What is supposed to happen after a game passes the "turn deadline" and a player hasn't submitted? One of the games I am playing is two days past the deadline.
What is supposed to happen is the missing player(s) turn is saved, marked as inactive, and the game proceeds. If this happens twice in succession the player is dropped. Seems from your note, this is not what happened.
I'm suspicious this is related to the matrix forum software change - seeing a lot of similar posts across a few different games - so don't think its particularly related to Empires