Arena question
 

I have a couple of questions about the arena that I couldn't see any answers to with a search:

1 - Where does the arena come in the turn resolution sequence? I guess what I'm wondering is when the commander disappears from the province he is currently in and when he returns. Is having a commander participate in an arena fight a good way to get him out of the way if you expect someone to hit his province with remote attack spells?

2 - What happens if someone returns (via spell or armor of virtue) from an arena fight? Do they just lose the fight and go to their home province?

Re: Arena question
 

Oh, a curious fellow. No, a curryous yellow.
The arena fight happens during the phase where global enchantments are resolved. That's the line titled "Enchantments" you can see in this list.

The units that have been drafted for the arena death match get magically teleported to the arena and back when the arena battles resolve. Other than for the fights, they never leave their provinces. So you can't expect to protect them from anything by sending them to the arena, no. You could potentially kill an arena contender through magic rituals before he enters the arena, though, I think, since those resolve before the Enchantments phase. You could test this with a test game if you want.

When they use Returning then they left the battlefield, leaving the other party as the winner. Since they lost the fight, they will not fight in the subsequent battles, but stay in your capital afterwards.