As far as gameplay goes I realized a few things.
1. There are 2 + n players. AI counts as one and beasties are anonther plus any human.
2. Each player gets ten seconds before the turn seems to end or you can manually click end turn. You should probably use the autoturn feature in the options menu so that moving all your units will also end the turn.
2.5. You can still use your move points during other people's turns I think. But it really helps the flow. I was almost playing a RTS on really slow speed and it felt fast without being a micro race.
3. Don't bother with magical combat. Mana will be most effect for enchanting towns and saving up for summons. I also think we should have a gentlemen's agreement about the volcano spell. It makes me rage just thinking about it. 
4. I got a hero and a Sov at the start. Not sure if that was the map we played or just a standard thing.
5. I have After the War installed and the artifacts, but no expanded factions and the game ran fine. It was vanilla, but nothing made things wonky or caused a crash.
6. If we want to do three players, we will have to use a random map. Before I chose a custom map called Duel so we wouldn't get someone stuck on an Island. All the custom maps are 2 player though as far as I saw, so maybe we should agree about restarting if someone gets screwed. I am thinking about just making sure I have raise land possible through terraforming and dealing through the pain. At least my start will ensure no early battles and I can tech up through the civ tree quickly.
7. MP was actually pretty fun. I have been down on it for awhile on the forums due to lack of polish, but I would now argue that tactical battles are not the be all end all of MP and can see how the devs thought it would slow the game down too much. Of course there are other problems, but I am sure the FE budget and team could whip it into shape in a few weeks.
