How is Fire Emblem's multiplayer on the DS versions? I've long wished to play on a huge ass map, where it kind of becomes a chess match of you holding certain portions of the map, trying to flank your enemies army from multiple sides, etc.
Non-existent. The only multiplayer in say, FEA, is either fighting against an AI-controlled version of your friend's army collected via streetpass that constantly bum rushes you with no strategy or doing a pointless battle-only mode where you fight successively harder pairs of enemies.
Shadow Dragon had a lite multiplayer mode where you tried to take over a castle in the middle of a map for x number of turns or beat the opposing army... but I mean, it's Shadow Dragon, arguably the worst game in the series. FE12 had the same mode and is a much better game, but it was never localized.