Reached week 77 on my first playthrough before realizing I had made a lot of mistakes, and I think most of my characters were Cursed, so I decided to start over. Pretty sure Radiant is no "easier" than Darkest, just sorta streamlined. The game felt super RNG so I ran through the beginning (tutorial / 1-2 lvl1 maps) with the same basiv four characters... each was so fucking different in outcomes.
This time, I've held off on going to the Court, I used an Antiquarian on every run until I could build a Bank, which now gives me enough money each to never worry about the cost of things. Now I'm not quite sure if I've screwed something else up or not in regards to the "level" of the various dungeons, they are 5, 5, 6, 7 (ruins, warrens, cove, weald) does that matter at all, or does it just open up higher lvl missions (like it appears)?
I want to have a lvl6 of each class, so right now I have classes that range from lvl6 to lvl1, and so far I see missions for each tier (apprentice, vet, champ), though most are getting to lvl5-6 now; don't have many lvl4 or lower, and I still need to kill the Veteran bosses, and also start the Court. Never found the Baron on my first playthrough, that dungeon seems to be -huge- with locked doors that require you go find keys.