I agree with some of your observations, and I have some suggestions and some of your points I have no comment on.  Diving into the list:

0. To alleviate my not knowing how the controls work, and because I am not interested in reverting to old games, I have set autosave to save every season.  Then, if I click and my unit goes running off in the wrong direction I can restart that season. This gets tedious but I consider it essential while learning the game.

1. Yes, this can be a huge issue. See my point 0, above. Also when you have your mouse over a piece of terrain you can see how much movement you will lose for moving into the tile (0.5x means you will lose 2 moves, while 4x means you will lose a quarter of a move and when your moves reach or cross 0 that units movement and ability to initiate combat ends for that season). For now, it is best to move only one tile at a time.

2. This also displays your tax rate and mouse over gives you some breakout. Also, if you go to the "Govern" screen and select "Ledger" you have the same widget, along with "City List" and "Economy" which give you further details.  And, yes, running your economy is really that important (though you have multiple "right courses of action" with tradeoffs which depend on how you play the game. For now, I would just pick something that feels right...

3. Before I discovered that tooltip, I would hit "ok" instead of "use" and then go to the units "Equip" screen where I would mouse over the item to see its details.

4. Until the improvement is built, it's just a framework. But it does get added to the city.  The details of what you see depend on how you have your options configured.

5. I wish that text would change to "Read Tutorial" when there was no video. I also wish that the help information contained details which are currently missing.  If you have time it would be valuable, I think, if you wrote down a list of unanswered questions you had after reading or watching each tutorial. There is just so much about the game that I have had to learn from playing it, and now I suspect I would not recognize most of the gaps... But, also, I am too lazy to build that kind of list.

6. If those strategic bonuses are spells then they will need both mana and essence (a variable amount of mana, with a very few costing zero, and 1 essence per strategic spell). If they do not show up in your spell list they typically are for the city that the NPC is in (unless the description says otherwise).

8. I usually move closer to the border so I can see something inside it which will tell me the owner of the land. Note that this will make the opponent sovereign aware of me if he was not already aware of me (and if it's a sovereign that owns that territory).

10. You do not get the benefits from an improvement until after it is built. (However, you have to pay any up front costs when you put it into the queue to be built, so usually it is best to not have a deep queue.)

11. This might mean that your enemy has no idea where you are, either, depending on how good their scouting has been. Enemy rulers declare war for their own reasons (which you can get an idea of by going to the foreign relations screen -- motivation might include things like "I'm paranoid" or "today is a manic day" (though the latter seems to be a motivation for peace rather than for war) but also can include things like "your army is weak" or "we have a different allegience". 

13. This typically means the city is already in view.

14. I think that there is a tooltip somewhere but I forget where. There's plenty of room for improvement here.

15. Yes. See also my point #0. Once you have an idea of the improvements you can also include your next planned improvement into the name of the place.  Edit: apparently you can also move the map with the arrow keys? I need to try this...

18. Dark green is often something other than a sovereign. You can see the color code by going into "Govern" and selecting Foreign Relations (unless you have enabled "smart player colors" under advanced options).

I played through on easy my first time through, and that was challenging enough for me because I did not know what I was doing. I then set it to one option lower than that, and that was not any easier for the start, but none of the other sovereigns improved (so I quit that game because there did not seem to be any point in playing it).

Note also that you can research improvements, unless you are playing Altar (or a custom faction you have designed for this purpose) you are probably need to build a civilization to support your research efforts and your research choices will be important.

the non-player dark green monster = wildlands?

Fantastic post, well only read point 1 to 20 but those are good points and needs to be said (some of them, if not most of them again and again). nr 17 doesn't really serve its purpose on this list as its really just an eastethiiii-whatever thing. (not saying you are not entitled to an opinion, just saying I agree WAAAAY more with all the others )

If you need me to help you, I will, but once I can plug power to my laptop again (since battery can't live long enough atm.)
That said, even if you are explained the details of these things, I don't think it means it shouldn't be considered either mentioning in the tutorial, or considering as a UI upgrade.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Well, here is my basic strategy I use at the start of just about any sandbox game:

1.   Settle early (near shards if possible)

2.   Train 2 pioneers immediately (for new cities)

3.   Build monument in first city for town ZOC

4.   Start exploring around you new found city (look for land to settle new cities [very important], at least 3 more)

5.   Grab all goodie huts you can find (for special equipment)

6.   Recruit as many Champions you can find/afford

7.   As soon as first pioneer is trained, found your second city

8.   Train 2 pioneers immediately in second city, then que monument in build que

9.   Continue exploring for third and fourth areas for third and fourth city

10. By now you have probably met you closet neighbor (the one you are about to take out)

11. Study your neighbors city/cities and prepare to take them out

12. Found cities three and four, train 2 pioneers in them, etc.,etc.

13. Take out your nearest neighbor (faction)

14. Start taking control of map

Usually around turn 100 or so, I have at least four cities built, and my nearest neighbor (faction) conquered. My army consists of my Sovereign and 2 or three recruited champions. I continue to keep looking for new areas to settle in and the next faction to take out. I continue to build improvements and start training higher level units in all my cities. You will need higher level units as the game progresses. Grab as many shards as possible.

I have used this strategy on medium and large maps, with easy and normal settings. Over 90% of the time I control the map which is the key to victory (if you are in conquest mode.)

Of course this may not work for you. Obviously there are so many ways to play this game, you can do just about anything you want, That's what makes this game so cool. I have over 186 hours in FE (at least that's what the counter says at the bottom right of the start up screen) and I have only scratched the surface of it. I am trying to keep up with all the modders and other suggestions I see posted.

Again, this is just the way I play

Basher-

Played a little bit more and added points 20-23.

Had two cities get wiped by wandering strong monsters which made me give up on my fourth playthrough.

I've just realized that this game is not a competitor to MoM, AoW or Civ V. It's a competitor to Rogue, because the difficulty ramps and deaths are just as frequent and random!

But perhaps I'm playing the game wrong, because every AI I encounter have at least twice the faction rating than me.

I hope my responses have helped.  Anyways, on the off chance that this is useful, here are my thoughts on your new points 20..23:

20. When I am playing in tactical combat, I see a green grid on the ground which shows where my character can move to, and when I have my mouse over an opponent I see a red grid on the ground showing where it can move to. If this is not the case for you it must be controlled by something in the options screen.

21. I do not use auto select next unit and generally find managing the distinction between "units that I want to do something with" an annoying aspect of the gameplay.  I find myself walking through all of my active units before moving to the next turn, and I also find myself trying to minimize the number of active units.

23. To get rid of the floating numbers on the strategic map, I always left click on the opponent army stack before fighting them. It should update automatically, but it does not, so I live with manually updating it.

Great post!  Thank you!  I pretty much agree with every nit.  This can be a confusing game at the start (though not as bad as some I could mention).  Good rule of thumb: everything has a tooltip.

Random answers to some of your questions:

Essence is the city resource that allows you to cast spells on your settlement.  It's the third/blue number in the tile yields.  (I almost never found a city on a tile without at least one essence.)

If you click on an army, settlement, outpost or resource building the information in the lower-left corner will show their "crest" icon (a bear, or a dragon, or some such).  If you hover over that icon you can see the name of their faction.

Added a few more points to the list above.

Changed sovereign in my latest playthrough from the lady with the bow to a red guy who could create henchmen. Never got any metal or shards on that map, had a city destroyed, and all units I produced up until when I gave up were all immediately slain in their first battles. 100% loss at all times except for the champions. Extremely slow and agonizing game.

I discovered two things, though: Faction power is basically only the number of units in your army (there's no scientific or cultural victory in this game, it seems) and the weak/medium/strong is absolute bullshit. Weak units inside of the colored borders where elemental bosses are seem to be about equal to strong roaming units.

Am I having fun yet? Not really. Am I frustrated enough to give up? Not yet... but probably pretty soon.

That's not really true. Also you should be able to realize that those can never be precise - they are different armies/fractions around. What is easy for one faction, is not necessarily easy for another and vice versa. Bear can be weak for army of archers or mages, but is devastating for melee ones. Should it be hard/medium or easy? 

Hence, the best method is to check each unit in an enemy army - what they have, which characteristics they have. 

are you autocalcing your battles?  because you probably will get better results (and learn more) running tactical battles yourself.

#1 design your own units.  make sure that you buff them with three attributes (the last tab) as those just cost a little more time and make the units significantly more powerful.  the +3 defense one is a good one and the +2 initiative.  I like Charge which gives the unit extra moves and extra attack on the first turn.

#2 the wildlands are really DANGEROUS.

#3 it really pays to carefully examine the property sheet of any monsters you are attacking.  (You're right that you can't always go by the weak/med/strong thing, but a lot of that is subjective.  An army that would eviscerate a couple spell-casters might crumple when faced with a couple mundane units.) Take note of special abilities and spells (coal stones is evil!) and if they have a weakness to a magical school you have access to, by all means take advantage.

In general the big numbers are attack/defense, but those can be tricky and even misleading. Let's compare an army of mites with an ogre. 

A mites mob army might have 40 attack which makes them look daunting.  But that 40 attack is split up amongst a dozen units.  And that means a unit with decent armor will have no trouble because even light armor will absorb those little attacks.  They also have 0 defense and very little hit points.  That means that the fight wont be very long, because while they are plinking away 5% of your unit's hp per round, you'll be hitting them for 50-80% hp.

An Ogre, on the other hand, has 38 attack (roughly the same).  But that attack isn't spread across a dozen units.  So your armor which was doing great absorbing the mites piddly 4 attack, will be completely ineffective against the Ogre's 38 attack.  It's unlikely that your hero with 30 hitpoints will survive more than two shots.  And you're going to need to survive, because that Ogre's also got 18 defense and 76 hitpoints!  (Basically, what your champ is to the mite mob, the Ogre is to you!)

If you're going up against an Ogre, you're going to need backup.  Bring troops with decent defense and hit-points -- research Cooperation (in the Civ tree) to get 4 units in your trained troops (more units = more HP + more attack).  If you've researched archery, bring a group of archers.  And bring a spellcaster hero who can debuff the Ogre. 

Shrink (a life spell) cuts the Ogre's attack in half.  Blind and Curse (death spells) will, respectively, give your more chance to dodge and remove the Ogre's defense completely.  Slow (a water spell) or Haste (an air spell) gives you more movements between the Ogre's already slow attacks.  There are numerous strategies to employ, but all of them require time before the Ogre smashes your face in.

Another thing to keep in mind, if you are wandering through the wildlands is that armor doesn't protect you from magical attack at all.  Only resistances to the specific type of attack (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison)

How long it takes to build an unit depends on the production of the city. Basically production time = unit cost/city production. To build units faster, make sure you have a city with good production. This means founding the city in a location that has high materials(4-5), a clay pit or two nearby(addds 1 material each), is next to a forest(allows for lumber mill construction) and has enchanted hammers cast on it.

Next, you want the city producing the unit to be a fortress, as those can build training yard, barracks, etc. line of buildings which give a % discount on the cost of an unit, e.g. a spearman costs 100 production, but in a city with training yard it costs only 90 production.

Then, its a matter of technology. Restoration tech gives you workshop that increases city production etc.

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That being said: Don't be discouraged by long build times. Your goal is not to mass produce cheap units(unless you specifically want to play that way), but to produce a couple of excellent units that will last you through the game. I usually play as gilden, and aim to have 3 cavalries with boar spears and best armor, built in a fortress(+1 level) with barracks(+accuracy) and forge(+2 defense) while the city is enchanted to give the units it produces extra defense, extra health, and extra fire damage.

It does not really matter that those units take a long time to build, because i only have to build 3 of them to steamroll all but the toughest monsters near my starting location with my sovereign's stack. Just keep them alive, and after a few levels their high HP combined with high defense(gilden has 25% bonus) will make them very powerful.

Sort of?

I usually build my pioneers during the early history of my city's history. Also note that once you have researched basic civilization you gain the ability to rush production, and pioneers are relatively cheap to rush.

I do build those sometimes. You're right that they are next to useless, however those clubs are very cheap(3g) to upgrade to hammers when you research weapon technology. So i just build a couple of those and have the sovereign take them into easy battles to get them experience. When i get them leather armor, shields and hammers, they are quite powerful.

I usually don't use the default militia for this tho, but a custom designed unit with increased carrying capacity(to be able to wear upgraded armor later) and ironskin(capitalizing on the gilden armor bonus).