A few things I noticed on the tactical side-
AI should probably do defensive buffs before offensive ones
Defense buff should be cast on the unit tanking damage (a lot of time mana seemed wasted casting stoneskin on the sov, who wasn't being targeted)
Step your regular unit back when its about to die. Save the unit to fight another day.
I guess I notice that stuff more when watching rather than directly playing.
I also tend to try to make a more powerful killer stack so that I can wipe an area of the big baddies so that I don't lose as much time to having roamers take down cities and outposts. If you can keep stuff alive and not keep rebuilding units its not too bad. Its definitely harder in .911/.912 than before though.
I also noticed that kind of like me the tech research was all over, wasn't really trying to become good at any one thing or feeling directed down a path by resources/ needing to worry about economy (other than mana lack early on).
Anyways, interesting to watch and see some of the things other people were trying out, just tossing the thoughts I had while watching (as well as crying noooo! when you walked into firestorm . .again . .) 