Question: Battle Extension

[Imp]

That's what it looked like for the attacker, but not for the defender. In this instance the defender had two units in good shape, one right by the disputed cluster, but the game ended abruptly when the last attacker unit in the cluster was destroyed. The defender wasn't given a chance to retake the victory hexes.

Read what I said above

If victory hexes are still being contested

They stopped being so the game ended.
You know the mechanics & while its not perfect that's far better than having a fixed duration.
I don't think their have been many battles in modern history where its been decided beforehand that we will stop for afternoon tea at 3.30 precisely.

In the other case something happened to stop it, quite possibly the game decided going nowhere extension time used up.