This MUST be a bug.

A fleet of Altarian ships attack my fleet.  We are at war, so it was no surprise.  It said "defeat likely" (which is why I didn't attack them first), but since I knew it was going to be an EPIC battle even if I lost it, I watched it in the battle viewer.  I should have popped popcorn for this one!

Well, in the battle, I lost all of my ships except for the flagship/command ship.  And my commander WON!  I got the dialog screen saying "VICTORY!"

I knew it would be close, but I never expected that!  Whoohoo!

But...when returning to the main display, I see that an Altarian fleet of 5 ships remains, and my fleet is gone.

So maybe I lost that fight.  But then the cinematic battle should not have worked out that way.  I'm a bit upset, because I think the battle viewer and the main game display should always be in agreement as to the outcome of a battle.  Always, without deviation!

By the way, I had another fleet in orbit around Ciago III, which I had just taken from the Altarians.  My 2nd fleet, still fresh from wresting the planet from a small orbiting contingent, proceeded to pound the carp out of the Altarians, and from there I easily took the planet where the attacking fleet came from, Ciago II.

I lost a fleet but held one planet and took another, so it all worked out as I had expected.  Not my best moment in battle, but you do your best when you get attacked.

So I think there are a couple of bugs in the battle viewer:

1.  Results not the same as shown AFTER the battle.  It happened only this one time, and it happened when my fleet was was the defender.

2.  As some ships "go red" while they take on damage, sometimes the red will stop rising from the bottom of the ship icon, but the ship will go "grey", showing that it has been destroyed.  Not a critical thing, but kind of annoying.

3.  In the battle viewer, there is always a significant lag of several seconds (up to almost 10 seconds) between the battle log showing a ship is destroyed and the expected explosion of that ship.  I'd like to see the timing a little bit closer.