Blue Water Development Diary

[p7p8]

For me time acceleration is not good choice but if you have to, better is to do it by automatic mechanism. When players can decide when time is set to x1 or x4 or more most players will set x1 in all game.
So your ability for playing with accelerated time will be pure illusion.

In other hand if players at beginning will decide to play faster, and sudenly you will notice time is slowing down to x1 you have the same information like you described above:

Forcing battles to only drop to 1:1 time compression upon contact gives away too much information. An unsuspecting player walking into an ambush is immediately warned of impending action simply by watching the clock drop down to 1:1 time.

For me acceleration should be used for tactical planning like: spliting forces, taking better positions etc. Not for making advantage over opponent: "i will delay returning to x1 time for surprising enemy.
In that case good automatic game system will be more effective and more "fair play" to each players