I can agree with no press, but not the "saved auto readies". Saving is like writing it on the paper. Readying up is like dropping it in the box. However, the retreats and adjustments need to be shorter than movements per the rule book as well.

The saved button offers players a chance to do a quality assurance check on the orders that they have entered, something made very effective by using the "show server side stored orders for this turn" feature. This gives you a graphic representation of what ordered the system is recognizing. For that reason I like the save button, but it works best when players ready up after checking them. I'm not sure that works with your suggestion, but from past experience the QA check using saved orders and the map graphic has saved me dozens if not hundreds of mistakes.

Same as rereading your piece of paper before you slip it in the orders box. :)

To be honest, I don't know why they've mixed up the "no press" featue during the retreats/builds and that saved/readied automation feature.
I'm not sure that the second feature helps at all.

The point is: when you are not allowed to use press you're not negotiating or waiting for other players' responses... then you are expected to ready your retreats/builds order in short time.
It's the essential reason why full press take longer time than gunboat.

I do not believe that this feature can be exerted by gentlemen agreements. I'd pretty much prefer to have a game creation option.

*takes* longer time

Again, just because you have written "Tri retreat Ven" on a slip of paper, doesn't mean you've put it in the box. You may be considering "do I really want to retreat there or retreat to Alb?" But the press should be something that could be turned off on retreats and adjustment phases along with the length. Why it wasn't is simple. It's more coding (one routine that checks phase length and press options for the game versus checking turn type and looking up phase length and press for the turn type/game combination: it's a design & development thing) and just hasn't been addressed by Kestas, Oli, or any of the other PHP guys since the code was initially developed.

I think the idea was to try to make retreat/build phases process as quickly as possible, just as they are in FTF (where they're generally done in 20 seconds while the timer for the following phase is going).

What is the point of this exercise? It's not reasonable to set retreats and adjustment for less than 24 hours (in anything other than a live game). While the game of Diplomacy does not allow press during the retreat and winter phases, the larger issue that I see isn't that people continue negotiations during these phases. That discussion is overwhelmingly just regular diplomacy. Shuting down press during the lengthy retreat and adjustment periods which could expire at any time is not beneficial to keeping dialogue going. There are two ways to fix this. One is to develop the coding for retreats and adjustments to be set at shorter durations than the movement seasons. And the other is to play under a gentleman's agreement not to use the retreat and adjustment phases as a punitive time wasting tool. This has worked well here in the past. My best buddy Guaroz was a proponent of this concept, but he sadly too it too far as he always did. We're playing the boursed game on the KW901 map now, and the "ready up" agreement is woring well with a few occasional reminders necessary.

@Captainmeme - I've always played with an established time for both retreats and adjustments, not this "20 seconds while the timer for the following phase is going." There is no discussion, but the F2F games I've played in have always given 2 minutes for retreats and 3 for adjustments. There is considerations to be made, especially on builds, where someone might want to save a tentative set of orders while they consider the ramifications.

Do I build in Mun or Kie? If Kie, Fleet or Army?
What of those 6 units do I want to disband?

Might another unit retreat to where I am about to causing us both to disband?
Do I want to forcibly disband as it is fall retreats and rebuild well behind my lines?
Do I want to truly retreat or use the retreat to get behind the enemy lines?

Auto-ready is a bad idea for anyone who actually has real choices. Now to auto enter and ready up an eliminated player who must disband all his units, that is cool and should be done. No reason to let the eliminated player slow up the game.

Captainmeme, since you are on webdip,as well, and the sample is greater over there:

that feature is around from a while.
Did you have the chance to gather some feedbacks about its use?