Late reply but here: I believe one of the devs or the community lore of Firwood is that most of the town burnt down in a massive forest fire many years ago. According to the records from Maine in 1947 there was a massive forest fire that obliterated 9 towns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fires_of_1947. So my theory is that Firwood would have been in the area of this massive forest fire and that's why the town looks very similar for the wood buildings and why so many brick buildings look older then the wood ones. It could also explain why the town just stops because the original owners either died in the blaze or left after the blaze. As for all the other buildings outside of the town that are older I can explain 3 of them. The "mansion" and the farm house are located on mostly farm land and because of this the farmers could have removed the crops and made a large fire line so that the fire would not burn down the buildings. Also the mansion could have been pumped with salt water on the outside to stop the fire from burning it down. Now it could have just been rebuilt as well. Now the Swamp house is simple. The swamp could have been a natural fire break and when the fire came by it may have been slowed or cooler so the house would not burn. Now all of these building could have just been rebuilt but this is how I see it and explain why Firwood looks the way it does. Ohh 1 more thing. The reason why the trees are right up to the buildings again is because lack of proper management and funding.
The only additions I really want made to the ECUSA map are signage and a Turboburger location. Here or there seems like a prime site for something old and red-roofed. Maybe borrow some of the "barn" architecture from early Dairy Queens.
I am not arguing for a giant Firwood, but more of a detailed one that meshes better with the countryside, rather than abruptly ending, and a more detailed and populated countryside with possibly a small village. --- Post updated --- If you could find that lore, that'd be great. One thing, if many of the townspeople left after the blaze, why isn't the town damaged/abandoned in places? Also, wouldn't that make subdivisions and expansions more likely due to the cheap land?
Maybe it could have an memorial building of an burnt building, alike to some other structures like the sole survivor building of the Hiroshima bomb that had surroundings as if it was an museum.
It could be an unique idea anyways, since there are memorials built around damaged buildings. (Like the already-mentioned Hiroshima structure.)
I think that those fields are meant to be there. I personally think that it is nice open space to do things like land airplanes, helicopters and any other flying objects. Rarely in real life do you find tons of towns right close together. However, I am not saying that it hasn't happened. I just think that those fields are nice to have in a sense.
To be honest, on the East Coast towns kind of "Cluster" around one another. It's just odd how ECA is only really populated in one area. Why is there all this infrastructure that goes nowhere?
