HELP! Under lockdown, but can't play the game!

[bloodphoenix]

I enjoyed playing the "Eagle Games" board game years ago that this appears to be based on/inspired by. Have wanted to try this game for a long time. Finally bought it on Steam when it was on sale.

Now that I am under a "Stay at Home" Order, I find that the one thing I have in abundance is free time for playing games...which means, of course, that it is at last the hour of my destiny, when I shall unite Europe under my enlightened and even-handed rule!

You can imagine my disappointment upon finding that I'm unable to play!

When I start the game, it displays in only about the top left quarter of my screen. I finally got out a tape measure so I could include exact dimensions when I wrote this: the entire game screen is 10" wide by 6" high...which means the individual armies on the map are TINY, and the game is unplayable. I've done all the obvious things - checked all the display settings. Didn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary.

If anyone has a clue, I would be very grateful for the help.
Thank you, and stay healthy

[mercenarius]

I answered this post on Steam, but for the benefit of others, here is what worked for this particular problem:

Start the game and navigate to the Controls and Preferences menu and make sure that the Screen Resolution is set to "Take Settings from Display Panel".

Then navigate to the Advanced Controls menu and try turning on "Lock Refresh Rate".

Then restart the game.

This problem mostly occurs in the Steam version but it's possible that some players with the Matrix version might run into the same problem, and can use this solution. The game engine in 'Napoleon' likes to set the screen size and the refresh rate to what it likes best. But some machines that doesn't work so well. This change in settings causes it to use exactly what it finds when it starts up, as long as that resolution is within the acceptable range. (2560 x 1600 or less, but 1366 x 768 or 1280 x 800 and higher).

Note: the "Take Settings from Display Panel" choice is the default anyway, and the game normally tries to use whatever you set your monitor to. But the engine likes to change the refresh rate by default, and you can turn that off. Changing monitor settings seems to have been easier/smoother in XP and Win 7 than it is in Win 10.

I will probably change this default behavior when I get the planned update of the naval rules out to you players.

HTH