Yea they will do this, I've seen ships out at sea all the way at the end of the game and their country was destroyed at the very beginning. They will sit there until someone kills them even though their entire country has been wiped from the map. Normally if you send a big enough fleet all around the coast line and out a little you will get them all, they don't tend to stray too far from home early in the game. Your war will quit as soon as all of their land is gone, not units. I was in a 100 player game one time where I knew I was about to get wiped by another coalition. I sent everyone of my units out to sea and stayed out there for over a week until I found someone that went inactive and very slowly took over their territory and build back up again, took a while but I did it. So keep that in mind as well, you are not really dead in a game unless all of your units are defeated 
22 Nov 2016, 21:52
"It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past." - Karl Von Clausewitz
