Yep I'm with Sky and even then I get caught out.

Oh I understand that sometimes you need the extra time, like for a weekend or week you are too busy. But _every_ time in a game that takes months? It makes no sense. Assuming a 24 hour per turn game, even when you are busy, you should ready up on a retreat and if the turn progresses, you can then enter and save your next moves and have 48 hours until you have to play again. If the turn doesn’t progress and you are busy, then you can set it back to not ready. This is optimal if you are going to be away a bit, but people fail to do it.

As someone who very rarely plays Gunboat games, due to force of habit I don't click ready. In normal chat games I don't like readying so that other players can see my messages and have a chance to respond, and so I often simply forget to in gunboat due to force of habit

That's reasonable BBQ. For press games, I understand the value in not readying. In gunboat, it's not like you're getting new information - it's all there. The only reason not to ready every time in gunboat is if you are concerned that you won't be able to enter orders within the next time period once the turn progresses, so you slow down the game a bit to give yourself more time. I fear this is overused though, and a lot of gunboat games are unnecessarily slowed down by one or two players that could be more proactive.

Nah, there are several reasons to not ready.

There can be a tricky situation where you want to think about your options but don't have time to do it at the moment. Actually, overall I think people would play better if they would spend more time thinking about their orders, than just submitting whatever first come to mind.

Similar, but different: if I want someone to stop attacking me and turn against a solo threat, then I will not ready up. Playing fast, people often keep doing what they are doing. If the play slows down then maybe the guy will think a little more about long term strategy.

That said, I think most of the time people don't ready up is because they are loosing and they want to be annoying. I never do that myself though.

I’m one of those people. Didn’t know it was perceived as annoying, and will take that into account.

Playing gunboat I prefer to take my time. Especially in the mid game. I still feel like a noob, and spend some time trying to read the dynamics of the map. I also take notes and make predictions in order to test my understanding of the game. Gunboat is for me a great way of learning the game.

I consider moves/actions as the most important way of communicating. And I usually get stabbed when I focus too much on what people say instead of how they move.

I don’t expect games to move faster than round times unless explicitly expressed in the name. (Ready up or die, or something like that).

Interesting to see that people use the ready up as a way of communicating. Haven’t thought about that. Thanks!

Going forward I will be more considerate when it comes to ready up.

I think you should accept that people are entitled to take the full time allowed them. If they have a busy life, or have quite a lot of games, they may not want to speed the process up, which would result in them having to play turns even faster.