Well my main game is chess, so gunboat feels a lot more natural to me. Besides, my main weakness in regular games is trusting what people say. Once they can't say anything, I do a lot better, because it's a more a game of strategy than diplomacy and communication, which is definitely my better area.

I think it's unskilled only if you don't learn the subtleties. It's easy to communicate with people through moves, and it's so much fun when you manage to make a connection with your partner without any speech, just intuition and actions. That said, yes, a lot of people don't bother to learn. And that makes it really hard to stop the growing menace. Of course, if you ARE the growing menace, then life is great. : )

I've only played one gunboat, actually still in progress, and I have to say the main problem for me is not being able to vent my spleen in global chat when my erstwhile strong ally stabs me, resulting in both of us being totally destroyed. At least I saw him eliminated before me :) is that the sort of communication you're talking about?

I would guess that the "outrageously unskilled" part it due to who is playing. I've played a couple where one idiot gave the game away to someone else. And it was WTA so it wasn't as if they were going for a strong second. Or they were and didn't understand the difference between WTA and PPSC. I definitely won't play a PPSC gunboat because that definitely lends itself to being a land grab and no one caring if someone wins as long as they get their share.

And there is diplomacy, it is just harder to do via military action.

Regardless, some people like it and some do not. No reason to get rid of it just because some don't like it. Those folks can just choose to not play it.

I play a lot of gunboat because it takes less time and concentration to play. I can really only have one game going if I don't play gunboat, but I can have several gunboat games going at a time.

Yeah my first few Gunboat games I really struggled because I just attacked everyone and always found myself fighting on every single front. Eventually I learned how to from alliances and peace treaties through moves alone, and now I find Gunboat matches to be rather entertaining, although bad players certainly make you shake your head in frustration