When a battle starts, the game is paused. Here is where you can look over the battle field, give orders, magic users can get their spells ready. When you are ready, the game is unpaused, and the orders are followed. New orders can be given if needed. Soldiers can be ordered in real time, or you can pause the game, and look things over to see how your doing.
Large battles can get confusing at first due to the small size of the battle field.
Battle sites are given a rating so you can look these over and know ahead of time if you are outclassed, this way you can decide weather you want to risk a battle or move on to fight another day. For instance, if an enemy is outnumbered, it will run away and regroup. This is a refreshing aspect of the game to see as most AI's in strategy, or role playing games, continue to fight even if there is no hope for victory. LOM does a wonderful job of combining strategic and tactical elements together. Magic system, object use, artifact discovery, and experience levels, seem to be well developed.