Fight monster A. Fight more of monster A. Fight more of monster A. Gain experience, get some skill points then advance to monster B. Fight more of monster B. Etc. and etc. It's a whole lot of monotonous fun. Really monotonous and really fun. Monotonously fun as monotonous fun can monotonously get. Okay, I'm done.
Combat takes place in either turn based or real time modes.
In real time it is much like a first person shooter except that after an attack or spell is used a character must 'recover' before attacking again. The non-combat activities are varied but vaguely repetitive. You can train your adventurers, make potions, buy and sell goods, get quests and hire NPC followers. While this type of interaction works to play the game it does not bring the population of Erathia to life. NPCs just seem like cardboard cutouts instead of real people.