I ended up in an all AI game to which the only other player surrendered pretty early on. Things went well until turn 23 where each AI still has the * next to its name. No amount of reloading.. fixes this :L ..is this unusual?

It's this game.. http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6631311 still in progression

Well the timer is at 00:00 and everything is in limbo. AI's don't appear in boot menu

Seams they got caught by auto boot.

It seems to be a common problem as there have been threads before, I can't remember if there was a solution. Try a search of the Forums.