[dirtywick]

It depends. Against indies, if the enemy routs it counts as a kill on the message screen even though they didn't actually die. If you did actually kill that commander, there's a percentage that you'll find the item if one of your commanders has a slot open to hold it.

As for the fog of war, not that I'm aware of. Were you playing a pre-built wraparound map? Random maps aren't wraparound, maybe that's what you're seeing?