Neutral cities and monsters are everywhere and conquering these rogue agents will often net you extra gold or unique units though they can become annoying when they invade the heart of your territory seemingly out of nowhere.

Photo courtesy of Paradox Interactive

If I have any gripes at all with the game it lies with the quests and invading neutrals, the latter can be a simple annoyance and non challenge and the former can just be difficult as you cannot see the location of a quest without accepting it. There are often penalties for failing quests and they may be located far and away from any of your armies. Other wizards are where the grand strategy comes into play; upon coming into contact with their territory you may open negotiations where you may offer gold or magic, request gold or magic, enter into peace treaties or declare war. Diplomacy is important and in a large game it can be benneficial to play one wizard against another. Combat is simple and relies on just a few unit traits that are affetced by the terrain on which they fight in addition some units can travel across water or fly. Units gain experience from combat and gain perks that give them an edge in combat, more often than not powerful veteran units can hold off many weak units all on their own. Some units have special abilities like trolls that regenerate every turn.

Photo courtesy of Paradox Interactive

Researching magic is important and granted you have the magic points and the requisite turns to cast you can unleash powerful magic than can quickly change the flow of combat. There are three ways to win in arcane; by researching the highest level spell which can be cheap when the computer does it though it does take about 200 turns, by conquering the map or if a god hates you enough and summons an avatar and proceeding to beat teh hell out of it. Arcane features no multiplayer and in a grand strategy game with long turns that may be a good thing, with multiple difficulty levels and solid mechanics this game is highly recommended for fans of turn based strategy games with a high fantasy theme.