I had a soldier turn into an abomination. Then I ate the abomination, followed by my donkey. I think I've been turning in too much treasure and not bartering enough.
It's a bit tricky... http://curious-expedition.wikia.com/wiki/Beginner's_Guide This guide might help. It's for the standalone version of the game, but most of it (other than the character selection stuff) does apply.
Yea, unless you are playing Pacificst, having some battle beast helps a lot. Also note that Bullets, Spears + Dynamite all can be used in battle to help. Bullets are easiest to use, but have the least ceiling. Spears don't do anything on their own, but augments other dice. Dynamite will normally damage your own party as well unless you combine it with a Support dice roll of "Head."
It took me a while to pickup on how combat worked, with combining dice and cycling through different combinations. My last few tries have lasted in the 1000 day range. I was closing in on where the compass points in my last run, but didn't make it.
Wow, nice one! You picked this up real quick. Anthropology seems really good... if you can keep on their good side anyway
I had the starting crate that makes it so you don't lose anything by staying at the villages. That helps a lot, so does the crown that drains life from the enemies.
One of my better runs recently was the Cultist crate (with 3 cultists) and just loaded up on Cocoa leaves. At the end it was giving me like 60 sanity (though that only meant like 2 or 3 hexes of movement due to exhaustion).