Bleh been too long since I played. Now I remember - in fact the tutorial at the start shows this - oh well I should play again fairly soon (when I have time).

Perhaps you haven't quote yet you can sell scrolls, in your current game if you never sold any you have a big amount of money to get from selling those.

The bonus to scroll slots is very minor but not vain. That's typically the item you wear only when you want buy a scroll and don't want sell or learn some.

You can delay learning spell for many reason like to delay your choice or like to wait if you are a mage that you have increase the skill that reduce crystals costs.

About that take care even in normal mode that you'll get a crystal shortage if you try learn too many spells.

In the beginning of the game and during a long time you won't have so many good items to use so the wife slots aren't that important. On another way at each children you get, you also get a sum of money. Additionally it could worth take your chance with children because few can bring some rare bonus.

Later you'll just quit the wife with baby to use another during later parts of the game. And for those later wifes, free slot will be a much better choice because at this point you'll have plenty good items.

not far all, for example xeona's boots slot .. there are no good boots at all

Haha, I thought I was just being unlucky with my boots. The "best" I've found so far are "Heavy Bronze Boots", which give +5 defence but -1 speed. Counts most melee units out, which is why over half my army is archers. The other half varies, but it's usually "soaring/flying" units after I found a pair of boots with +1 speed for them which counters the penalty from the other boots nicely.

I would say there are at least two boots that I would say are solid or just plain good:

- Boots of the Mystic: +2 intellect, +1 to the power of slow and haste; slow is one of the most useful spells around, great to almost completely paralyze slow walkers and soften them from afar with your shooters

- Snake Boots: +1 defense (who cares, right?), +1 to the speed and initiative of snakes; royal snakes are already one of the best, if not the best, troops in the game. +1 might not sound like a whole lot, but believe me, it makes a world of difference, because the snakes' initiative will enable you to go first in many battles against pesky opponents such as necromancers, and the speed bonus will make them even more mobile.

Boots of the Mystic didn't appeal to me much, but I had a whole set of snake/spider based items which I used to great effect earlier in the game. I also picked up a lot of pirate/robber based items but never really tried them out :(

Looking at the list of boots ( funnily enough the Bronze boots arn't on there :-/ ) the "best" are probably:

Kerian Shoes - +3 defense ( meh )
Knight's Boots - +300 Leadership +5 to the Defense of Swordsmen, Guardsmen, Horsemen, and Knights ( would make me consider humans in my army :S )
Twinkling Boots - 15% physical reduction

The ogre sandals are pretty good. +2 def is ok, but the real bonus is +1 speed to ogres and giants. This doubles the speed of giants, turning them from a slow tank that doesn't die but also can be tough to actually get into combat to one that is easy to get into combat. It also means that you are one square closer to enemies, so earthquake does more damage.

MasqueradeCry just press shift and ~ when the screen comes up type money <#>. So money 100000 should give you 100k gold.

but thats cheating ...