Matrix Games Forums

A couple more quick questions. As usual I've trawled through the manual, and the tutorial, and Relegh's Guide and come up blank after over an hour of wasted effort.

1) Can anyone explain screening?
It gets mentioned in relation to artillery but nobody explains exactly what conditions determine that an artillery unit is screened. I've tried the obvious like having infantry deployed, behind, and to the flanks of the guns, but the damned French just overrun the guns anyway. Deploying infantry in front of the guns obviously works but then they just sit there looking pretty and can't fire. The historical definition is that the guns are protected to their rear or flanks such that nothing can attack them without engaging or being engaged by the screening troops but I can't seem to make that work.

2) What difference does difficulty make?
I am considering trying to get a decent game by lowering the difficulty level but I need to know if it will actually make any difference and if so where and how.

3) Turning off unwanted features.
Is there anyway to get rid of unwanted features in the game?

For example are the game files mod-able?

I'm particualry interested in switching off National Morale and the Auto-Rout feature. I'd also be interested in any mods that enforce more rigorous maintenance of lines of communication to overcome the floating army expliot used by the AI when playing France and any way to stop the AI calling time out on battles even if your winning. I was just finishing of the Imperial Guard in my last battle when the 'Your Army is Wavering' cheat was invoked.

Any explanation or information would be appreciated.

1. Screening. My guns get overrun, too. Especially by the Turks, heh.
 
2. Difficulty as in the bonus at the beginning? You get more troops at the beginning if you give your country bonuses, and less troops if you make it harder. I am not certain if this is what you are asking about, as this explanation is for each country's bonus.
 
3. Not certain, I have not looked at the files.
 
I do not think most of these last things you've mentioned are easily changed, but am not certain.
 
Sorry I could not be of more help, but I figured you should get a reply of some sort. [;)]
 
Good Luck conquering Europe! [:)]

Thanks, I've more or less given up, but its nice to get a reply anyway.

Screening Artillery: the rules state - and I have verified this many times in my own play - that a cavalry unit that is adjacent to an enemy Art unit and ALSO adjacent to an enemy Inf unit (in good order) cannot charge the adjacent Art unit.

In detailed battle, screen Art by having good order Inf units placed in hexes such that no enemy Art can be adjacent to your Art without also being adjacent to a good order Inf unit.

As an aside, I haven't been playing this game for over a year, and won't until they come out with whatever new updates they plan. While an enjoyable game, it is unplayable multi-player by seemingly everyone except the game designers, and I look forward to some tweaks they intend to make, that I have read about.

Many Game files are mod-able - one I use is to make Saxony a Prussian Free State at game-start in 1805 (while technically Saxony was a free state in 1805, it was so heavily pro-Prussian that any other policitcal outcome would have been near impossible).