What happened here?

[Micah]

Doesn't bane venom charm give the carrier disease? Probably died from that. Or it could be a flier.

Magic items aren't always picked up by the winner.

And no, the AI sucks, play MP. Plus temples are generally an awful buy if you're not using them for sacred recruitment (generally mages). All that cash into troops is gonna be more useful than the dominion spread (unless you can blood sac too, that can be a viable strategy in a very very small amount of cases.)