Realms of Arcadia

The Goal

You win when your opponent holds no heroes and no towns. You lose if this happens to you.

The Map

Click a tile to see what's on it, click again to send your hero there. Movement resets each day and the number in the bottom bar is what's left. Roads are cheaper to walk than open ground, and swamp and rough country cost more. Walking onto a mine claims it, and a claimed mine pays you every day. Walking onto a wandering stack starts a fight. Most of the map is dark until a hero has been near it.

Towns

Your town is where armies come from. Build dwellings to unlock creatures, then buy them; build the hall line to raise your daily gold; build the mage guild to learn spells. Everything costs resources you get from mines and goodies on the map. A hero has to visit a town to pick up the troops waiting there.

Combat

Stacks act in speed order, shown in the strip along the top. On your turn, the highlighted ground is where the active stack can walk and the highlighted enemies are the ones it can strike this turn. Shooters can hit anything they aren't stuck beside. Wait pushes a stack later in the round; Defend increases stack toughness as the cost of its action. If your hero knows spells and hasn't cast yet this battle, Spells is open. Auto settles the battle instantly without playing it out.

Secrets and Goodies 

Sites scattered around the map do useful things when a hero steps on them, artifacts change what a hero is good at, and the two mercenary dwellings sell creatures your town can never build.