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LuisGuzman wrote: ↑2025-11-16 11:26, Sunday

randowe wrote: ↑2025-11-16 11:16, Sunday Hehe yes, the name of the designer is wrong

It is fixed, sorry

Thank you!

I always review maps before uploading them to the Polish server.
I was intrigued by a section called [107] Balka Neklinskaya, in clear terrain. What is it?

sympatyk wrote: ↑2025-11-17 16:48, Monday

I always review maps before uploading them to the Polish server.
I was intrigued by a section called [107] Balka Neklinskaya, in clear terrain. What is it?

Since I did a lot of reasearch and read a detailed book about Operation Winterstorm, I named the key points like the hills that were mentioned in the book. There are many balkas everywhere on the map but that particular balka was als mentioned in the book several times. I know it will never happen, but in case someone wants to build a sceanrio that matches the historiy events with great detail, they can find the key locations on the map. That's why that balka has a name.

The terrain is clear because, like I said, there are many balkas everywhere on the map but in OG there's no way to properly display them. Often the balkas are steep ravines which are impossible to climb, even with a tank, and by reading the book I learned that the terrain was very rough and often tanks would get stuck. But in OG the terrain is simply clear because there's no way to paint these deep balkas that often run dry. And If we would consider all terrain features, most terrain would simply be unplayable in the game. So a lot has to be simplified

So the name is just there to simply help people find the key location on the map. I also named all hills that were mentioned in the battle reports.

Also I always think that a mapx file is just a suggestion, or more like a director's cut. If people dislike the names or terrain, they can change/delete it.

Here are pictures from wikipedia, which always come to my mind and of which I think they are a good representation of such a balka (Maybe I am wrong, I am no expert after all ):

It's a very nice, beautifully described map.

I asked because the word "balka" doesn't mean anything when translated from English into Polish.
Only after asking what balka means in Russian (in simple terms) did I get the meanings: ravine, gully (Schlucht, Felsschlucht in German).
You can't rely on an automatic translator at all, once they've given it artificial intelligence...

sympatyk wrote: ↑2025-11-17 17:52, Monday
It's a very nice, beautifully described map.

I asked because the word "balka" doesn't mean anything when translated from English into Polish.
Only after asking what balka means in Russian (in simple terms) did I get the meanings: ravine, gully (Schlucht, Felsschlucht in German).
You can't rely on an automatic translator at all, once they've given it artificial intelligence...

I'm sorry! Somehow I assumed that balka is a common word Maybe because I read it so often in the past years. On maps and in battle accounts. On the US Army maps I use as a base for my maps it is also always called balka but in the maps glossary it is indeed translated as "ravine".

But I guess there's always something getting lost in translation anyway. For example on the map you find the word "raz'yezd". I think the translation is "passing loop" or "siding", where a single train track becomes a double track, so trains can pass each other. But on the map I used as a base there is also the English word "siding" used one time. Isn't that the same? Why did they use both words in the map? I kept the words in the mapx. And modern images do not help because the train track is standard double track nowadays. We have to make the best out of it

Are you talking about the Russian word "raz'yezd" (разъе́зд)? It has three different meanings:
- constantly traveling - constantly on the move - constantly in a different place
- A small cavalry or other mobile unit sent on reconnaissance or other missions during military operations. --> this is a translation from Russian
- A branch in a single-track railway line, allowing oncoming trains to pass each other, as well as a stopping point at the branch. --> this is a translation from Russian

IIn Polish, a turnout (rozjazd, roz`yazd) is a railway device that allows for a change of track.

A railway siding, on the other hand, is a track or group of tracks connecting a place where goods are transhipped or where railway vehicles are parked with a railway line.

sympatyk wrote: ↑2025-11-17 19:44, Monday - A branch in a single-track railway line, allowing oncoming trains to pass each other, as well as a stopping point at the branch. --> this is a translation from Russian

A railway siding, on the other hand, is a track or group of tracks connecting a place where goods are transhipped or where railway vehicles are parked with a railway line.

You are correct, But when I built the map I looked at some pictures and they show examples for both, siding and branch (passing loop), that looked exactly the same. But in our game it doesn't matter much anyway, since in OG it will not change anything in case of the rail tracks and just the map picture shows two tracks in the same hex.
Again I was more interested to add the landmarks and names that were mentioned in the battle reports. The Germans even called one of the "raz'yezd" a station in the book, so maybe there was a station too or there was both or maybe there was just a platform in the Steppe. Or at the time the US Army assembled their map, they lacked some information.

Anyway, I think my next map will be a big and completely new version of the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth area. It's a little side quest of mine. I want to see how such a map would look like nowadays after years of map making experience. Compared to my old maps.

But maybe this is off topic in this thread and if there is further discussion, we should take it to the other map making thread