Some thoughts after visiting Antietam

[Poorlaggedman]

Hey I was at Antietam on a beautiful Saturday in March and I couldn't help but compare what I saw to the War of Rights world.

I noticed a general theme that showed War of Rights seeming to exaggerate distances by about 50%. This is something I did myself often before visiting places first-hand. Gettysburg was a shock the first time (2002). I expected the immortalized spots to be bigger than they were and was left with an overall thought of that happened here?.

The biggest two areas that stood out are WoR's "Bloody Lane" and the "Dunker Church."

The bend which contains the WoR objective is quite a bit smaller than shown. And also, I think just about everyone agrees the worm fences didn't stand during the Confederate defense so will there ever be a day we see them become a pile of boards?

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And the small rocky knoll approaching the Dunker Church feels much closer than in WoR. Looking back at the pictures, it doesn't look so bad. But it didn't feel right at all being there.
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No idea why the 2nd photo keeps uploading sideways.
Also I'm not sure what resources were used for mapping it but the terrain is far, far more rolling and than shown in WoR. It was almost sadistically designed terrain in places due to the frequency of the high and low elevations.




Does any of this really matter that much? Probably not.

[TrustyJam]

Hope you enjoyed your visit!

Thanks for the feedback.

We actually often have smaller distances than in real life due to the fact that the maps need to fit a 4x4 km layout. Distances (and terrain features such as rolling hills as well) are often hard to judge correctly in a digital space where your distance is compromised due to a limit in resolution as well as a much different field of view than what you have in real life.

We're using a number of maps - both period or near period ones as well as never recreations in our level design. It is often quite the patchwork of different maps as some will have better details of specific sites than others.

You are correct that not much of the fences along the bloody lane were left standing after the battle (several photos verify this). How many fence segments were standing prior to it remains a question. We'd love to support destructive fences at some point but it is a rather complicated task as most of our fences are placed by a spline distributor (and not individually).

- Trusty

[Poorlaggedman]

I get the difference in space in a virtual environment but the lane in my video would have taken a few short seconds to walk down whereas in WoR it'd take as much time to run or sprint down. Cameras and recordings also have a little of that effect of making a space feel bigger. That's what struck me most about the small rocky rise by the Dunker Church - it seemed it'd be quite faster to run up over it to the fence on the Hagerstown Road than it takes in the game. The ranges were often seemingly way too close quarters of a fight. Some rises in front of the Bloody Lane were strikingly rising and falling all over.

You all seem to be Europeans (people outside the Civil War genre laugh that Europeans are so interested) but if you want pictures or video of certain places for reference (I'm sure someone else lives closer) but I'll probably go back there this summer.

Wrong forum btw, not sure how I posted in the Company section

[A. P. Hill]

Just my humble opinion, but I think you stopped your walk short, the sunken lane should have extended up the hill and around the corner that you have at the end of your footage.

I offer this map. Sunken Road/Bloody Lane as this map shows went from the Hagerstown Turnpike to the Boonsboro Turnpike.

One other thing I think I'd like to address with this ... to create the map of the area, the developers used modern satellite topographical scans, then imported that data into a map making program. So I really can't see the distances, elevations, and the like being too far off in most cases.

[Leifr]

You all seem to be Europeans (people outside the Civil War genre laugh that Europeans are so interested) but if you want pictures or video of certain places for reference (I'm sure someone else lives closer) but I'll probably go back there this summer.

Wrong forum btw, not sure how I posted in the Company section

Heck! Some of us Europeans have been to Antietam, I was not prepared for the heat at the end of July.

Thread moved.

[Poorlaggedman]

Just my humble opinion, but I think you stopped your walk short, the sunken lane should have extended up the hill and around the corner that you have at the end of your footage.

I'm pretty certain I took it at the right spot. The corner to my front I believe is supposed to be the corner objective area from. The parking lot was to my left. There are modern roads that intrude in part of the parks but this was definitely taken at that part of the bloody lane circled below. You can verify yourself on Google maps by zooming in to a 3D ground picture in the bloody lane itself using by dragging the stick figure to it. You can see that stretch of the lane encompasses the canopies of a mere three trees present day

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[A. P. Hill]

Greetings Sir, My apologies, I thought you meant the extent of the lane was what you walked was bloody lane.

On the game map, if you reach the CP, and turn left and walk that distance, you'll come to the lane that is shown as departing to your right, that should be going to the Mumma Farm. The lane that the yanks like to charge down all the time (or most of the time,) is to the Roulette Farm.

And yes, sadly some current day roads to overlap and mess things up a bit, but the sunken road, (before it became bloody lane,) stretched from the Hagerstown pike on the west to the Boonsboro pike on the east.

[Goad]

Poorlaggedman..Did you see the Rifle Pits / Trenches on Confederate side of Hill at Burnsides Bridge?

[Poorlaggedman]

At the top of the crest is a parking lot now. I'm fairly certain those are all gone with time although part of the quarry still exists which was supposed to be part of that network the Confederates were using. I don't know if it resembles anything like it did back then.

[Goad]

At the top of the crest is a parking lot now. I'm fairly certain those are all gone with time although part of the quarry still exists which was supposed to be part of that network the Confederates were using. I don't know if it resembles anything like it did back then.

No they are still there, not far down from the crest. I was pretty surprised to see them as I had never heard anything mentioned about them.