as PC and lets you pick and choose individual parts to activate). The Flagellant is pretty often described as being overpowered compared to the other heroes. Meanwhile the Districts provide some nice minor buffs to your heroes and a few other things of use, though some like the Bank are also described as being overpowered.
Radiant is a good starting one. It's the marked as the same difficulty wise as Darkest iirc, but you progress much faster through the game. Radiant removes a lot of the more punishing effects of losing heroes by making them cheaper/easier to train.
The Crimson Court completely changes the way the game plays. There are two main things that make it harder when you have CC enabled.
You begin encountering CC monsters in other areas as infestation level climbs. They may very well be resistant to stuff you normally don't associate with that area. This can get bad to the point where it's more CC enemies than say, Cove enemies.
Your heroes have a chance to get infected with the curse. When they get infected, you can't cure it in town. When you use a facility they can transmit the infection. When they are infected, they do stuff almost like they are afflicted sometimes unless you feed them a supply item. Also, when you take a lot of infected heroes on a run, there's a chance for a fairly tough miniboss to show up and ROFLSTOMP you. Also, if you leave a dungeon when they are REALLY jonesing for their supply item, they die.
Knowing what items to use on the curios makes a huge difference in my gameplay experience. You can try to find out via trial and error, but you can also look at the wiki.
Always try to build a party that can do equal amounts of damage to both the front and the back rows.
Always heal damage/stress in battle if you have the opportunity, even if you think you don't need it. it's way cheaper in the long run to keep stress down throughout the dungeon run than it is to heal it after the fact in town.
Scouting is crucial for successful runs. You will need trinkets to scout successfully, and it's always good to pursue those whenever you get the opportunity.
Damage over time makes the game a lot easier, but make sure you're able to do the right kind for the area you're exploring:
- Bleed for the Warrens
- Blight for the Ruins
- Blight for the Cove
- Bleed for the Weald
The Antiquarian's role is not explained in game, except via riddle. If you look at her skills you'll think she is garbage.
Her presence makes your gold stack +750 more. Every battle she survives, each antiquarian will find an antique. Minor antiques are worth 500 and stack 20. Major antiques are worth 1250 and stack 5.
If you use the Antiquarian to loot a curio (actually use her to interact), she is guaranteed to find an antique if there is any item there. Even a torch.