I have not played this in beta, but from watching the video and referencing my memory of hundreds of hours of Sid Meiers Gettysburg (of which the map looks like an slightly exagerated and updated version) I can say there are some substantial variations from the actual terrain of the battlefield. I go to Gettysburg at a minimum of one weekend a year and have spent many a day on the battlefield. One of the things that I have never liked about Gettysburg terrain maps of any game or mod is that while the main features of the map are relatively accurate, the small undulations in terrain are missing. Some of which play a huge factor in the battle as it was. For instance: during my warm up of the 2013 (150th anniversary) visit season I wanted to explore a new area that I felt I have been overlooking through most of my visits, and what played out in my mind's eye as relatively flat sloping terrain. That was the avenue of advance of Barksdale's brigade on July 2nd and the reasoning for the seemingly odd deployment (from bird's eye view) of union artillery under Clark, Hart, Thompson, Phillips, and Bigelow. From other vantage points on the battlefield the terrain looks straightforward as well. It's not until you get onto their position that you see the protective cover of their right flanks (except Thompson) and front by low rises in elevation and the open field of fire they had along the left flank of the entirety of both Hood's and McClaws' divisions.
I understand that the scale you're working with may not provide you the ability to be as detail oriented as I would prefer, however my theory on single map RTS's is that they should be as detailed as possible to keep the interest of the player to find new ways to deploy troops, etc. And quite frankly the terrain, the buildings, the coloring, the movement, all feels very circa 1997. The other thing I would add about scale, is that the troop size to field ratio is superhuman and somewhat detracts from the immersion aspect.
My $0.02
I wish you the best with the game and hopefully it becomes a franchise. I would purchase a copy either way, just to put myself in the shoes of Lee or Meade for another hour.
Would love to see Chancellorsville as well. (you could have done 3-4 major battles off of that one map).
You are correct. In fact the Gettysburg Parks Service call it a "Memorial Field" rather than a battlefield. Granted the field has been used, visited, farmed, billeted on, subject to urban sprawl, hell even tanks practiced on the field before being deployed in WWI. However the field in certain areas isn't as damaged as other areas, and unlike Waterloo (ie. lion's mound situation), it still has most of the pieces of the puzzle on the field offering a tactical perspective. I have seen the Gettysburg Battlefield cited multiple times as the most well preserved battlefield in the world.
