Re: Various Strategy Questions
 

Great questions! I'm too new to have anything at all to add to what's been said except for recommending that you join an MP game. I've learned far more and faster by having things done to me than figuring them out on my own. There are often games starting just for MP newbies.

Re: Various Strategy Questions
 

For MP play, the most useful thing you can learn in SP is initial expansion. That's the only thing that carries over directly. You can experiment with strategies, but when you try to apply them in MP, you'll see counters the AI would never try.

Experiment with expansion. Try different blesses, mixes of troops, troop positioning, etc. When you can reliably get ~15 provinces in the first year, along with research and at least one castle up, you're probably ready for MP. If you take an awake SC or sink a lot of points into a bless, you should expand faster. You should also have plans for the mid and late game - magic diversification and end game SCs/globals.