Completed all the quests several times and beaten up most of the monsters bar the ones that i just didn't find interesting (Dragonflies
)
I won over the goblins in the tournament but that is it, the next one generally caused problems.
and until now i didn't know items could be upgraded.. probably missed that during the ring briefing
But they generally seem very tough as well, the one for the officer's rod being quite out of limits for the demo i think. But i think the mage staff is managable.. just need more troops and a few more levels as i just started out on that mage. Also playing on hard so that probably got something to do with it as well.