Can you mod the map itself?

[phoenix]

Another thing is the use of fields - as a different vegetation type - around state farms and such like. All the accounts and photos of the area show this to be inaccurate. Basically, the entire area around Prokhorovka was either wheat or sunflower fields, principally, and the various state farms (three prominent ones in the Prokhorovka area, Komsomolets, Oktiabrski and Stalinskoe) were responsible for the farming of various parts of these areas. If there were only the field areas that there are around the farms in the present map then there would never be enough land to support all these towns and villages (in labour at least). So the maps would be more accurate without these 'fields', and if we were to regard the 'clear' terrain as basically huge wheat or sunflower fields (or genuine clear - the movement effects, at this scale would not be very different).

The balkas, on the other hand, which had softer soil running to bog as they approached streams and rivers, were clearly significant factors for cover and concealment and movement. Be better to use the field tile as mud, maybe and coat the balkas with it, with suitable penalties for movement. But the balkas would have to be drawn more carefully then. I understand now (now that you've said) why they're so haphazard - because a computer program made them. The full map is huge, of course, but the areas in the main scenarios cover a smaller area and I would have thought it would be possible to go over them with google earth as a guide (where the balkas are all very clear indeed) and make it all more accurate. It's all time, I realise, and maybe no one (none of the players, I mean) is much bothered about twisty rail lines. It doesn't affect gameplay, after all.

I was hoping that Normandy wouldn't include idiosyncrasies liked randomly kinked rail lines, but I suspect it will now that you've said the map is produced according to an automatic program. Even so, did someone program in these needless kinks? They are in the roads too, of course, except in roads you might be more inclined to ignore them and think of roads winding. But major railroads don't kink like that, so the program that generates the map should be adjusted, really. No?